THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN THE U.S.A.

Justice and Mercy

In 2000, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops published Responsability, Rehabilitation and Restoration: a Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice. It states that: 

"Victims are often ignored, offenders are often not rehabilitated, and many communities have lost their sense of security" 

Following is a large quotation from the document of the Bishops where you can know more about the situation of the Criminal Justice in the United States.

Some Dimensions of crime and punishment in the United States

  Although overall crimes rates in the United States rose significantly between 1960 and 1991, the crime and victimization rates have fallen steadily since that time. Why criminal activity has dropped in the last decade has been the subject of considerable debate. Some argue that high incarceration rates and tougher sentences have made the difference. Others point to community policing, economic prosperity, and fewer young people. Experts do not agree on the determining factors, suggesting that many forces, taken together, have contributed to this decline. But regardless of their impact, not all methods of reducing crime are consistent with the teaching of the Church and the ideals of our nation. For example, even if death penalty were proven to be a deterrent to crime, the Catholic bishops would still oppose its use because there are alternative means to protect society available to us today.

Victims of Crime in the United States:

  In 1998, about one out of every twenty-seven Americans over the age of twelve was the victim of a violent crime (e.g., murder, rape/sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault) and approximately one of every four Americans households suffered a property crime (e.g., house-hold burglary, auto theft). African Americans and Hispanic Americans have been victimized at far higher rates than others. For example, in 1990, the murder rate for young black men was 140 victims per 100,000 – seven times the rate for young white men.

Also affected by crime are the children left behind by incarcerated parents – children who themselves are at risk for criminal activity. One and one-half million children under the age of eighteen (or 2.1 percent) have a parent in state or federal prison. Of these, 22 percent are under the age of five and 58 percent are less that ten. Most of the parents (92.4 percent) and Hispanic American (18.9 percent). African American children are nine times more likely to have a parent incarcerated (7 percent) than white children (0.8 percent), and Hispanic American children are three times as likely (2,6 percent) as white children.

  In response to so such crime and the treatment of those touched by crime, a strong and growing movement has emerged that advocated on behalf of crime victims and seeks to make the justice system more responsive to their concerns. We believe that these efforts deserve support. We encourage and stand with victims and those who assist them. A fundamental moral measure of the criminal justice system is how it responds to those harmed by crime. Too often, the criminal justice system neglects the hurt and needs of victims or seeks to exploit their anger and pain to support punitive policies.

  Not victims in the usual sense but certainly personally affected by crime are peace officers and those who work in correctional facilities. This is difficult work especially for those who work on death row and participate in executions in the regular course of their duties. They too are often in need of healing and counsel peace officers, consistent with a culture of life.

  White-collar crime also costs our society in major ways. It is reported that the average business enterprise loses more than $9 a day per employee to fraud and abuse or about 6 percent of its total annual; revenue. More than $400 billion is lost annually to U.S. businesses and government by fraud and abuse. These crimes often go unacknowledged and unpunished, but they can have a devastating impact on employees, investors, consumers, and tax-payers who pay the price for corruption and dishonesty. We all lose when industries fail to obey the laws that ensure that the land, water, and air are not harmed. People in positions of power and responsibility have particular obligations to live within the law and not to enrich themselves at the expense of others.

Punishment in the United States:

The many forms of punishment for those who are convicted of crime in the United States vary, ranging from fines and probation to boot camps and chain gangs, to incarceration in jails and prisons, and finally to the death penalty. In 1998, the imprisonment rate in America was 668 per 100,000 offenders. This is six to twelve times higher than the rate of other Western countries. This astounding rate of incarceration is due to policies such as “three strikes and you’re out” and “zero-tolerance” for drug offenders. As incarceration rates have increased, so have other punitive measures. Mandatory minimum sentences are much more common as in the willingness to use isolation units. As of 1997, thirty-six states and the federal government have constructed “supermax” prisons. Those facilities isolate prisoners considered most dangerous and confine them to small cells by themselves for twenty-two to twenty-four hours each day. Additionally, the death penalty is being used with increasing frequency. In Texas and Virginia alone, nearly three hundred executions have taken place since 1976, many of them within the last three years. And in California well over five hundred people are on death row. These statistics and policies reflect legislative action at the federal and state levels that is adopted by legislators seeking to appear “tough on crime” in response to often sensational media coverage of crime.

