When those on parole or probation are included, one out of every 47 adults is under “some form of correctional supervision.”
Not only have we adopted more criminal laws at an astonishing clip, but the punishments our criminal laws carry have also grown markedly. Beginning in earnest in the second half of the 20th century, legislatures began to adopt laws that had, as Judge Jed Rakoff has noted, “two common characteristics: they imposed higher penalties, and they removed much of judicial dis-cretion in sentencing.” Notable among these laws were statutes imposing mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment for certain crimes.
Today, sentencing changes like these can propel some sentences into the stratosphere. A defense attorney in Florida told The Economist that, looking at his clients’ prison terms, it appeared to him that the United States was conducting “an experiment in imprisoning first-time non-violent offenders for periods of time previously reserved only for those who had killed someone.” One of his clients who had been convicted of fraud was sentenced to 845 years. “I got it reduced to 835,” the lawyer said with a sigh. A group that looked across state prison systems found “a consistent upward trend in the amount of time people spend in state prisons” and that the “longest prison terms are getting longer.” Another group found that one out of every seven of those now incarcerated is serving a life sentence—more people in total than were serving any sentence in 1970. And while crime tends to be a “young man’s game,” 30 percent of those serving life sentences were found to be over the age of 55.
Thanks to developments like these, the United States is now a world leader when it comes to incarceration. Our incarceration rate is not only eight times as high as the median rate in western European democracies, it is higher than the rates found even in Turkmenistan and Rwanda. As in those of many states, federal prisons have been operating for years around or above 100 percent capacity. And those who emerge from our prisons often confront collateral consequences that haunt them for years—including the loss of voting rights, licenses, public benefits, jobs, and access to housing.
Criminal Justice is a for profit industry, has been for years. “Crime” is by far the largest employment sector in the United States. Millions who’s primary/sole source of income is the illicit drug trade, and enough people to populate a small nation dealing with the criminal part of that, in one way or another. Then there is Addiction Recovery as a related multi-billion dollar growth industry.
Identity Theft has got to be near to a trillion dollar industry by now. Billions stolen, then spent… billions more trying to keep people from stealing more. Still more billions dealing with those that get caught stealing. How is that not a Trillion dollar industry, or at least near to it?
Per Google: 708,001 Full time LE in America.
Average salary: 72-120K Mean: $96,000
708,000 * $96,000 just shy of $68 billion in salary.
Plus cars, uniforms, guns, handcuffs, helicopters, health insurance, pensions, etc… then courts, prisons, parole, “Treatment”, etc.
Crime is a multi-Trillion dollar industry, that employs millions of Americans… in one way or another.
Sooner or later the same thing happens to those who abuse power that always has. And it very much feels like we’re at that tipping point.
Justice Gorsuch nails it. This is what makes me less proud of my country as seen from inside and overseas.
I have never understood why this country does not focus on issues that will lesson or prevent the reasons for crimes and does not focus on rehabilitation to attempt to reduce re-offenses like some European countries do. This country is so backwards.
Not to mention that America is obsessed with justice and punishment – especially anything “sex crime” related. Just look at how all the high-profile court cases are televised, streamed and monitized by the media for public consumption.
Take away the MONEY component and we’d have a much simpler, happier and less anxious world. But no, we’re too spite-driven and validation-seeking to let that happen.
So VERY true! People over a certain age simply do not return to committing crimes, much less, some version of a “life of crime”!
Indeed, incarceration is a self-propelling profit endeavor, with jobs and benefits and retirement funds. In my Michigan case, they even invaded by IRA to take my “incarceration costs”, after reading my private mail.
They could have given me home confinement, avoided my expensive health care, and saved a ton, but the favorable publicity from “getting a predator in a victimless sting” meant throwing the book at me. Others undoubtedly have similar stories . . .