We might also ask ourselves what is it about our society that results in the need to lock away so many of our citizens?

I know it's bad form to link to one's own blog in the comments of another blog, but check out my prison reform proposal.

I've long been appalled at prison rape humor. It's disgusting. Good piece.

The simplest, most logical and most obvious thing to do about the prison system in the US is simply to declare victory in the War on Drugs and legalise the damn things.
But of course that is simple, logical and obvious so of course it won't happen.

Drugs are a large reason that people are jailed, even if it wasn't their original offense: the terms of probation and parole frequently require regular drug tests, and if the person fails them, he gets thrown back into jail, even when this had nothing to do with the crime he was originally convicted for.

James Q. Wilson says that we don't have too many people in prison -- in fact, the number is just right.

News flash: Conservative believes that the right thing to do is what we are already doing. I'm shocked!

Mr. Wilson sounds like he is in dire need of some economics classes where he can learn about the concept of "opportunity cost."

Nothing in particular to comment, but good piece. Someone needs to be writing about this.

First I am a real advocate for leagaizing all drugs and for making people pay restitution for property crimes instead of prison.

But is there any evidence that the below is true:

known to reduce criminality, which include everything from universal pre-kindergarten to jobs programs to drug rehab.

Very, very hard to believe that it is true.

IMO calls for universal pre-k are based on the racist idea that blacks are bad parents and that if we get there children away from them earlier that the children will be better off.

This from the Wal Street Journel:

IMO calls for universal pre-k are based on the racist idea that blacks are bad parents and that if we get there children away from them earlier that the children will be better off.

Well, your opinion is wrong. Actually, it's because teachers, having years of experience with the lifecycle of students they've seen, can spot which kids are most likely to end up in trouble later in life, and this allows the system to intervene before the student actually starts committing crimes.

Finland has basically nothing to teach the USA about education, unless you have a plan to make the USA look more like Finland.

Half of our two-million jail population are there for selling drugs (street gangs) or even possessing drugs (a few movie stars come to mind).

If the minimum wage had kept up with INFLATION alone since 1968 it would be $400/wk by now. If it had kept even half pace with PRODUCTIVITY growth (that's GROWTH -- progressives got to stop being closet Malthusians and start including growth in their comparisons at all times) it would be approaching $700-800/wk by now. It should/could very plausibly be $500-600/wk by now.

The Crips and the Bloods and other street gangs -- that exist because until very recently we had a 1939ish, $206/wk minimum wage on one hand and a new prohibition era on the other (this time drugs) -- couldn't whip a decent paying Ronald McDonald (and they would be the first to tell you). Read Venkatesh's American Project and see that the Taylor Homes only became a gang infested hell as the minimum wage level dropped from 1956 level to 1939.

Egro, half the jail population would not be there if the minimum wage had kept up decently with the rise in the demand curve (on that 101 chart) as other workers got inflation raises -- not to mention the rise in the demand curve because other workers were getting growth raises.

Many of the rest of the jail population would not be there either if they were not raised in economically deprived conditions that never should have existed.

There'a a lot of evidence that early childhood investment drastically reduces future incarceration rates. Here's a bit of it.

The thing is, 'Let's Go To Prison' was a surprisingly good film -- one that, despite being a pretty stupid comedy, treated prisoner sexuality with more respect than a hundred PBS documentaries. Yeah, it was a stupid comedy. Yeah, the DVD box was offensive. Me, I'd have singled out almost anything else instead. Something mean, small, that shows the way most folks tacitly accept and even like the idea of prison rape.

While I bet we agree on policy, I found the op-ed itself didn't get any better after that. Yeah, prison rape and our society's -- not to mention our court system's -- attitude towards it is disgusting. But you've got the LA Times there. You had a pulpit. I don't see that op-ed doing much but comforting the few who agree with you, while not threatening the many who don't.

And honestly -- give 'Let's Go To Prison' another chance. It's no unjustly maligned masterpiece with a stupid title, like 'Pootie Tang', but it's fun at times, well-shot, tightly written and a pleasant, if disposable, few moments.

The thing is . . . we don't get to decide what's funny.

It's awkward, of course, that Americans choose to react to and internalize this ongoing horror through the lens of humor.

But to pretend it just isn't funny (and all the different comedians using this to make people laugh don't exist) strikes me as deeply misleading.

