Part IV - Recidivism

            Here is a campaign slogan, try it on for size, “I am soft on crime.”  How did that work-out for you?  Because in politics you are tough on crime or you are not; and anything seen as deviating from this norm of locking up as many people, for as long as possible-is going against the status quo and that constitutes a political death sentence (or life without the possibility of parole).

            But in reality, this decision, or more specifically this ideology is not that simple.  Incarceration, or within the criminal justice community, incapacitation, which is the limiting of people to reoffend by separating them from society is a well-defined and legitimate goal.  We see incapacitation as the societal response to murder, putting forth that we give a life sentence to protect society from any further atrocious acts.  But there are arguments to be made that incarceration only furthers the sophistication of some criminals and that they may become more invested into criminality upon release (Song & Lieb, 1993). 

            Others argue, specifically the Classical School of Criminology that offenders are rational actors and they use a hedonistic approach to criminal behavior; does the risk outweigh the benefit (Cullen & Agnew, 2003)?  Using this model it would only make sense that deterrence, in the form of general or specific, would affect crime.  Increasing the severity of the punishment for an anti-social behavior would decrease the likelihood of it being committed.  We see this approach today in the form of mandatory sentences and the three-strikes laws in an attempt to deter crime.  But according to Donald Ritchie from the Sentencing Advisory Council found that the “increase in the severity of punishment (particularly imprisonment) has no increased deterrent effect upon offending (Ritchie, 2011).

            This problem of being tough on crime, at the financial cost to the tax payer, at an unprecedented rate of racial disparity, is obviously not the solution.  There are too many areas of the criminal justice system that are starving for attention.  An excellent example is community based corrections and social services, especially within California with the recent passing of Assembly Bill 109 and other subsequent bills that requires the reduction of the prison population by placing the responsibility of incarceration and community correction on the local county.  This is a time where there are reallocation of scarce resources and we need to think hard if mass-inefficient-incarceration is where we want to continue.  Do we as a society want to place value on rehabilitation, reintegration, and education?  We can certainly be more productive with community based social services geared for employable skills and education, and education geared around productivity and not criminality that is so pervasive in our correctional institutions.

Works Cited

Cullen, C., & Agnew, F. (2003) Criminological Theory, Past to Present; Essential Readings. Second Edition. Roxbury Publishing Company. Los Angeles.

Ritchie, D. (2011). Does Imprisonment Deter? A Review of the Evidence. Sentencing Advisory Council.

Song, L., & Lieb, R. (1993). Recidivism: The Effect of Incarceration and Length of Time Served. Olympia: Washington State Institute for Public Policy.