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Prison Overcrowding: Society's Ticking Time Bomb

Misha Karbelnig |
April 15, 2009 | 4:35 p.m. PDT

Contributor
Yes, prison overcrowding is a gender issue. Men suffer a disproportionate amount of abuse by the system because more men are in the correctional system than there are women and children combined. Almost 90 percent of jail inmates, 93 percent of prison inmates, 88 percent of parolees and 77 percent of probationers are men, according to the 2008 Bureau of Justice Statistics. 
Yet stories on prisons never mention gender as a unique aspect of the problem. There is no need to specify the gender as male, it is assumed. The media reinforces the stereotype that men act violently and that it should be expected of them. It then becomes excusable, unremarkable and beyond questioning that men languish under inhumane conditions.
Prison overcrowding hardly makes news except in cases of violence, budget pitfalls and the rare success in relieving crowding or costs. An Ohio periodical, the Mansfield News Journal, reported about it in an article titled "MANCI Fights, Overcrowding Concern Union" within the context of recent fights endangering prisoners and guards alike. Ohio prisons exceed capacity by 32 percent. A 1993 riot at another Ohio prison claimed the lives of nine inmates and one officer. In another story, "NJ Jail to End Housing of Philly Inmates" in the Lebanon Daily News, Pennsylvania's overcrowding was so bad that a New Jersey jail housed 200 of their inmates at a per diem rate through a long-term contract that expires in May. The importance of money over human rights for these men is obvious. 
Other states address the overcrowding issue as a stumbling block to a healthy budget. California, Utah, and South Carolina may release thousands of inmates without the essential programming that would prepare them for a return to society. A piece on NPR, "Shrinking State Budgets May Spring Some Inmates," describes this plight as a question of whether the states should let inmates out early or imprison fewer men generally -- as if these options have no bearing on the psyches of their correctional populations. Yet, Hawaii and Kansas are lauded for their stunning success with reformed reentry into the community programs and probation offender programs that avoid offenders returning to the corrections system. This cut probation violations by 80 percent and new crimes committed by probationers in half in Hawaii. A serious double standard exists in welcoming changes that benefit states monetarily but ignoring changes that promise to make the quality of life better for prisoners.
It is true that sometimes fiscally wise and humanitarian actions go hand in hand, such as in the case of Hawaii and Kansas' reentry and probation offender programs. Kentucky dealt with the budgetary strain of the prison system by redirecting drug offenders to rehabilitation programs rather than prison. This resolution benefits the budget and the individuals affected. Kansas, Montana and Pennsylvania are set to do the same. 
The "Missouri Model" touted in the New York Times article "Missouri System Treats Juvenile Offenders With Lighter Hand" has one of the lowest rates of recidivism in the country and saves money for taxpayers in the state. The rehabilitation program isolates the children from their previous lives and places them in small group homes where they have constant therapy. Other states including Florida, Illinois and Louisiana plan to institute the model as well. Texas and California have tried similar methods. Missouri's model has had success with the adult correctional population as well. 
However, budgetary considerations most often trump concerns for the incarcerated men as illustrated in a Los Angeles Times article "Auditor: If You Love the State, Let Some of it Go." A bill has been proposed by one senator to sell San Quentin for an estimated $1 billion in receipts to financially bail out the state. The senator proposes that some funds would be used to build a replacement in a more remote, less expensive location. Although the realtors and bureaucrats in the bay area are anxious to see it bought up and gentrified, the ACLU, defense attorneys groups and the state prison guards' union oppose the bill citing  the sale would only exacerbate prison overcrowding and the social services that men would lose out on if they were moved farther away. 
The current state of the correctional system throughout the U.S. is abysmal. The few innovations in place are the exception, not the rule. "Supermax" is the most common and degrading form of prison using 23 hour a day solitary confinement as its most common form of punishment for even minor infractions. A New Yorker article, titled "Hellhole," traces the real effects of solitary confinement on the human brain -- it stunts rather than rehabilitates. Prisoners punished for aggression with solitary confinement never change their behavior. Studies show the best cure for social ills is nurturing rather than suppressing social interactions.
 
The correctional system has reached critical mass, with long-ranging negative consequences now manifesting for society as well as all the men trapped within it. What action society will take to diffuse this time bomb remains to be seen.


 

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