It also makes those who were locked up more violent, destroys families, reduces economic productivity, helps criminals network with each other, and so forth

How America's uniquely underpaying labor market mass produces -- uncontrollable -- boys:

Boys up to the age of 18 1/2 are in the emotionally dependent stage for all practical purposes as much as if they were still only 12 years old. This turns off over about a week's time as close as I can observe; a pure social instinct thing.

If emotionally dependent boys think nobody cares about them during they literally will not care about themselves (easier to imagine at 12 than 18) -- thus no penalty can deter them from committing crimes (very easy to believe if you deal with -- or try to deal -- with out of control boys). They are more out of their OWN control than anything else.

This out of their own control thing works every much as fully upon kids who are merely out of control of a (typically, loving but unable to keep up during the "pissing vinegar" stage) guardian -- every bit as much as with kids who are the very worst neglected; strange.

Our uniquely low paying American labor market mass produces families headed by unattached females -- many of whom would be unable to control heavily aggressive teen boys even in the most favorable circumstances. Thus our uniquely low paying labor market uniquely mass produces crime from among families that would (are?) otherwise be perfectly psychologically normal.

Thanks for this post. American exceptionalism is pretty much a disaster all round, but nowhere more than in criminal justice policy. It'll be interesting to see whether any of the presidential candidates put it high on their agenda during the campaign.

I'm all for the preventive investments, and am skeptical of drug prohibition, and I think that more effort in imposing order and protections in prison should be made.

But basically, when dealing with anybody who's ever done violent crime (except for people who were in evenly matched fights that got out of hand), no existing sentence is too short, and all paroles and claims of rehabilitation should be reviewed skeptically.

If we did all the stuff that Ezra wants but kept the restrictions I want, I suspect we would still have an outsized prison population.

Thank you for this post.

This is one of those discussions that makes us Brits (and Western Europeans, and Canadians), shake our heads in bewilderment.

Why does the US find it necessary to incarcerate 5-8 times as many of its citizens per head than other major industrialized nations?

Doesn't seem like the US is 5-8 times more successful at maintaining its social fabric.

Seems (to me) like the intersection between a desire to punish harshly and race is a big part of what's going on.

"This is one of those discussions that makes us Brits (and Western Europeans, and Canadians), shake our heads in bewilderment."

At least in part because in England the inmates don't run the jails. therefore prison rape is a very small problem indeed.
Given that rape is a crime of violence and abetting rape generally carries a custodial sentence, why aren't American prison warders and governers regularly arraigned?

Good article, but it focuses exclusively on sexual violence directed at men. A follow up on sexual violence directed at women in prison would be good.

Ezra first intuitively it is difficult to imagine how early schooling would impact the tendency to commit crimes 10+ years later.

Also I heard a report in NPR’s Morning Edition, some time back, about a study of Head Start that showed it had not discernable remaining benefit after the children reached the 3rd grade (that is a few years out of the program). They said that other studies that showed benefits had various flaws. I think that the bias would be to find some benefit. I think that the study NPR reported was done at U of Wisconsin but I could be wrong. Further even if there is a case that it benefited it could be a relative thing, in this case making it universal would eliminate the benefit.

Also there is still considerable doubt about the benefits of schooling to society in general rather than to the individuals who do well in school at all. (Note schooling is not the same as education.) See This from Robina Hanson's blog overcomming bias:

Human capital offers an interesting case study in theory versus data. Just as most people think it obvious that medicine deserves most of the credit for health gains, most people think it obvious that education deserves most of the credit for human capital gains. Do-gooders the world over have for centuries "known" that what the poor really need is more medicine and education (and religion and art).

We theorists will tell you that, yes productive people tend to be better educated, but there are many possible explanations for wealth-education correlations. For example, schooling could be a credible signal of ability, or school could be consumption that the rich can better afford.

Most who study education are data-crunchers with little patience with such abstract theorizing. But until recently they were troubled by the fact that data on nations across time seemed to show a negative relation between wealth and education, even after controlling for measures of physical capital! For example, see this 2001 Pritchett paper.

"Good article, but it focuses exclusively on sexual violence directed at men. A follow up on sexual violence directed at women in prison would be good."

A nice illustration of the problem, I think. 'We' tend to have a hard time focusing on any problems that are primarily suffered by men and feel much more comfortable if we can turn our attention, instead, to traditional female victims (even if, in this case, male victims outnumber female victims probably by a factor of at least 10:1 and perhaps 100:1)

So not only is prison rape funny, but so was John Bobbitt and other incidents like it. 'We' would never find violent sexual mutilation of a woman by her partner funny but John Bobbitt was hilarious. And the idea of domestic abuse involving females against their male partners is also generally considered funny.

