Some real effects of the US approach to crime - Part 2

This article is part 2 of Kirsten Edwards' four-part essay. Part 1 discussed the interpretation of guilt in the US legal system. Part 3 discusses the effects of mental illness and domestic violence on incarceration rates in the US and Part 4 examines the implications of this policy for American democracy.

One of my clients has a difficult life, actually all of them do, but for one battling with illness, poverty and the demands of disabled children, her boyfriend had provided a bit of a bright spot. A gentle, quiet man, he attended court hearings with her when authorities threatened to take her child away, or her welfare benefits, and provided valuable babysitting when she needed some time out. Sometimes he would make a game out of the children helping him complete domestic chores around the house. One day I visited my client to find her confused and upset. Her boyfriend was in jail and she did not know where he was or when he was getting out. The Public Defender, his "lawyer", would not tell my client or me either but eventfully I discovered the sad news: he was in prison for a year, with no possibility of parole. His crime? Failing to visit his probation officer. I don’t know what his original crime had been but he had only got probation so presumably something not too serious. Perhaps he stole a Milky Way…

Statistics:

Where to start? One that is often quoted is that "fully one third of African-American men between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine are currently incarcerated, on probation, or on parole". In fact, regional differences distort the statistics. In places like Washington DC and Baltimore more than half of the young black men of the city at any one time will be in jail. In DC what are the chances of a black male going to jail in his life time? At least 90 per cent.

So why are so many black people being locked up? Well, they get a lot of attention. The American Civil Liberties Union has recently placed an advertisement in US magazines that states "the man on the left is 75 times more likely to be stopped by the police while driving than the man on the right". The man pictured on the left is Martin Luther King Jr, on the right is a photo of the killer Charles Manson. The ad campaign is directed at raising public consciousness of a practice known as racial profiling: policing that heavily targets black citizens. The statistics gathered by a number of sources speak for themselves:

• 77 per cent of drivers stopped and searched on a Maryland highway are black. They comprise only 17 per cent of highway users.
• 80 per cent of those stopped and searched in Florida are black or hispanic. They are only 5 per cent of drivers.
• Blacks are 5 times more likely to be stopped than white drivers on the main highway from New York to New Jersey (seen in Being John Malkovich).

In the US they call this offense DWB (Driving While Black). And the practice is not just confined to driving, blacks are also 2-4 times more likely to be stopped and frisked by police than white citizens. Police defend racial profiling on the basis that they just doing their job – blacks commit more crime. The problem is that the statistics they rely on are … arrest rates . Can you spot the circularity?

Young people, especially young black men…

Anecdote: Many people I know have recently visited New York and have come back raving about zero tolerance: "it’s so much safer than before" they gush to their friends. In a way this is true, the dark days of constant muggings seem over and New York certainly is much safer for a white tourist happily strolling in Central Park. But it is safety at a price – and the price is paid primarily by young black men. Amidou Diallo was just a 22-year-old black man standing on a street corner – he got shot 41 times by police for reaching for his wallet. This incident, of course, is well known. Fewer people know that no less than 72 black kids, I have to repeat that seventy-two black children, spent an entire night in jail in New York for …. riding bikes without bells. I am sure they felt very safe – in jail and out.

At least they survived. In Idaho, a teenage boy imprisoned for failing to pay a $73 traffic fine was tortured and murdered by other prisoners. In Texas another teenage boy was beaten and raped so often by adult inmates that he hanged himself in his cell.

Statistics:

These are not just isolated stories. Children in adult jails are 500 per cent more likely to be sexually assaulted and 200 per cent more likely to be beaten by staff. The minimum age for impisonment in adult jails is 14 in Massachusetts, 12 in Oregon and 10 in Wisconsin. In 1994, 45 children died in adult jails. Most of the juveniles in adult prison are black.

Blacks comprise only 15 per cent of the US juvenile population BUT they comprise:.

• 40 per cent of juveniles held in detention;
• 52 per cent of juveniles held in adult jails; and
• 75 per cent of juveniles tried in adult courts.

Of course we all know that young people commit a lot of crime right? Wrong … Contrary to media myths in the US fuelling panic about a boom in ‘teenage super-predator’ criminals violent crime among young people has been on the decline since 1994. It was always small, only six per cent of juveniles come into contact with the criminal justice system and most only once. Only 13 per cent of violent crime is committed by juveniles, and violent crime comprises a tiny percentage of juvenile arrests.

