On Sunday, former Attorney General and current Congressman Dan Lungren responded to a Sacramento Bee editorial.
Wrote Mr. Lungren, “Rather than confront facts, The Bee deals in fantasy. While admitting that the court’s decision could reduce the prison population by 33,000 inmates, The Bee attempts to minimize the impact – all will be well: Just raise taxes again, build more prisons (“unlikely”), or ‘sensibly’ stop sending as many convicts to prison.”
But has it worked?
Looking at the statistics on crime, it is a questionable assertion.
It is true that crime has fallen in the past two decades. However, several factors argue against Mr. Lungren’s interpretation.
First, crime rates actually peaked in the late 1970s. Since that time they have pretty much dropped consistently. In fact, they dropped in the 1980s despite the crack epidemic that hit inner cities, and they dropped in the late 1980s and early 1990s despite the rise of gang violence over the same time.
The get-tough prison reforms occurred in the mid-1990s as California instituted its repeat offender policy popularly known as three-strikes-only in 1995, after voters approved it in 1994. It is true that since that point crime has dropped, but proponents fail to note that crime had actually fallen steadily for the previous 15 years.
It is therefore difficult to conclude, as Mr. Lungren professes, that three-strikes policies led to such decline.
Adding to that dilemma is that crime has fallen nationwide, in areas where the states have enacted tough new sentencing laws and in areas where they have not. So at a comparative level it is difficult to conclude that one treatment resulted in a drop of crime.
Congressman Lungren does attempt to address the point that we would merely release those prisoners put in jail for non-violent offenses. He cites a similar order compelling Philadelphia to release thousands of inmates.
According to Mr. Lungren, Justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts write in their dissenting opinion: “Although efforts were made to release only those prisoners who were least likely to commit violent crimes, that attempt was spectacularly unsuccessful.”
“During an 18-month period, the Philadelphia police rearrested thousands of these prisoners for committing 9,732 new crimes. Those defendants were charged with 79 murders, 90 rapes, 1,113 assaults, 959 robberies, 701 burglaries, and 2,748 thefts, not to mention thousands of drug offenses.”
That is of course definitive, right? Except that Philadelphia is but one city that was ordered to release prisoners, and a number of other cities had very different results.
Moreover, neither in Philadelphia nor in California are prisoners being released who are lifers. Why is that important? Well, if you release these prisoners now, one year from now, or five years from now, if they were going to re-offend, they were going to re-offend. Releasing them earlier did not cause them to do so.
We have a 70-percent recidivism rate in this state as it is.
We would be far better focusing our efforts on preventing recidivism, rather than trying to throw people in prison for long periods of time.
Congressman Lungren argues that “many of the right people are in prison” – no one can dispute that. However, he misses the point that most of the right people who are in prison will be unaffected by the prison release.
As Jeanne Woodford and Barry Krisberg wrote in the op-ed we chronicled yesterday, “There are some very dangerous people in California prisons, but these are not the inmates who will be released early.”
“There are also, however, thousands of low-risk offenders who are incarcerated for minor drug crimes, petty violations of parole rules and other nonviolent and nonsexual crimes. There are almost 50,000 inmates who now serve fewer than 90 days before they are released. California prisons also house more than 10,000 women, most of whom are no real threat to public safety and are often victims of violent crimes themselves,” they write.
These are the people that would be released. People that would be out within a year anyway. If they are going to recommit their crime, they would do it with or without an early release.
Mr. Lungren argues, “I have come to know numerous victims of crime and surviving family members. For them this is not an abstract game played out for years in the courts. It is a cold, harsh reality that they are forced to live with every day.”
He continues, “For them and for potential future victims, the Supreme Court’s decision is nothing short of a moral outrage. That’s not fear mongering; that’s fact-based reality.”
In actuality, however, despite his claims to the contrary, all Dan Lungren is trying to do is stir the fear. The facts do not support his claims and the people released would be out fairly soon anyway.