Moving away from sex and violence, 'we' even have a hard time worrying that the ratio of female:male college graduates is 6:4 and on its way to 2:1. And when we do worry about it, we don't worry about how our schools are failing males (perhaps, in part, by employing teaching staffs that are even more female heavy than our undergrad populations?) but rather but rather pondering pop-pych theories of inherent male inferiority (they lack fine motor skills, or attention spans, or verbal fluency, or etc).

It strikes me that the humor of prison rapes is of a piece with the current pervasive anti-male bias in our culture (and, in particular, the pervasive bias against male sexuality).

Thanks for your article, it is much needed.

Two other examples of this
awful humor come to mind. First, Conan O'Brian on his show had a mock Tom Delay (photo with an actor's live mouth substituted) when there was speculation Delay might do jail time for corruption saying that while his nickname in Congress was "the Hammer," now he would be called "the Pickup" because "my back end will be full of Mexicans."

The other example was a newspaper ad by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, around Christmas time. It had a close-up picture of a burly, rough looking guy with the caption: "You could hang mistletoe over your prison cell, but we don't recommend it."

BTW there is a short collection of items on this topic, some of which you may not be familiar with, on PTAVE's website. See http://www.nospank.net/1rape.htm

With AIDS around - shoot all prison rapists stone dead.

Young and naive Ezra Klein hasn't yet woken up to the fact that half the prison population doesn't want his education, job programmes and drug rehab so how is he going to MAKE them take them. By force?

BTW this story melds well with the Bullying post, Joe Francis post and even the WHo should we bail out post.

wozzit, if your claim is true, then Ezra's plan would cut the prison population in half, now, wouldn't it?

Prisons for gays seems the way forward.

The crime, pain, and terror of violent and/or sexual abuse of males is minimized generally, whether it is within the family, in schools, or prisons. I think the "humor" surrounding it stems partly from fear, but it also reflects contempt for any male who looks the least bit weak - no matter what the odds are against him. It is an attitude of inhumane contempt for anyone who can be construed as a "loser", in our view of male worth. We also have to admit that some people take sadistic pleasure in all of this, as observers or passive participants. I agree that it is akin to community acceptance of bullying (or even cheering it on). It's very sick and is a part of our culture which we need to stand up to. I hope that, as with war, if more people knew the reality of it and were confronted with that reality they would reject it. Part of the problem is that confrontation with such a reality is considered too unpleasant for our tender psyches, and we are all too happy to participate in denial.

It's a mistake to make that tolerance of prison rape (as opposed to prisons in general) is conservative vs. liberal issue. I have seen impassioned writings on the topic by conservatives (self-described; not all would recognize the others as true conservatives) as diverse as Steve Sailer, Rod Dreher, James Patterico, Thomas Fleming, Glenn Reynolds, and most eloquently by Rich Lowry. (http://www.harrysnews.com/tgTheShameofourPrisons.htm)

Dreher's piece is also online. (He attributes to Churchill the same quotation Lowry attributes to Dostoevsky; I guess it's one those floating quotes that attaches itself to various names.)

Oops: The Dreher piece is at

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/rdreher/stories/DN-dreher_0318edi.ART.State.Edition1.442299a.html

Has anyone costed prison v welfare ? (I know that this is the main argument that has to be used in US politics - it's not what I consider the most relevant though). From a European perspective the US prefers to spend a fortune dealing with the consequences of having a large number of deprived people desperate to survive rather than spending the money providing decent facilities, housing, education etc. Maybe it would be cheaper (and of course more civilised) to follow the European way.

Europeans are also perplexed as to how serious crimes can be committed in prison ?! Surely that's the one place where the law is enforced ? Or is this government policy ? Imprisonment plus torture ? In which case the nervous laughter betrays the fact that it's an open secret that torture is part of the sentence.

I agree largely. The cause of crime is largely socioeconomic deprivation. This is fairly indisputed. Prevention is always better than cure, but not all social trends can be controlled by the government. Issues of violence in cultures can be embedded too deeply to be dealt with simply through top-down action.

But:
shit-ton?
Is that actually a phrase?
Maybe among teenagers yes, but in respectable journalism? Maybe it's because I'm not American that I find this slightly absurd

Slocum, you would have had a point if I had asked Ezra to replace his original piece with one on women. As I asked for a follow up, your point about a putative "anti-male bias" is unsupported.

