Date sent:        Sun, 26 May 1996 22:42:16 -0700



Alternatives.
By Robert W. Mallett

















Today, more than ever before in the history of our penal system, our people are being sent
to prisons all across the United  States for such offenses as drug possession, traffic
violations and other minor scrapes with the law.  Apparently the American public has decided
by popular vote that incarceration is the cure all for our countries complex crime problems.
However, now we are facing prison overcrowding like never before in the history of The
United States.  I believe we need to look at these problems closer and analyze them in a
more rational sense.  I do not believe that incarceration is the answer to all our problems
when it comes the criminals in our society. We are wasting billions of dollars on new
prisons all across the nation. Is it time we look to alternatives to the "lock em up and
throw away the key" attitude that plagues middle class America?  I sincerely believe so.
 No one really knows the true reasons why crime occurs. The oldest theory, based on theology
 and ethics, is that people who commit to crimes are perverse, and do it deliberately, or
 because the devil made them do it.  Although that idea has long since been discarded by
 modern criminologists, it persists among uninformed people and provides the rational for
 the harsh punishments and laws that are being adopted by the people all across the nation.
 As the eighteenth century rolled around we began to look at scientific reasons why crime
 was committed. At the end of the eighteenth century German physician Franz Joseph Gall had
 advanced that skull structure had a profound  effect  on the likelihood of criminality1  
 His theory was very popular until the nineteenth century when it was discarded as absurd. 
 There have been several different theories on what makes a man not conform to public laws
 since that time. Lombroso, an Italian criminologist, asserted that there is a correlation
 between criminals and Mongoloids, which showed some validity until the 20th century when
 Charles Goring, a British criminologist, did a study on incarcerated and unincarcerated 
 and found no correlation at all thus disproving Lombroso's theory2. Lombroso's theory also
 could have been attributed to the fact that people with socially  unappealing looks tend to
 be looked down upon from the general public, thus having less opportunities in the
 community. Although many brilliant men have conceived a vast array of different theories on
  why people deviate from societies norms, we must pay attention to the elements that have
 been around since crime itself, which is mental illness and poverty. There are a great many
 people in society that don't hold the tools necessary to decipher between right and wrong.
 There are sociopaths psychopaths, and people that just are not very intelligent for a
 variety of different reasons.  We also have a great many people that are at a disadvantage
 in our ultra high tech and extremely competitive  society. These people, I believe, are 
sometimes forced in to a life of crime because of what I call "A will to survive."  They are
not inherently evil like middle class America tends to think, they are simply lacking the
social structure, education and guidance needed by all human beings. And these are the
Americans that are filling up our prisons as you read this.  Now that we have a better
understanding of why people commit to crimes, I think it only proper we compare how we have
dealt with these people we refer to as "vermin" throughout  U.S. history.  It is common
knowledge that virtually every crime in early history  was punishable by death, but since
that time our punishment ideals have evolved.  In America, the idea of prisons was spurred
by the deep religious beliefs of English Quaker, William Penn.3   Penn abolished the penalty
of death for most crimes in the 1600's, substituting imprisonment as a punishment. Then in
1718 the British Government compelled the colonists to reinstate the penalty of death,
however, shortly after independence, the Pennsylvania Legislature replaced capitol
punishment with imprisonment as the primary punishment for vermin, or criminals. The Walnut
Street Gaol was the first prison ever built in America. By the middle of the nineteenth
century, all most all the states had built them. Eventually there were two types of prisons.
One type used at a New York prison called The Auburn State Prison allowed prisoners to work
together all day long , but in absolute silence.   At night they were confined to their cell
with nothing but a bible. If caught communicating in any way, they were punished severely.
The other type of prison held it's inmates in absolute solitary confinement. This prison was
called Cherry Hill. There were massive debates erupting between the proponents of the two
types of prisons. Those who favored the Cherry Hill model of complete isolation thought that
being locked down in a room with nothing to do would somehow reform a criminal, but in
reality, it did nothing but drive most inmates mad.  The Auburn State prison was criticized
as being virtual slavery, because the criminals incarcerated were put to work for private
business owners who had contracted with the state for labor, thus bringing in enormous
profits for the state and the private business owners.4   Marx would have loved that huh? 
Talk about class conflict!  As you can see, the primary concern for these institutions was
