|
Three Strikes — You're Out!
The retributive fever of the last decade comes bounding full speed into this one. Statutes continue to mandate harsh sentencing, and "three strikes, you're out" becomes the call of a frightened public. America hits the two-million-inmate mark — the country's rate of incarceration now rivals Russia and South Africa. Supermax institutions become popular, and private prison corporations are booming. Jurisdictions punish younger and younger offenders as adults: If they are old enough to do the crime, they are old enough to do the time, it is thought. Women are being incarcerated at rates faster than men. With social services drying up, the mentally ill increasingly end up in the criminal justice system, which has little to offer them. The police are immersed in contradictory strategies. On the one hand, community policing is all the rage and officers are struggling to rebuild relationships with the neighborhoods in which they work. On the other hand, a crackdown is underway, and the drive to control crime targets populations of color. The economy booms as technology bewitches investors and consumers. The political center moves right. Although the rhetoric is for smaller government and the social safety net is being dismantled, the criminal justice system grows to proportions never imagined. There are communities whose entire economies depend on the local penal institution. Crime is down, and many people heave sighs of relief. Are America's lock-'em-up policies responsible for the decreases in crime, as the politicians claim? If so, do the ends justify the means? |