Why Does the United States Have Hyper-Incarceration?

1. Why Does the United States Have Hyper-Incarceration? Christopher Slobogin Osher Lecture February 12, 2016

2. Imprisonment RatesU.S. Imprisonment Rates 1973: 96 per 100,000 Today: 650 per 100,000

5. 2.3 million 1.6 million

6. “Residual US punishment is not working” (Spamann, 2014) • “Incarceration since the 1970s has had, at best, a modest impact on crime” (McCrary & Sanga, 2012) • “Severe punishment in the U.S. has little to do with its crime drop, given analogous drops in many European countries” (Tselonia et al., 2010)

8. U.S. v. European Sentencing • Death Penalty (we have it; they don’t) • Life Sentences for Juveniles (we have them; most of them don’t) • Life Without Parole for Adults (we love it; Europeans don’t) • Determinate Sentencing, Mandatory Minimums, and Truth-in-Sentencing (popular in U.S.; Europe has mostly indeterminate sentences) • Use of prison (Europe: 20-30% of offenders confined; avg. sentence of 1 year; U.S: 70%, 3 years) • Incarceration of non-violent offenders (our rate is 2 ½ times higher than theirs)

9. Why?

10. Populism

11. Individualism

12. Capitalism

13. Religiosity

14. Race and Drugs

15. Localism

16. Constitutional Rights

17. Why, Again? • Populism—Democracy • Individualism—Freedom • Religiosity—Faith • War on Drugs—Safety • Capitalism—Competition & initiative • Localism—Decentralized power & experimentation • Bill of Rights—Limits on all government power

18. Positive Developments • Decarceration & Budgets (democracy, faith, free enterprise & local experimentation) • Michigan’s local re-entry programs (some faith-based) • Illinois, Texas and N.J.: community correctional programs (privately-run, with some faith-based) • Multi-systemic therapy for juveniles (private) • Decarceration & the Constitution (freedom, individualism, and experimentation) • Spears (2009); Plata (2011); Montgomery (2016) • Specialized courts (e.g., drug courts) that offender chooses to enter