to confine inmates for the duration of their prison term.  Thus, the facilities were just
massive institutions filled with men and women, sane and insane, young and old. They were
human warehouses. By mid-nineteenth century, penologists began to argue that the prisoners
could and should be rehabilitated while incarcerated.  In 1870, The American Correctional
Association met for the first time in Cincinnati, Ohio  and persuaded congress to adopt a
set of principals for the corrections institutions based on goals of rehabilitation rather
than punishment.  Shortly after those principals were set, we started to see work camps,
prison industry, and things of that nature.  The inmates were busy all the time in different
areas of work provided by the prisons.  They learned new trades and skills that would help
them cope with society when they were released from prison. Prison was a big industry, and
the money earned from the labor went to pay for the facilities in which they lived. Prison
officials set up programs that allowed family visitation to keep the prisoners in close ties
with there family and as a result, the madness that inflicted so many inmates all but
disappeared.    Prison operations were going along great until the Hawes-Cooper Act in 1929,
which put a fast halt to prison made goods and services.  Thus, the prisoners were once
again left with idle time. Now we shall have a glance at the current prison situation.
Beginning with the Reagan era and his "war on crime" the state and federal prisons have
literally been packed beyond capacity with convicted men and women.  The crimes committed by
these people are sometimes ruthless and violent as well as  petty and small.  None the less,
our prisons are full.  And with legislature making new criminal laws each session, there is
no apparent  end in sight.   According to the Department of Justice, as of June 30th, 1995,
there were an estimated 1,550,000 adults  incarcerated for one thing or another, which is a
300% increase over the amount incarcerated in 1980.  Of that amount, there were 25%
incarcerated for violation of drug laws which equals to over 388,000 people.  Whether people
realize it or not, there are ripple effects from the massive incarcerations that are going
on.  Let us think about the children of all those prisoners.  It's been proved that being in
prison has a detrimental effect on the prisoners ability to earn money.  If the prisoner is
left with no means to earn money for his family, then who will  end up footing the bill for
the children's medical expenses, food, clothing, and home?   My guess is that the local
welfare department will have a helping hand ready. The countries state prisons have seen a
tremendous 1055% increase in drug inmates as apposed to a small 55% increase in violent
offenders.   We currently have an approximated 2.7% of America's men and women either in
jail or under some type of penal supervision as I write this.  The federal prisons now hold 
over 96,000 people, of that there are over 60% incarcerated for drug violations. The bill
for these men and women to be incarcerated is coming in at over 9 billion dollars a year. As
a result of all these people being locked up, most people agree that it is no harder to find
drugs now  than it was in the early 80's when the Federal and local governments started the
crusade against drugs.  It just doesn't make sense to keep housing all these men and women
for a petty little thing like drugs. The street level drug dealer can be easily replaced by
the next guy that loses his job.  It would be much more beneficial to put a stop to all the
new prisons construction and used the funds to pay out military forces to stop the flow of
drugs into the United States.  God  knows that cocaine is not produced in America, it is
produced  in Bolivia, Peru, and Central America.  We have people like Juan Garcia Abrego,
who smuggle thousands of tins of cocaine into the U.S. every year, yet we still punish our
own people for possessing or selling small amounts. I believe the Government should be held
responsible. We elect these great men and women to oversee the safety of our United States,
and they can't even keep the drugs out. It's important to try and see these circumstances in
a different light.  If our Government is so concerned with the well being of the people,
then the first order of business should be to keep or children safe from the terrible
effects of drugs in our society.  Instead, they make laws to punish our own people. In
conclusion, I will never believe that with all the technology we possess, we are unable to
stop the flow.  Think about it, we can stop an incoming missile flying hundreds of miles an
hour high above, but we can't stop the drugs. Meanwhile, the middle class citizen keeps
after the Government for some kind of control and they decide to people of the United
States.  Not the Bolivians or Central Americans. I hate drugs and what they are doing to our
children. We can try to teach our children that drugs are bad, and we can keep throwing
anyone that has contact with drugs in prison, but what is going to happen in the end?












1 Erickson, Tortsen. The Reformers;  An Historical Survey of Pioneer Experiments in The
Treatment of criminals    Elsivier  1976 2 3 McElvey, Blake.  American Prisons; A History of
Good Intentions.  Patterson, Smith,2nd ed., 1977

4 Mitford, Jessica.  Kind and Usual Punishment; The Prison Business. Knopf, 1973. Vintage,
1974 8


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