So why are more and more of 18, 000 incarcerated juveniles in the US being imprisoned in adult jails? One reason is the increasing trend to try minor offenses – offenses previously greeted with a caution or slap on the wrist – as adult crimes. Take the case of Anthony Lester. The mentally disabled 15-year-old stole $2 from a classmate so he could buy a snack. He was tried as an adult on counts of strong-arm robbery and extortion and faces a minimum sentence of 30 years to life in an adult jail. Black children fare worst from this "tough on juvenile crime" approach. Black juveniles have been six times more likely than "similarly situated white juveniles" to be sentenced to imprisonment in a facility. That means taking into account their criminal record, the seriousness of the crime and other relevant sentencing factors, black kids are still much more likely to be put away.

This is a particularly depressing situation when many great prevention programs are up and running in the US and getting tremendous results. Imprisoning juveniles means that they are much more likely to re-offend. What is more, juveniles sent to adult jails are much more likely to commit more crime on release than similarly situated juveniles who are sent to juvenile detention. And let's not forget the expense – a 1996 study found that early intervention programs can prevent as many as 250 crimes per $1 million spent. Imprisoning a juvenile costs $64,000 a year – it would only cost $30,000 to send them to Yale. Which brings us to our next section….

Drug Users

Anecdote:

Q: George "Dubya" Bush, Bill Clinton, Me: what do these people have in common?

A: We all studied at Yale.

Q: What is the difference between these 3 people?

A: I bet you were going to say that unlike the author, who quickly faded into even greater obscurity, the guys left Yale and went onto to be Governors of US States and then ran for US President.

Well, true, but the other difference is that while I spent the time in an alcoholic stupor, Bill and Dubya experimented with illegal drugs. Bill with marijuana he didn’t inhale and Dubya with cocaine which, I assume, he did. Personally, I think it’s no big deal, the New Haven winter drives you to extremes. But the other thing I don’t share with my fellow Yalies is support for mandatory minimum sentences for drug users. For these guys, drugs at Yale was a youthful indiscretion on the way to bigger and brighter things. For other Americans, especially the black ones, a little experimentation with mind-altering substances can mean a life sentence, literally.

If you had to pick one reason for the dramatic increase in the US prison population, drug laws would be the culprit. In fact, the US imprisons more people for non-violent drug offenses than Europe imprisons for every offense put together. The tension about drugs in the US is understandable given the terrible effects they have wreaked on the country, especially in the inner cities. But the country of extremes may have gone a tad overboard. In 1996 police arrested more than 540,000 people for possession of marijuana. In the year 2000 someone is arrested for a drug violation every twenty seconds. Possession of 5gm of cocaine or marijuana, the amount Bill or George would have had, can expose you to sentences ranging from six months jail to a lifetime in prison.

There are many problems with this ‘war on drugs’ approach. The US HIV rates climbs vastly higher than in Australia because of its intolerance towards needle exchange programs. Drug users get sent to expensive jails when many people have pointed out that treatment for addiction would be more humane, and much much cheaper. There is no shortage of drugs in prison, nor is there a shortage of violence and brutality, People tend to come out of prisons much worse than when they went in. Many would prefer we skipped sending drug offenders to the "university of crime" and tried to send them to actual university, or at least back to school.

The thing that bugs me, apologies if I am getting repetitive here, is that drug laws are used as a mechanism of oppression against the black population. But don’t believe me, look at the stats.

In 1997 a study found that African Americans represented 14 per cent of all drug users but account for 58 per cent of those convicted on drug charges. By 2000 the figure had increased to 74 per cent of those imprisoned on drug charges. Since most studies show that drug users buy drugs within their own racial groups this statistic doesn’t make a lot of sense. Where are all the white drug users and sellers? One African-American Prosecutor has stated "white folks have the sense to do drugs in the privacy of their own home…" Leaving aside the legitimacy of this kind of prosecution strategy, you have to wonder – is this all there is to it?

In the 1990s Georgia, a state in the Southern "prison belt" of the US, introduced a "two strikes and you’re out" law. When a defendant receives their 2nd felony drug conviction the prosecution has a discretion to seek a life sentence (and life usually means LIFE, not 20 years).

Who are the ones serving the life sentences? 98.4 per cent of them are black.

While the black offenders spend the rest of their life in jail, some of the white offenders get off scot-free. In Georgia whites are 30-60 per cent more likely than blacks to get probation instead of prison time

The sentencing ratio of crack cocaine to powder cocaine, despite them being the same chemical substance, is 100:1. What this means is that someone busted with powder cocaine needs to possess 100 times the amount of cocaine to get the same sentence as someone with crack. This guideline is regarded as overt racial discrimination - cocaine is seen as the drug of the white and wealthy (and potentially presidential), crack is the "black drug". In fact the US sentencing commission found that a majority of crack users are white. But the perception of crack users as black contributed to a Congress campaign to keep the unbalanced ratio.