Having been sentenced to 5 years in state prison for an ounce of Marijuana I thank you for this op-ed. I was lucky and did not endure this but the terror was very real.I was released early on a youthful offender act, or it would have happened, it was only a matter of time.

"But basically, when dealing with anybody who's ever done violent crime (except for people who were in evenly matched fights that got out of hand), no existing sentence is too short, and all paroles and claims of rehabilitation should be reviewed skeptically."

What, exactly, are you basing this on? You make a broad generalization with an authoritative voice - where is it coming from?
I've had the pleasure of getting to know a few people who had violent convictions and went on to rehabilitate themselves and do good things with their lives.

That isn't to say that every violent criminal has or can go through such a transformation. Its difficult and ex-offenders are, in general, not given a whole lot of support in returning to their communities. They face a good deal of stigma that makes finding a job difficult, etc. But writing people off in that way is self-fulfilling - they're irredeemable, so lets just throw them in a hole and not worry about trying to reintegrate them into society.

Brilliant piece!! I once worked for a group rehabbing prisoners. One guy I met served 10 years for murder and he spoke of watching the door while the boys raped an inmate. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. We need less violence and more rehab programs. The one I worked for is very effective and we should have more like it so when they get out of prison they aren't creating more crime and violence. You can check it out at www.criminon.org.

Our legal system and prison system creates more problems than it solves. Until the prison system funding slows will there be changes. Prisons are for people that have serious behavior problems, not for DWI, child support, and drugs, which are social issues that should NOT be handled by the criminal justice system. Plus a lot of states have built prisons for job growth, and the states work to keep those prisons full anyway possible.

I need to make a correction. The anti-drunk driving ad I cited in my earlier post was not created by MADD, but rather by the "BOOZE IT & LOSE IT" campaign (funded by the Tennessee Governor's Highway Safety Office and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). It appeared in the 12/19/02 edition of the Nashville Scene.

Oh boy. I hail from the former Soviet Union. Back there it was and still is very popular to critisize the former Soviet government system and praise western democracies, US in particular. The popular point of view is that back there everything is corrupt, totalitarian and crooked and in the west everything is nice, beautiful, sun is shining and everything is flooded with milk and honey. And you guys claim to be the number one country in the world. Oh boy, what can I say, if a country that allows it's sitizens(such as drunk drivers, petty thieves, etc; and pretty much everyone who makes a stupid mistake or just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and/or out of luck) to be subjected to the risk of most outrages and unacceptable form of abuse, is ranked number one in the world, this is defenetely one wierd world we're living in, lol. Oh, boy, am I glad to have ended up in Canada.

P.S. No offence to Americans, I think u guys are nice people.

Misandrists feminists have defined "victim" as female and "rape" as something that a man does to a woman, effectively erasing male victims.

The misandry which permeates our culture is responsible for the ongoing neglect of male victims of sexual and other violence, inside and outside of prison.

For over 50years misandrist feminists have conspired to keep male victims invisible so males wouldnt get any help, so women can continue to hog the "gender victim" spotlight (and thus all of the funding and public concern), to punish all men and boys for any perceived past injustices against women.

Any time the topic of male victims is raised, you will see the misandrists jump in ("what about women ??") to run inteference, to redefine and redirect reality, to keep male victims in the shadows.

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Whether the number of prison rapes is large or small, the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 requires that Federal, State, and local correctional facilities maintain and enforce a zero-tolerance policy on sexual assault, including inmate-on-inmate and staff-on-inmate misconduct. NIJ was given the task under PREA to conduct research on rape in prisons, jails, and lock-up facilities.
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The Commission is a bipartisan panel created by Congress as part of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. The Commission is charged with studying federal, state and local government policies and practices related to the prevention, detection, response and monitoring of sexual abuse in correction and detention facilities in the United States. Consistent with the Act, the Commission’s recommendations will be designed to make the prevention of rape a top priority in America’s jails, prisons, lockups, juvenile facilities, and other detention facilities.
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Since the probability of being imprisoned for committing a crime has increased, he contends, crimes such as rape and murder have been reduced. According to du Pont, the enormous cost of imprisoning more criminals pays for itself by preventing future crimes and increasing public safety. He also asserts that these costs can be reduced through reforms of the prison system. Du Pont is a former governor of Delaware and the policy chairman for the National Center for Policy analysis, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank
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