Chapter Eighteen Incarceration Trends
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Transcript Chapter Eighteen Incarceration Trends
Chapter Eighteen
Incarceration Trends
Learning Objectives
1. Discuss the explanations for the dramatic
increase in the incarceration rate.
2. Explain what can be done to deal with the
prison population crisis.
3. Be familiar with the impact of prison
crowding.
4. Discuss whether incarceration pays.
Learning Objective 1
Learning objective 1: Discuss the
explanations for the dramatic
increase in the incarceration rate.
Prison Population Trends
1930-1980, incarceration rate fairly stable:
93-139
per 100,000
1980:
200
per 100,000
1990:
389
per 100,000
2000-2007:
486
per 100,000
Prison Population Trends
5 states with highest incarceration rate:
Louisiana
Mississippi
Oklahoma
Alabama
19 states and federal government
operated at or above capacity in 2007
Prison Population Trends
5 reasons for increase:
Increased arrests and more likely
incarceration
Tougher sentencing
Prison construction
1990-2005 – over 500 prisons built
War on drugs
State and local politics
State and Local Politics
• Study, 1971 – 1991:
– States with high violent crime have higher levels
of imprisonment.
– States with higher revenues have higher prison
populations.
– States with higher unemployment and higher
percentage of African Americans have higher
prison populations.
– States with more-generous welfare benefits have
lower prison populations.
State and Local Politics
Study, 1971 – 1991:
States
with more conservatives have not
only higher incarceration rates, but their
rates grew more rapidly than did the rates
of states with fewer conservatives.
Political incentives for an expansive prison
policy transcended Democratic and
Republican affiliations.
Learning Objective 2
Learning objective 2: Explain what can
be done to deal with the prison
population crisis.
Overcrowded Prisons
The null strategy:
Doing
nothing to relieve crowding in
prisons, under the assumption that the
problem is temporary and will disappear in
time.
The constructions strategy:
Building
new facilities to meet the demand
for prison space.
Overcrowded Prisons
Intermediate sanctions:
Community
service
Restitution
Fines
Boot
camp
Home confinement
Intensive probation supervision
Prison population reduction
Learning Objective 3
Learning objective 3: Be familiar
with the impact of prison
crowding.
Impact of Prison Crowding
Affects ability of correctional officials to do
their work, because it decreases the
proportion of offenders in programs.
Increases the potential for violence
Greatly strains staff morale
Courts have cited states for maintaining
prisons so crowded that they violate 8th
Amendment’s cruel and unusual
prohibition.
Impact of Prison Crowding
Prisoner health
Higher assault rates
Learning Objective 4
Learning objective 4: Discuss
whether incarceration pays.
Incarceration Pays
No definitive answer
Need more accurate estimate of the number
of crimes felons commit
Need better method of calculating costs:
Correctional
capital
Operating costs
Indirect costs
Political and moral issues
Chapter Twenty
The Death Penalty
Learning Objective
1. Contrast the issues in the debate over
2.
3.
4.
5.
capital punishment.
Understand the history of the death
penalty in America.
Discuss the legal issues that surround the
death penalty.
Characterize the inmates on death row.
Speculate about the future of capital
punishment.
Learning Objective 1
Learning objective 1: Contrast the
issues in the debate over capital
punishment.
Debate
• Support:
– Murder must forfeit the murder’s life, if there is to be
justice (moral)
– Executions of wrongdoers deter others from committing
the crime (utilitarian)
– Death penalty serves justice by paying killers back for
their horrible crimes
– Victims’ families can be reassured that the murder
received a just punishment
– Prevents murders from doing further harm
– Death penalty less expensive than life in prison
Debate
Opposition:
Mistakes
can and have been made
Discriminates against poor people and
racial minorities
No deterrent effect of the penalty
Wrong for government to participate in
intentional killing
Learning Objective 2
Learning objective 2: Understand the history
of the death penalty in America.
Death Penalty in America
Executions carried out in public until 1830s
Last public execution – August 14, 1936,
20,000 spectators
Between 1930-1967: 3,859 executions
Average: 128 per year in 1940s
72
in the 50s
19 in the 60s
June 1977-June 2009: 1,125 executions
Death Penalty in America
Support for capital punishment falls
when other options are present
111 death sentences pronounced in
2009
Almost 3,300 wait on death row
Since 1976 executions have never
exceeded 98 in any one year
Learning Objective 3
Learning objective 3: Discuss the legal
issues that surround the death penalty.
Legal Issues
Furman v. Georgia (1972):
Death
penalty was itself not unconstitutional, but
the way it was administered constituted cruel
and unusual punishment.
Gregg v. Georgia (1976):
Upheld
laws that required the sentencing judge
or jury to take into account specific aggravating
and mitigating factors in deciding which
convicted murders should be sentenced to death.
Legal Issues
• McCleskey v. Kemp (1987):
– Court rejected a challenge, on the grounds of racial
discrimination, to Georgia’s death penalty law.
