The Inherent Problem with Mass Incarceration

Whew! Are you covered in snow this morning? We have more snow now than I’ve seen since I moved to the DMV area. I have to admit, I love it! It’s not like West Texas, where snow blows in horizontally, mixed with ice and sometimes mud. Without a 50 mph wind, you can actually build snowmen and take hikes. :) We’ve stayed in our bustling house…cozy and warm, with occasional forays into the winter wonderland of our yard. I’ll take it!

This week, before the big snowfall, I was in DC teaching a graduate class. Our course is called Punishment, Prisons, and Power. We start off discussing mass incarceration, and I came across an article in the Oklahoma Law Review by Raff Donelson that I really love. It’s titled “The Inherent Problem with Mass Incarceration.”

It’s a thought-provoking examination of this very American practice of locking up a third of our population.

You need to read the whole thing, but what resonates with me is that Donelson posits that the real problem with mass incarceration is that it exists. That, as a nation, we’re ok with it. We talk a lot about symptoms or outcomes, but not the actual practice.

For instance, we know that the criminal justice and policing systems target marginalized communities. We talk a lot about the travesty of locking up children. We acknowledge that we’ve turned prisons into mental health facilities by locking up an inordinate number of people who have MH issues. We know that there are very little to no “rehabilitative” components in the “correctional” institutions in our country. We absolutely can see that incarceration has done nothing towards winning “the war on drugs.” We see the collateral consequences of mass incarceration…neighborhoods that lose their young men, children without parents, the disenfranchisement of returning citizens, the inability of correctional systems to properly staff facilities…I mean, this list can go on and on.

We talk about all of these problems. We have groups that choose one or another and advocate for or against them.

But Donelson says the inherent problem…the real problem…is that as a nation, as a people, we accept the practice. It’s continued existence is proof.

I like looking at it in this way. When you try to tackle the unholy mess of our criminal justice system, it’s overwhelming. If you stop and think, why are we ok with this practice as a whole…that’s a real conversation, isn’t it?

Do our Puritan roots still love “an eye for an eye” punishment? Are a small group of people making a whole lot of money somewhere somehow? Do we just really love thinking that there are some folks who are beneath us, so we feel better about ourselves?

These are all aspects of the human condition. Just not very nice ones.

I don’t have all the answers, but here’s what I do know: Nothing about this system can truthfully be called “justice,” and what we’ve been doing for the past several decades isn’t working. I mean, if the goal is to reduce crime or “rehabilitate” anyone, it isn’t working. So maybe we should try something different.

And maybe while we’re advocating for prison reform, or the end of locking up kids, or ending racism in policing, or any of the components of this system we’ve chosen to advocate for or against, we all collectively beat the drum of ending mass incarceration. Period. The other issues will be much easier and less expensive to address if we don’t have 2 million people incarcerated in prisons every year (and that’s not counting jails, detention facilities, probation, parole, or reentry). We should all be appalled that we have such a system in our great nation. We should be appealing to lawmakers, policymakers, thought leaders, millionaires, billionaires, our neighbors, our families, and whoever will listen (and to those who don’t want to) that mass incarceration is passé.

We’re better than this. Aren’t we?

Heavy thoughts on a heavy snow day. We can do it, though. I know we can!

Cheerio to you, Sunday Morning Coffee-ites. Stay warm. Stay happy. Stay focused.