English Essay Introduction and Outline

User Generated

Zneiva4

Humanities

Description

You will be completing this essay template and introduction. Your evidence will come from any of the 6 articles I posted below. You can also use the claims I made or you can make your own and go off that.

Here are the two claims I wrote that you can go off. Pick one or make your own.

Main claim one:

Substance abuse and massive incarceration in the US is a problem because of the rising cases of violent crimes especially on human life; we should address substance abuse as a public health concern, using different ways and campaigns to curb drug abuse and lower violent crimes associated with substance abuse.

How I will defend it using the using evidence in the readings-

Sessions argue that substance abuse is a major contributor to the rising violent crimes; focusing on the ways and campaigns to reduce widespread abuse of drugs and even embracing Exile project will see a decrease in violent crimes in the cities. Sessions discuss predominant reasons for the violent actions. Michael Collins can be used as a counter-argument. Although he says that sentencing and enforcing wars on offenders he does not say that they will not help reduce crimes associated with drugs. Marc Schindler criticizes Sessions support on Exile Project saying that Richmond would have experienced a reduction in Homicide with or without Exiling. John Plaff says that incarceration would reduce violent crimes although infective.

Main claim two:

The rise in violent crimes US has been a majorly caused by mass incarceration is a problem recorded in cities; we should address this by focusing on sentencing and enforcing laws on the offenders that will see decreased crime rates in the cities.

How I will defend it using the using evidence in the readings-

Sessions discuss how substance abuse has led to increased murder cases. He further says that waging war on offenders by sentencing and enforcing the law as well as exiling will help solve the issue. Michael Collins argues believes that locking up more people does not solve the problem but rather exacerbates it. Marc Schindler can be used as a counter-argument in my favor. Although he argues that Exile Project cannot reduce violent crimes as it penalizes gun offenders and that it does nothing to stem gun flows in the cities and their neighborhoods, he does not say that this will help solve the violent crimes. Plaff says that a war on Marijuana would cause short-term impacts. Tvert states that Session’s war on marijuana only aims unregulated marijuana offenders but not a call to shut down licensed marijuana owners.

Conclusion

US cities have recorded an increase in violent crimes owing to many factors. Human life is important and we should all strive to keep it safe from any danger. We should work together to safeguard life by reducing crime-related causes and introduce strategies that will help in curbingthe spread of crimes in our society

Instructions for Essay Two Introduction and Outline

Today you will submit a draft of your main claim, at least FOUR subclaims, evidence, and introductory paragraph for Essay Two. Use the following template to complete this work and submit it as shown, below.

Main Claim: Insert your main claim in a template like this, ensuring that it is a complete and arguable statement.

Subclaim One: Insert your first subclaim which should be the first idea you need to defend to support your main claim. For this and each subclaim, study your main claim and see what needs to be defended step-by-step.

Evidence One: For this and each call for evidence in this template, below, cite one piece of evidence from our texts that supports the subclaim, include an accurate in-text citation, and explain how this evidence supports the subclaim in a sentence or two.

Evidence Two: ____ Include two pieces of evidence from two different sources for each subclaim.

Conclude With: A sentence or two, linking this subclaim back to the main claim.

Subclaim Two: _______

Evidence One: _____

Evidence Two: _____

Conclude With: A sentence or two, linking this subclaim back to the main claim.

Subclaim Three: _______

Evidence One: _____

Evidence Two: _____

Conclude With: A sentence or two, linking this subclaim back to the main claim.

Subclaim Four: _______

Evidence One: _____

Evidence Two: _____

Conclude With: A sentence or two, linking this subclaim back to the main claim.

Counterargument: Cite from a specific text.

Your Rebuttal: ____

Draft Introductory Paragraph:

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[Insert main claim___________________________________________________________]

Please follow this template correctly.