There is no empirical evidence to support the claims that early release would raise the crimes rates or increase recidivism, just as there is no empirical data to support the claim that the mid-1990s crime policies lowered crime rates – crime rates fell for 15 years prior, and they have fallen regardless of whether local laws have changed.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
1st Timothy 1:9-“Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners,…”
The second century author, most certainly a supporter of Peter’s church, understood that good behavior is the result of upbringing and personal will to do good . For the vast majority of humanity, proper upbringing and instruction yield acceptable behaviors. The United States, with less than 5% of the worlds population has almost 25% of the worlds prisoners, though many European nations have higher number of convictions. It is because of the length of sentences rendered by US courts ! Canada’s incarceration rate has remained relatively stable, while crime rates and trends have closely paralleled the US .
But facts are useless when trying to settle a restless mob. The electorate has been served the “tough on crime” nonsense by Lungren and his ilk, and reverberated by the infotainment media, for so long that it has become “Folk Wisdom.”
[quote]There is no empirical evidence to support the claims that early release would raise the crimes rates or increase recidivism, just as there is no empirical data to support the claim that the mid-1990s crime policies lowered crime rates – crime rates fell for 15 years prior, and they have fallen regardless of whether local laws have changed.[/quote]
There is no empirical evidence to support the claims that early release would not raise the crime rates or not increase recidivism, just as there is no empirical data to support the claim that the mid-1990s crime policies did not lower crime rates.
[quote]The get-tough prison reforms occurred in the mid-1990s as California instituted its repeat offender policy popularly known as three-strikes-only in 1995, after voters approved it in 1994. It is true that since that point crime has dropped… [/quote]
You just shot yourself in the foot with the theory that the get-tough prison reforms had nothing to do with the crime rate dropping…
[quote]“During an 18-month period, the Philadelphia police rearrested thousands of these prisoners for committing 9,732 new crimes. Those defendants were charged with 79 murders, 90 rapes, 1,113 assaults, 959 robberies, 701 burglaries, and 2,748 thefts, not to mention thousands of drug offenses.”[/quote]
Oops, another shot in the foot…
The problem with all of this is there is no “empirical data” to really prove much of anything. The bottom line is the CA prison system has had years to clean up its act to give its prisoners basic decent living conditions/medical care. The state of CA has refused to address the problem. In consequence, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear the state of CA must fish or cut bait – either they fix the problem over the next two years, or turn prisoners loose. The blame lies strictly with the state of CA for not doing what is was required to do, period.
The issue is not really about “prison reform” as in should we sentence low level offenders to prison versus re-entry programs. There are no re-entry programs – the budget cuts have taken care of that. Incarceration is the only option the state of CA has left to it, bc it has cut mental health programs, prison diversion programs, drug rehab programs, re-entry programs. What the state wants to do now is turn the problem over to local county gov’t, and wash its hands of the whole thing. I find that solution downright appalling – especially bc I know darn well the state is not going to give the counties the money they need to take care of what is the state’s responsibility (of its own creation).
“There is no empirical evidence to support the claims that early release would not raise the crime rates or not increase recidivism, just as there is no empirical data to support the claim that the mid-1990s crime policies did not lower crime rates.”
Actually you are wrong on both accounts, I don’t have time to pull the studies, but you can google them.
“You just shot yourself in the foot with the theory that the get-tough prison reforms had nothing to do with the crime rate dropping.”
Not in the least. As I explained already, crime was falling before the programs were implemented and crime fell nationwide regardless of whether new sentencing standards were enacted. From an empirical standpoint, that invalidates your point.
Speaking of shooting yourself in the foot, seems like your last paragraph does that for your argument.
[quote]s I explained already, crime was falling before the programs were implemented and crime fell nationwide regardless of whether new sentencing standards were enacted.[/quote]
Crime fell nationwide regardless of whether new sentencing standards were enacted? How do you know why crime fell? How do you know new sentencing standards were not partly/fully responsible?
[quote]Speaking of shooting yourself in the foot, seems like your last paragraph does that for your argument.[/quote]
Huh? All I was arguing is that the state should not slough its responsibilities onto local gov’t. How does that negate the argument that we don’t necessarily know what caused the drop in crime rates? I’m not following your logic here…
Elaine: basic comparative statics.
Place A: Crime falls 30% over 15 years.
Place B: Crime falls 28% over 15 years.
Place A: Three Strikes law enacted in 1995
Place B: No new laws enacted in last 15 years.