• Atkins v. Virginia (2002):
– Execution of the mentally retarded was
unconstitutional.
• Ring v. Arizona (2002):
– Juries, rather than judges, must make the crucial
factual decisions as to whether a convicted murderer
should receive the death penalty.
Legal Issues
Roper v. Simmons (2002):
Offenders
cannot be sentenced to death for
crimes they committed before they reached
the age of 18.
Strickland v. Washington (1984):
Defendants
in capital cases have the right
to representation that meets an “objective
standard of reasonableness.”
Legal Issues
Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968):
Potential
jurors who have general objections to
the death penalty or whose religious convictions
oppose its use cannot be automatically excluded
from jury service in capital cases.
Uttecht v. Brown (2007):
Enhanced
state’s ability to remove potential
jurors with doubts about the death penalty
Legal Issues
• Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008):
– Capital sentence where the crime did not involve murder
was in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth
amendments.
• Coker v. Georgia (1977):
– Use of death penalty for rape of an adult was
unconstitutional.
• Medellin v. Texas (2008)
– President did not have the power to order that states to
follow the Vienna Convention.
Learning Objective 4
Learning objective 4: Characterize the
inmates on death row.
Death Row Inmates
Poorly educated men from low-income
backgrounds
65% have prior felony convictions
8.4% have prior homicide convictions
27% were on probation, parole, or in
prison
Only 58 women, only 11 have been
executed since 1976
Death Row Inmates
• Where:
– 54% in south
– 2.5% in West
– 14% in Midwest
– 7% from northeastern states
• 65% of executions carried out in 5 states 1977-2009):
– Texas (439)
– Virginia (103)
– Oklahoma (90)
– Missouri (67)
– Florida (67)
Learning Objective 5
Learning objective 5: Speculate about the
future of capital punishment.
The Future
Innocent death row inmates
Decrease in number of death
sentences
States abolishing death
penalty
Chapter Twenty-One
Surveillance and Control in the
Community
Learning Objectives
1. Understand the goals of surveillance.
2. Know the techniques of surveillance and
control now in use.
3. Describe how control is a double-edged
sword.
4. Recognize the limits of control.
5. Explore how to develop an acceptable
system of community control.
Learning Objective 1
Learning objective 1: Understand
the goals of surveillance.
Goals
• Generally main goal is thought to be community
protection:
–
Most offenders are not dangerous for 2 reasons:
•
•
Once caught many offenders do not return to crime
When offenders continue, most crime are petty acts that do not
really endanger their victims.
• More motivation for surveillance is to reduce prison
overcrowding.
• Without surveillance, treatment providers cannot
know for sure if a given treatment is working.
Goals
Some argue that tough surveillance
deters crime in 2 ways:
It
makes offenders less willing to decide to
commit a crime because they are being
watched so closely.
It catches active criminals earlier in their
recidivism.
Learning Objective 2
Learning objective 2: Know the
techniques of surveillance and control
now in use.
Techniques
• Drug controls:
– Antabuse
– Depo-Provera:
• A “chemical castration” drug that eliminates sexual
response in men.
– Thorazine:
• A drug used to control violent or aggressive behavior
caused by psychiatric problems.
– Prozac:
• A drug used to decrease the negative emotions
associated with depression.
Techniques
Electronic controls:
Global
positioning system (GPS):
A type of tracking system used in corrections.
The offender must carry a “bag” that transmits
a signal to a satellite, allowing correctional
officials to identify the person’s location at all
times.
Human surveillance:
Sex offender registries
Techniques
Programmatic controls:
Drug
testing
Learning Objective 3
Learning objective 3: Describe how
control is a double-edged sword.
Double-Edged Sword
Social control and personal liberty:
Main cost of increase in surveillance is civil
liberty
Politics of surveillance and community
protection:
Traditionally,
conservatives have opposed
government intrusion into personal affairs.
Traditional liberal view calls for the use of
government power to promote equal access of all
citizens to the benefits of society.
Learning Objective 4
Learning objective 4: Recognize the
limits of control.
Limits of Control
Technology:
All
technologies have the capacity to fail
Limited in terms of capacity
Human responses:
Intrusions
of technical surveillance
Shift in goals from helping to controlling
Limits of Control
Moral and ethical limits:
Techocorrections:
The
use of technological
mechanisms, by corrections systems,
to control offenders.
Trade off between safety and freedom
Learning Objective 5
Learning objective 5: Explore how to
develop an acceptable system of
community control.
Acceptable Community Control
Is the surveillance/control truly being
used in lieu of imprisonment?
Is the offender’s risk to the community
such that without this control the
offender would be highly likely to
engage in crime?
Could some less-intrusive method
achieve the same basic result?
Acceptable Community Control
Are steps being taken to eliminate the
indirect intrusion of the surveillance into the
lives of innocent individuals who live or
work with the offender?
Is the offender allowed opportunities to
demonstrate self-control, so that the
surveillance/control system can be gradually
reduced?
THE END
NEXT WEEK: FINAL EXAM