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2/24/2018 The other side of Black Lives Matter ocial Moilit Memo The Other Side of lack Live Matter William J. Wilon Monda, Decemer 14, 2015 W illiam Julius Wilson has been appointed a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings. This is his first piece for us in his new capacity. Several decades ago I spoke with a grieving mother living in one of the poorest inner-city neighborhoods on Chicago’s South Side. A stray bullet from a gang fight had killed her son, who was not a gang member. She lamented that his death was not reported in any of the Chicago newspapers or in the Chicago electronic media. I have been thinking about that mother a good deal recently, as the Black Lives Matter movement has dramatically called attention to violent police encounters with blacks, especially young black males. Aided by smart phones and social media, Americans have now become more aware of these incidents, which very likely have occurred at similar levels in previous decades, but were “under the radar.” This is good, of course. But it is not enough. We need to expand the focus of the movement to include groups not usually referenced when we discuss “Black Lives Matter,” including that boy in Chicago, who would by now be a grown man, perhaps with children of his own. Segregation by income amplifies segregation by race, leaving low-income blacks clustered in neighborhoods that feature disadvantages along several dimensions, including exposure to violent crime. As a result, the divide within the black community has widened sharply. In 1978, poor blacks aged twelve and over were only marginally more likely than affluent blacks to be violent crime victims—around forty-five and thirty-eight per 1000 individuals respectively. However, by 2008, poor blacks were far more likely to be violent https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/12/14/the-other-side-of-black-lives-matter/ 1/3 2/24/2018 The other side of Black Lives Matter crime victims—about seventy-five per 1000—while affluent blacks were far less likely to be victims of violent crime—about twenty-three per 1000, according to Hochschild and Weaver: Violent crime can in fact reach extraordinary levels in the poorest inner-city black neighborhoods. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where 46 percent of African Americans live in high poverty neighborhoods—those with poverty rates of at least 40 percent—blacks are nearly 20 times more likely to get shot than whites, and nine times more likely to be murdered. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/12/14/the-other-side-of-black-lives-matter/ 2/3 2/24/2018 The other side of Black Lives Matter As Leon Neyfakh points out, some people are reluctant to talk about the high murder rate in cities like Milwaukee because (1) it might distract attention from the vital discussions about police violence against blacks, and (2) it runs the risk of providing ammunition to those who resist criminal justice reform efforts regarding policing and sentencing policy. These are legitimate concerns, of course. On the other hand, it is vital to draw more attention to the low priority placed on solving the high murder rates in poor inner-city neighborhoods, reflected in the woefully inadequate resources provided to homicide detectives struggling to solve killings in those areas. As Jill Leovy, a writer at Los Angeles Times asserts in her 2014 book Ghettoside, this represents one of the great moral failings of our criminal justice system and indeed of our whole society. The thousands of poor grieving African American families whose loved ones have been killed tend to be disregarded or ignored, including by the media. The nation’s consciousness has been raised by the repeated acts of police brutality against blacks. But the problem of public space violence—seen in the extraordinary distress, trauma and pain many poor inner-city families experience following the killing of a family member or close relative—also deserves our special attention. These losses represent another social and political imperative, described to me by sociologist Loïc Wacquant in the following terms: “The Other Side of Black Lives Matter.” They do indeed. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/12/14/the-other-side-of-black-lives-matter/ 3/3 2/24/2018 Drug offenders in American prisons: The critical distinction between stock and flow ocial Moilit Memo Drug offender in American prion: The critical ditinction etween tock and flow Jonathan Rothwell Wedneda, Novemer 25, 2015 T here is now widespread, bipartisan agreement that mass incarceration is a huge problem in the United States. The rates and levels of imprisonment are destroying families and communities, and widening opportunity gaps—especially in terms of race. But there is a growing dispute over how far imprisonment for drug offenses is to blame. Michelle Alexander, a legal scholar, published a powerful and influential critique of the U.S. criminal justice system in 2012, showing how the war on drugs has disproportionately and unfairly harmed African Americans. Recent scholarship has challenged Alexander’s claim. John Pfaff, a Fordham law professor and crime statistics expert, argues that Alexander exaggerates the importance of drug crimes. Pfaff points out that the proportion of state prisoners whose primary crime was a drug offense “rises sharply from 1980 to 1990, when it peaks at 22 percent. But that’s only 