This is oversimplified but it is difficult to conclude that enacted a three strikes law had an impact on crime, when crime fell EVERYWHERE, it fell steadily. It fell in places where new tough laws were enacted. It fell in places where no new laws were enacted. It fell in places that executed dozens if not hundreds of prisons. It fell in places that banned the death penalty.
Add to that, crime rates did not just start falling in 1995. They were falling off their peak since the late 1970s. Which again suggests another factor involved.
From a social scientific standpoint and one of a statistician, these statistics are suggestive that there is another untested factor that is behind the lowering of the crime rates.
I don’t think we know what caused the drop in crime rates, but based on at least this statistical analysis, it is probably demographic factors rather than any change in the law.
ERM
There is never empirical data to support a negative assertion. This is a fallacious argument since the most one can ever do is presumptive evidence in support of a negative. However, having just concluded a conversation with rdcanning, whose area of expertise this is, I feel a couple of assertions are valid and worth considering.
1) As David has pointed out, the crime rate had been falling in California prior to the enactment of the ” tough on crime measures” touted by Mr. Lundgren. While this does not preclude the possibility that they may have had some impact, it certainly suggests that other factors were present which he and other “tough on crime” advocates have found it politically expedient to downplay.
2) The decrease in crime over this time period applied to states and municipalities that had not initiated these measures as well as to those that had, again arguing for the presence of other factors.
3) Fear,rather that rational consideration of the facts, is a major driver on all levels in our judicial system. As rdcanning pointed out about the ridiculousness of Judge Alitos comment about the prisoners being well muscled from “lifting weights”, all weights have been removed from the state prisons since they posed a risk to other prisoners and most if not all gym facilities are now being used as dorms. So much for a buff prison population. Some groups have just been more successful in exploiting these fears than others which in my opinion is largely what has led to an emphasis on harsh sentencing with long prison terms rather than an an emphasis on treatment and rehabilitation.
I feel that these two approaches should be used in a complimentary fashion rather than placed in competition for funding. I also feel it is disingenuous to imply that one does not have anything to do with the other.
“As rdcanning pointed out about the ridiculousness of Judge Alitos comment about the prisoners being well muscled from “lifting weights”, all weights have been removed from the state prisons since they posed a risk to other prisoners and most if not all gym facilities are now being used as dorms. So much for a buff prison population.”
All those guys do is workout. They don’t need weights to get buff. They do situps, pushups, pushups with another prisoner sitting on their backs, they rap towels around bed posts and do pullups, I could go on forever. They have to get strong for their own protection and they have all the free time in the world to do it. I have a friend who is incarcerated and he said he works out continuously and has never been in better shape.
Some relevant news stories:
Law Enforcement Leaders Say High-Quality Early Care and Education Helps to Reduce Crime, Lower Prison Costs.
[url]http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/25/3654060/law-enforcement-leaders-say-high.html[/url]
Calif homicide rate drops to 44-year low
[url]http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/25/3652946/calif-homicide-rate-drops-to-44.html[/url]
Police cuts haven’t stopped crime declines in capital region’s three biggest cities
[url]http://www.sacbee.com/search_results?q=crime rate&page=5#ixzz1Nrvlapin[/url]
Ray Lewis says crime will rise without NFL games
[url]http://www.sacbee.com/search_results?q=crime rate&page=2#ixzz1NrwTafle[/url]
Latter two links weren’t quite good:
Ray Lewis says crime will rise without NFL games
[url]http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/26/3655926/ray-lewis-says-crime-will-rise.html[/url]
Police cuts haven’t stopped crime declines in capital region’s three biggest cities
[url]http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/24/3649098/police-cuts-havent-stopped-crime.html[/url]
rusty49
My point was not about the individual strength and fitness regimen of any particular individual. I applaud the efforts of anyone to maintain their health. My point was regarding fear mongering. Justice Alito did not feel the need to temper his comments with examples of inmates whose health has deteriorated to the point where they are wheelchair bound or require dialysis multiple times weekly but remain incarcerated even though they are clearly no longer physically capable of representing a danger to society. The “lock them up and throw away the key” school of thought may bring in the votes of those who live in a perpetual state of fear, but it does little to address the underlying problems and has cost our society much in both financial and social terms.