The United States spends more than $35 billion annually on corrections. In many states, education, health and human services, and public transportation budgets remain stagnant or decline while more and more prisons are built. Also suffering from a diversion of public dollars for prison construction are the very critical programs of probation and parole, halfway houses, community treatment options, and other post-release programs. For some small towns facing losses in agriculture, mining, or manufacturing, the economic benefits from building a prison and offering related services are seen as economic development creating vital new jobs. However, rural communities may not have the social or physical infrastructure to handle either the facility itself, the needs of the inmate’s family, or the needs of the staff. But public debate rarely encourages serious dialogue about the costs of incarceration versus less costly alternatives such as prevention, education, community efforts, and drug treatment.

Characteristics of the inmate Population

  The inmate population has risen from 250,000 in 1972 to a record two million inmates in 2000. Just as African and Hispanic Americans are victimized at higher rates, so too, are they incarcerated at higher rates:

-         African Americans make up 12 percent of the U.S. population but represent more than 49 percent of prisoners in state and federal prisons. Nationally, one in ten African American males is in prison, on probation, or on parole.

-         Hispanic American make up 9 percent of the U.S. population but 19 percent of prisoners in state and federal prisons.

Recent studies show that African, Hispanic, and Native Americans are often treated more harshly than other citizen in their encounters with the criminal justice system (including police activity, the handling of juvenile defendants, and prosecution and sentencing). These studies confirm that the racism and discrimination that continue to haunt our nation are reflected in similar ways in the criminal justice system.

Prison inmates have high rates of substance abuse, illiteracy, and mental illness. According to the Department of Justice, nearly two million people are behind bars, of whom

-         24 percent are incarcerated fro drug offenses, and nearly half were under the influence of drugs or alcohol when they committed the crime.

-         70 percent did not complete high school.

-         As many as 200,000 suffer from some form of mental illness.

While the vast majority of inmates in the United States  are men, the number of women being incarcerated has increased 600 percent since 1980, largely as a result of tougher drug laws. This rate of increase is higher than the rate of increase for men. Seventy percent of female inmates are non-violent offenders, and an equal number have left children behind, often in foster care, as they enter prison.

Detention of Immigrants

  We bishops have a long history of supporting the rights of immigrants. Therefore, the special circumstances of immigrants in detention centers is of particular concern. The Immigrants and Naturalization Service (INS) uses a variety of methods to detain immigrants, some of them clearly inappropriate, such as placing detainees in prisons with convicted felons or in local jails where conditions are deplorable.

Recently enacted laws have resulted in the tripling of the number of non-citizens incarcerated and awaiting deportation, including women and minors. Now the INS is required to detain and deport immigrants who have committed an offense in the past, even if they have served a sentence for that offense and are now contributing members of society. Many of these people (an estimated five thousand out of the estimated twenty thousand immigrants under INS detention) spend months or even years in detention centers because they are refused repatriation by their countries of origin. Others languish because they are victims of an overwhelmed INS bureaucracy. These lengthy stays place considerable hardship on other family members living in the United States or in their country of origin, many of whom have depended on the income of the person incarcerated.

Additionally, new rules allow for “expedited removal” of those seeking asylum – a process whereby INS officials turn away those fleeing persecution in their home countries. Those not quickly returned are placed in detention centers for weeks or even months, until they receive an asylum hearing.

Offenders and Treatment

Since the 1970s, a considerable debate has developed in the United States about whether treatment programs work and to what extent. Careful reviews of the literature on rehabilitation have concluded that treatment does reduce recidivism. No single type of treatment does reduce recidivism. No single type of treatment or rehabilitation program, however, works for every offender. The effectiveness of programs depends on many things, including type of offense, quality of the program, and family, church, and community support.

One area of criminal activity that seems to respond to treatment is substance abuse. More in being learned about how substance abuse and crime are linked in the United States. According to a National Institute of Justice report, at the time of their arrest two-thirds of adults and half of juveniles tested positive for at least one drug. Recent nationwide studies have concluded that drug treatment is reducing drug use, criminal activity, and physical and mental health problems, as well as increasing employment potential.

These research studies also suggest that drug treatment is a very cost-effective method to reduce substance abuse and crime. The savings to tax payers from quality substance abuse treatment versus imprisonment is significant (three to one in a recent RAND Corporation study). Furthermore, community-based substance abuse programs and programs that address behaviors that lead people to crime are far less expensive than similar programs in prison and produce effective and encouraging results. Finally, new studies confirm what our pastoral experience has demonstrated: that physical, behavioral, and emotional healing happens sooner and with more lasting results if accompanied by spiritual healing. Access to worship and religious formation is not only guaranteed by the Constitution, it is a significant element in rebuilding lives and changing behavior.

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