Tapsearch Com EditorWhy we lock 'em up and throw away the key
August 9th 2007 22:55
Glenn C. Loury has an interesting article about incarceration. He argues that the recent increase in imprisonment is not because incarceration works, or that crime has increased (it hasn't), but because as a society we've become more punitive. Tough-on-crime sentiment has certainly grown, starting probably two decades ago.
But first of all, Loury fails to take into account Bernard Harcourt's recent results indicating that incarceration does, in fact, correlate strongly with lower crime: Harcourt's breakthrough was including not only criminal sentences but also involuntary mental health commitments. When high-risk people are locked up, they don't commit crimes. No other strategy for pacifying the criminal-minded, save execution, is that effective.
Two, Loury tries to tie racial politics into the incarceration rate's fluctuations. I'm not really buying it. For starters, Americans certainly didn't get more racist all of a sudden in the late '80s and early '90s; they became more anti-crime as it became clear that coddling criminals wasn't working. Also, it's true that attitudes about race became more closely associated with attitudes about welfare and crime, but that seems to have happened starting in the late '60s, not when the incarceration rate started rising.
Even Loury eventually concedes "the racial argument about causes is inconclusive," arguing instead that "the racial consequences are clear." True enough.
Then again, it is true that it's easier to imprison someone who doesn't look like you. Awhile back I ran some basic regressions showing that more diversity in a country tends to correlate to higher incarceration -- but more diversity does not have a discernable tie to the actual murder rate.
UPDATE: A commenter has pointed out that I didn't summarize Loury's views of prison's effectiveness well. Here's the full context:
But first of all, Loury fails to take into account Bernard Harcourt's recent results indicating that incarceration does, in fact, correlate strongly with lower crime: Harcourt's breakthrough was including not only criminal sentences but also involuntary mental health commitments. When high-risk people are locked up, they don't commit crimes. No other strategy for pacifying the criminal-minded, save execution, is that effective.
Two, Loury tries to tie racial politics into the incarceration rate's fluctuations. I'm not really buying it. For starters, Americans certainly didn't get more racist all of a sudden in the late '80s and early '90s; they became more anti-crime as it became clear that coddling criminals wasn't working. Also, it's true that attitudes about race became more closely associated with attitudes about welfare and crime, but that seems to have happened starting in the late '60s, not when the incarceration rate started rising.
Even Loury eventually concedes "the racial argument about causes is inconclusive," arguing instead that "the racial consequences are clear." True enough.
Then again, it is true that it's easier to imprison someone who doesn't look like you. Awhile back I ran some basic regressions showing that more diversity in a country tends to correlate to higher incarceration -- but more diversity does not have a discernable tie to the actual murder rate.
UPDATE: A commenter has pointed out that I didn't summarize Loury's views of prison's effectiveness well. Here's the full context:
Increased incarceration does appear to have reduced crime somewhat. But by how much? Estimates of the share of the 1990s reduction in violent crime that can be attributed to the prison boom range from five percent to 25 percent. Whatever the number, analysts of all political stripes now agree that we have long ago entered the zone of diminishing returns.
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Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
I was reading that Loury article recently! (There was a link to it from Arts and Letters Daily.)
I agree with you that racist causation claim is unpersuasive. But I don't think (if you're implying this) that Loury thinks that incarceration doesn't lower crime rates. After all, he writes:
"Increased incarceration does appear to have reduced crime somewhat. But by how much? Estimates of the share of the 1990s reduction in violent crime that can be attributed to the prison boom range from five percent to 25 percent. Whatever the number, analysts of all political stripes now agree that we have long ago entered the zone of diminishing returns."
Incidentally, if you have the patience, check out this post I wrote summarising a lecture I went to -- kind of argues along the same lines as Loury. But perhaps one issue that should be emphasised is that if one concedes that prisons DO work, there still remains the question of whether other measures are more efficient or more economical for preventing crime.