Incarceration versus Rehabilitation, Safety versus Revenge

I believe most of my readers live in the USA or the UK.  These two countries have very high rates of putting people in jails in comparison to other, similar countries, and historically.  The USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world at 756 prisoners per 100,000 people.  The UK has the highest rate of incarceration in western Europe (at 156/100k edging out Spain), although the UK rate is one fifth that of the USA.  In both these countries the rate of incarceration has dramatically increased in the last two decades, in both cases essentially doubling.  During this time the crime rate has dropped somewhat.

The major driver for these statistics are longer prison sentences and the increased imprisonment of people for non-violent crimes, in particular drug possession or distribution.  There is no evidence that longer sentences reduce the chance that people will commit crimes.  What seems to matter is how likely people think they are to be caught.

Of those incarcerated about half are back in jail within three years.  Significantly the really nasty crimes have much lower rates (2.5% for rape, 1.2% for homicide), a factor is that these crimes have longer sentences and older people commit fewer crimes, but 25 times the difference must mean something. With the percentage of crimes solved in the USA somewhere near 50% (and higher the more violent the crime) it seems abundantly clear that the only way that jails stop crime in public is by criminals being in jail.  Of course, the most crime-filled place in the USA is prison.

So, putting people in jail for a long time, rather than a short time, doesn't do anything to reduce crime.  While the idea of jail is a deterrent (police strikes in Canada and Brazil show this pretty definitively) being in jail is not a deterrent against committing future crimes.

So, is there a different way to stop recidivism?  Rehabilitation is often suggested.  Rehabilitation is essentially a program that teaches criminals how not to be criminals.  There are classes, programs, mentors etc..  While initial research seemed to suggest that rehabilitation didn't do any better than incarceration, more recent research is suggesting a 25% reduction in recidivism.  I suggest this is probably because rehabilitation programs are improving with time, like most things.  Rehabilitation also costs less.

It seems, therefore, that if the criminal justice system was about reducing the amount of crime it would be a 100% rehabilitation system.  If the plan was to run the criminal justice system at the lowest cost, it would be a short-sentence, rehabilitation system.  Essentially the criminal justice system would be a medical system for the treatment of the disease of crime.  All the evidence above suggests that this would reduce the overall crime rate at a lower cost.  This would increase safety.

As the reality of the situation is close to being the opposite (increased sentencing with little rehabilitation) the criminal justice must be about something else.  To me there are two main reasons for the present system, the driving force is revenge, and money is being generated from that driving force.  People want those who cheat to be punished, and more severely than is proportionate to the crime.  This is natural, non-cognitive drive in humans actually useful for ensuring social cooperation in groups.  Evolutionarily, it makes sense to punish those who don't follow the rules of community cooperation beyond any possible rewards of cheating.  Game Theory has a nice example with the Prisoner's Dilemma.  As a result, any suggestion of increasing punishment without a noticeable cost is generally overwhelmingly approved,  Those with a cost are much more likely to be in favor of a reduction in punishment.  Drug users approve of reduced drug penalties, gun owners approve more lenient gun use laws (such as the one causing news in Florida), stealing money by cooking the books is considered less of a crime by executives than burglary, and vice versa for the poor.

The desire for revenge is very easily used by for-profit companies who make their money off of revenge.  The harsher the sentences, the more money a privately owned prison will make.  Private prisons came into prominence in the USA in the 1980's and in the UK in the early 1990's.  I do not believe that it is a coincidence that these are the times when prison populations started sky-rocketing in each country.

So, incarceration is more expensive than rehabilitation, doesn't work as well, is a premeditated act designed to make people suffer (surely close to the definition of a crime), and makes things less safe.  So, less safe, more suffering, for more money.  However, it does work as a deterrent until it is actually experienced.

People want revenge, they really do.  They want bad things to happen to bad people, and this is so ingrained that this occurs from a very early age, perhaps as young as five months.  The problem is that this desire to punish the bad guy is hurting all of us.  There are all sorts of things that are in human nature that human beings have overcome, or are in the process of overcoming.  We are becoming less violent, less bigoted, more tolerant of difference.  I hope that we can do the same with revenge, in that punishment is limited to those who actually hurt other people, is only enough to be an effective deterrent, and is designed to reduce the chances of committing future crimes.

Decriminalize personal drug use (at a minimum), reduce prison sentences.  Replace incarceration with rehabilitation (I would actually simply replace time of sentence to rehabilitation course completion, the most common one being a GED).   Eliminate the addition punishment of a public criminal record (police should keep it) and the requirement to disclose it for employment (this merely makes it harder to get a job making recidivism more likely).  Use the money saved to work on the real causes of crime, poverty, dysfunctional communities and families, lack of education.  It would make the world a better place.

What would it take for this to happen?  A movement from revenge to forgiveness.  A movement from irrationality to rationality.  A movement from fear to self-interest.