The Real American Crisis

The media over the past several months provided America with saturated coverage of two manufactured crises, one of health care and the other of global warming/climate change/whatever else they want to call it this week.

America's most important domestic crisis of the next decade lies somewhere else, behind bars.

Two major state penitentiary type institutions, one in California and the other in Kentucky, saw violent riots this month. They serve as frightening reminders that the criminal population has exploded well beyond the capacity of the state and federal government to handle them, much less discipline or rehabilitate.

Two factors played into the explosion of the prison system. First was the drug boom starting in the 1960s. This obviously created new and more dangerous classes of criminals. Money fueled the rise of street gang power and violence.

The massive shutdowns of state hospital facilities at about the same time also contributed to the problem. Criminals with serious mental problems now go to jail instead of treatment. I am talking here more about the kleptomaniac, the severely depressed, and others who would benefit more from medical science rather than incarceration. So many individuals with severe problems were let out onto the streets with admonitions to take their pills and no other guidance. Many, unable to cope with mainstream society, ended up in prison or homeless. All too many of the mentally ill only immerse themselves more into the criminal world when they are placed with more hardened inmates.

No easy answers exist here. I watched a National Geographic program recently about the North Branch prison built near Cresaptown. Every cell has an intercom and a camera. Every control system is redundant. This prison cost $171 million. It is only one of many prisons in one medium sized state. The cost of prison is skyrocketing.

The problem is that when prisons get overcrowded, the chance that society will have to deal with truly violent prisoners increases. California received a court order to simply release a large number of prisoners. How many armed robbers, rapists, murderers, and molesters does that include? Early release programs also send these people back onto the streets more quickly. Less ability to monitor these people means that increasing numbers can escape from facilities less modern than North Branch. Those most violent inmates also prey upon the weaker and non violent in their midst, exacerbating their problems and creating a disturbed mindset that they will take with them when they are released.

I have no idea how to begin to solve this problem outside of dropping the country's most violent offenders onto a deserted atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Just because no solution is apparent now does not mean we should avoid the conversation. Our inmate population will eventually grow to a point where we cannot afford to keep it housed. Time to look at ways to address it right now.