Lead Poisoning from Leaded Gasoline Probably Caused the Violent Crime Wave in the 1980’s: A Large Part of Crime May Be Caused by Environmental Factors Instead of Sin
[url]http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5638568/lead_poisoning_from_leaded_gasoline.html[/url]
Medwoman, Alito’s point was that many buff prisoners will be released and that there will be repercussions on society. I’m sure we’re going to hear many stories of innocent people being harmed. You call it fear mongering and I call it fact.
rusty49
I call it projection, and I doubt either of us has a crystal ball.
Alitos point was without nuance, and did not take into account that prisoners would be assessed individually for risk. No one is suggesting just opening the gates and allowing anyone “fit enough” to walk out.
Correction
It was just pointed out to me that it was Justice Scalia not Justice Alitos who made the ” buff prisoner” comment.
I’m late to the discussion, but is there any analysis of the age of more senior prisoners and the cost of maintaining them? One of the problems with 3-Strikes is that it keeps some VERY old men in jail when they have a lot of health problems but not the strength to do much harm. Instead of incarcerating them at 47,000 a year, it may be advantageous for all involved to move the old offenders to less expensive lodgings.
Most penologists agree that age has the greatest negative correlation with recidivism . An aging population would have declining rates of crime, particularly those requiring strength, endurance, uncorrected vision,or the ability to understand international symbols .
Observer
I’m sorry that my technological skills are not such that I can provide the link, but according to Legal Services fir Prisoners with Children, as of 12/31/09 there were 10,969 people over 55 incarcerated in the state’s prisons with the number expected ti increase to over 30,000 in the next 15 years.
According to the US Department of Justice Bueeau of Justice Statistics , 1999 , prisoners between the ages of 18 and 29 have a recidivism rate of over 50% while those 55 or older have a rate of only 2%.
In addition it is estimated to be much more costly to imprison older inmates, largely due to health problems with estimates of up to three times the cost of the younger prisoners.
Given the general consensus that the older population of prisoners are much less likely to be a societal threat or to re offend, this would seem
To be a logical population to consider for release.
The changes to the penal code in the 80’s and 90’s have resulted in longer average stays in CDCR prisons. For instance, individuals charged with a 2nd strike get a doubled sentence putting them in prison for much longer. Lengthy sentences (10, 20, 30 years or more) have been found to be a risk factor for suicide in California prisons. Other facts, in the last five years or so the average age of a prisoner in California has increased to 38 from 36. That’s a lot when you have 160,000 inmates. Overall, even if we put 30K inmates on the street, a lot are going to stay in custody and they are going to continue to age and cost more and more.
The argument that harsh sentencing laws and crime rates are inversely correlated is a hard one to prove. Correlation is not causation and it’s hard to do a good randomized trial of citizens where we randomly sentence folks to prison for a variety of terms and see what happens to the crime rate. So most of the rhetoric is just that, rhetoric backed by partial evidence.
One piece of evidence to suggest that crime rates and sentencing are not related (or “orthogonal” as the academics like to say) is that crime rates have gone down uniformly in just about every jurisdiction nationwide, regardless of the sentencing laws in effect. In states like Vermont and others where there is not the harsh sentencing laws of the south and west, crime has decreased too.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics has a number of good charts and tables that detail all these issues. One thing that is interesting is that for many crimes, we seem to be going back to levels not seen since the 1960’s (and before). It may be that the rise in crime was a big 30-year bump and we are going back to baseline. Now, if we could just go back to the number of inmates in the 1960’s we’d probably be better off in the long run.
rusty49 (and Justice Scalia) talk about how “buff” the guys in prison are. My hunch is that the correlation between fitness and crime is pretty low. This notion that somehow inmates spend all day working out is a great myth. My experience is that, yes, a lot of guys do work out – some of the prison gangs hold daily workouts. And it’s good to work out, it helps with the monotony and grim life in prison. But to suggest that all those guys are working out so that when the Governor opens the gates they going to be big strong predators is such a myth. Contrast the buff hypothesis with the rampant alcoholism and drug use in prison. Many of the same guys who are working out daily are also drinkin’ and drugging in prison. Also a way to combat the monotony. Also, the medical morbidity of inmates would argue against the notion that lots of buff guys (what about the gals?) are about to hit the streets. Let’s get real rusty.
[quote]I don’t think we know what caused the drop in crime rates, but based on at least this statistical analysis, it is probably demographic factors rather than any change in the law.[/quote]
Exactly my point – we just don’t know why the crime rate is decreasing. But we can be glad it is decreasing 🙂 But it certainly would be good to know the reason why. My guess is it is a multitude of factors, and tough on crime laws may or may not be one of the reasons. I think there is much less tolerance, for instance, of child predators than there used to be. I also think there is much less tolerance for domestic violence. I happen to think that is a good thing. However, the three strikes law seems to have been an abysmal failure. Tough on crime laws are multi-faceted and have had some positive effects (better protect children).
One of the problems with prison life is a lack of productive outlets. Prisoners should be made to work, as some do in Southern prisons. One prison in Alabama has the prisoners (including murderers) growing their own vegetables. The prisoners get to eat their own home grown fresh produce, it gets them out in the fresh air, and keeps them from having too much idle time on their hands to do mischief. Some prisons have prisoners work with animals, another good idea. The prisoner has to be on their best behavior to be able to work with the animals, and it gives them some vocational training as well.
I agree with you that we don’t know why the crime rate is decreasing, at the same time, the empirical evidence I presented leads away from the conclusions that it would be due to tougher sentences since the drop predates the tougher sentences and exists where sentencing laws have not changed.
[quote]I agree with you that we don’t know why the crime rate is decreasing, at the same time, the empirical evidence I presented leads away from the conclusions that it would be due to tougher sentences since the drop predates the tougher sentences and exists where sentencing laws have not changed.[/quote]
I don’t necessarily agree – there has been a general trend on protecting children more with tougher laws against child predators/domestic violence, which may explain the drop in crime. In this way, it may be “tougher sentencing” has had some effect. I’m just curious, what is your theory as to why the crime rate has dropped?
My theory is that the population is aging and most people who commit crimes do so in their younger years. I also think that crime rose during a time when there were a number of cultural changes in terms of changes in the family structure, movement toward the cities, that led to a crime rise but we have adjusted somewhat to those changes. I think we are more careful – we lock our houses, we protect ourselves, we pick up our kids, we have house alarms, car alarms, we don’t carry cash, etc.
I don’t think it’s one thing.
The problem with the tougher sentencing argument that you cannot escape and have not attempted to is twofold (A) timing of the drop in crime versus timing of the tougher sentences and (B) variability in the types of crime measures but uniformity of the drop in crime.
ERM: I believe that the proportion of individuals convicted and sentenced to prison is small compared to robbery, burglary, car theft, assaults, etc. The perpetrators get lots of attention (and we spend disproportionate amounts of money prosecuting them) but most crime is much more “mundane.” Overall, I think the inordinate amount of energy put into these crimes has had little effect on the overall crime rates.
Re: causes of decreases in crime rates
–what about more effective policing and investigative work; improved forensic techniques, etc.
Is there also a trend of a higher percentage of crimes being solved and higher% perps sentenced?
So even in states where sentences have not been extended; are higher % crimes solved?
Re: reducing costs
Don’t you think that if a revision to 3 strikes law was proposed as a ballot initiative–such that the third strike had to be a serious violent crime or weapons related charge–such a proposition might gain majority voter support in California? I would vote for it. Like the cases brought up on this forum of sentencing for shoplifting a few dollars worth of groceries; I think most voters would vote against sending the perp to prison for many years; a good thing and a big moneysaver.
Re: musclebound cons
Seems like the arguments ridiculing the notion of muscular ex-cons having any influence on crime go too far in the other direction–as Rusty pointed out, prisoners get buff for the immediate need to protect themselves while in prison; not necessarily with a view toward future predation on the populace after they are released. Nevertheless, a significant minority of ex-cons do indeed use their enhanced physical strength and prowess (gained in prison) as an intimidation and/or enforcement factor in commission of crimes; to assert this does not occur is either just blanket denial or incredibly naive; it is a factor (not necessarily a predominant factor, but a factor) in crime out there on the ‘mean streets’.
I don’t know what can be done about this. I like E Mussers suggestion of giving prisoners an opportunity to raise vegetables or other plants or help to raise and take care of animals; I suspect many prisoners from the inner city have never had an opportunity to do this; to temper physical strength with gentleness.