22 percent: nearly four-fifths of all state prisoners in 1990 were not drug offenders.” By 2010 the number had dropped to 17 percent. “Reducing the admissions of drug offenders will not meaningfully reduce prison populations,” he concludes. Other scholars, including Stephanos Bibas of the University of Pennsylvania, and some researchers at the Urban Institute, have made similar points in recent months: since only a minority of prisoners have been jailed for drug offenses, only modest gains against mass incarceration can be made here. Stock versus flow https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/11/25/drug-offenders-in-american-prisons-the-critical-distinction-between-stock-and-flow/ 1/5 2/24/2018 Drug offenders in American prisons: The critical distinction between stock and flow There is no disputing that incarceration for property and violent crimes is of huge importance to America’s prison population, but the standard analysis—including Alexander’s critics—fails to distinguish between the stock and flow of drug crime-related incarceration. In fact, there are two ways of looking at the prison population as it relates to drug crimes: 1. How many people experience incarceration as a result of a drug-related crime over a certain time period? 2. What proportion of the prison population at a particular moment in time was imprisoned for a drug-related crime? The answers will differ because the length of sentences varies by the kind of crime committed. As of 2009, the median incarceration time at state facilities for drug offenses was 14 months, exactly half the time for violent crimes. Those convicted of murder served terms of roughly 10 times greater length. Drug crimes are the main driver of imprisonment The picture is clear: Drug crimes have been the predominant reason for new admissions into state and federal prisons in recent decades. In every year from 1993 to 2009, more people were admitted for drug crimes than violent crimes. In the 2000s, the flow of incarceration for drug crimes exceeded admissions for property crimes each year. Nearly one-third of total prison admissions over this period were for drug crimes: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/11/25/drug-offenders-in-american-prisons-the-critical-distinction-between-stock-and-flow/ 2/5 2/24/2018 Drug offenders in American prisons: The critical distinction between stock and flow Snapshot pictures of prison populations tell a misleading story Violent crimes account for nearly half the prison population at any given time; and drug crimes only one fifth. But drug crimes account for more of the total number of admissions in recent years—almost one third (31 percent), while violent crimes account for one quarter: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/11/25/drug-offenders-in-american-prisons-the-critical-distinction-between-stock-and-flow/ 3/5 2/24/2018 Drug offenders in American prisons: The critical distinction between stock and flow Rothwell 1125002 Being imprisoned and being in prison: The wider picture So, as Michelle Alexander argued, drug prosecution is a big part of the mass incarceration story. To be clear, rolling back the war on drugs would not, as Pfaff and Urban Institute scholars maintain, totally solve the problem of mass incarceration, but it could help a https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/11/25/drug-offenders-in-american-prisons-the-critical-distinction-between-stock-and-flow/ 4/5 2/24/2018 Drug offenders in American prisons: The critical distinction between stock and flow great deal, by reducing exposure to prison. In other work, Pfaff provides grounds for believing that the aggressive behavior of local prosecutors in confronting all types of crime is an overlooked factor in the rise of mass incarceration. More broadly, it is clear that the effect of the failed war on drugs has been devastating, especially for black Americans. As I’ve shown in a previous piece, blacks are 3 to 4 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, even though they are no more likely than whites to use or sell drugs. Worse still, blacks are roughly nine times more likely to be admitted into state prison for a drug offense. During the period from 1993 to 2011, there were three million admissions into federal and state prisons for drug offenses. Over the same period, there were 30 million arrests for drug crimes, 24 million of which were for possession. Some of these were repeat offenders, of course. But these figures show how largely this problem looms over the lives of many Americans, and especially black Americans. A dangerous combination of approaches to policing, prosecution, sentencing, criminal justice, and incarceration is resulting in higher costs for taxpayers, less opportunity for affected individuals, and deep damage to hopes for racial equality. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/11/25/drug-offenders-in-american-prisons-the-critical-distinction-between-stock-and-flow/ 5/5 The Truth about Mass Incarceration By STEPHANOS BIBAS September 16, 2015 8:00 AM National Review (Illustration: Roman Genn) America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, outstripping even Russia, Cuba, Rwanda, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Though America is home to only about onetwentieth of the world’s population, we house almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners. Since the mid 1970s, American prison populations have boomed, multiplying sevenfold while the population has increased by only 50 percent. Why? Liberals blame* racism and the “War on Drugs,” in particular long sentences for nonviolent drug crimes. This past July, in a speech to the NAACP, President Obama insisted that “the real reason our prison population is so high” is that “over the last few decades, we’ve also locked up more and more nonviolent drug offenders than ever before, for longer than ever before.” The War on Drugs, he suggested, is just a continuation of America’s “long history of inequity in the criminal-justice system,” which has disproportionately harmed minorities. [This is me, your teacher, interjecting to say that I identified the political leanings of the articles, on the Cavas page in the interests of full disclosure. In our work, we need to move beyond party politics, however, and approach topics with open minds, drawing the best conclusions based on available evidence. Because the political climate in the US is so split and divisive, saying things like, “Liberals blame…” is inflammatory – like name-calling. Focus on facts, not on political parties in your essays.] Two days later, Obama became the first sitting president to visit a prison. Speaking immediately after his visit, the president blamed mandatory drug sentencing as a “primary driver of this mass-incarceration phenomenon.” To underscore that point, he met with half a dozen inmates at the prison, all of whom had been convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. Three days earlier, he had commuted the federal prison terms of 46 nonviolent drug offenders, most of whom had been sentenced to at least 20 years’ imprisonment. 1 The president is echoing what liberal criminologists and lawyers have long charged. They blame our prison boom on punitive, ever-longer sentences tainted by racism, particularly for drug crimes. Criminologists coined the term “mass incarceration” or “mass imprisonment” a few decades ago, as if police were arresting and herding suspects en masse into cattle cars bound for prison. Many blame this phenomenon on structural racism, as manifested in the War on Drugs. No one has captured and fueled this zeitgeist better than Michelle Alexander, an ACLU lawyer turned Ohio State law professor. Her 2010 book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, is, as Cornel West put it, “the secular bible for a new social movement in early twenty-first-century America.” She condemns “mass incarceration . . . as a stunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.” Ex-felons, like victims of Jim Crow, are a stigmatized underclass, excluded from voting, juries, jobs, housing, education, and public benefits. This phenomenon “is not — as many argue — just a symptom of poverty or poor choices, but rather evidence of a new racial caste system at work,” like Jim Crow and slavery before it. She even implies that this system is just the latest manifestation of whites’ ongoing racist conspiracy to subjugate blacks, pointing to the CIA’s support of Nicaraguan contras who supplied cocaine to black neighborhoods in the U.S. Like President Obama, Alexander blames mass incarceration on the racially tinged War on Drugs. “In less than thirty years, the U.S. penal population exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million, with drug convictions accounting for the majority of the increase.” And the War on Drugs was supposedly driven by coded racial appeals, in which elite whites galvanized poor whites to vote Republican by scapegoating black drug addicts. The fault, she insists, does not lie with criminals or violence. “Violent crime is not responsible for the prison boom. . . . The uncomfortable reality is that convictions for drug offenses — not violent crime — are the single most important cause of the prison boom in the United States,” and minorities are disproportionately convicted of drug crimes. Alexander’s critique is catnip to liberals. The New Jim Crow stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for more than a year and remains Amazon’s best-selling book in criminology. And it dovetailed with liberal and libertarian pundits’ calls to legalize or decriminalize drugs, or at least marijuana, as the cure for burgeoning prisons. President Obama’s and Alexander’s well-known narrative, however, doesn’t fit the facts. Prison growth has been driven mainly by violent and property crime, not drugs. As Fordham law professor John Pfaff has shown, more than half of the extra prisoners added in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s were imprisoned for violent crimes; two thirds were in for 2 violent or property crimes. Only about a fifth of prison inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses, and only a sliver of those are in for marijuana. Moreover, many of these incarcerated drug offenders have prior convictions for violent crimes. The median state prisoner serves roughly two years before being released; three quarters are released within roughly six years. For the last several decades, arrest rates as a percentage of crimes — including drug arrests — have been basically flat, as have sentence lengths. What has driven prison populations, Pfaff proves convincingly, is that arrests are far more likely to result in felony charges: Twenty years ago, only three eighths of arrests resulted in felony charges, but today more than half do. Over the past few decades, prosecutors have grown tougher and more consistent. Nor is law enforcement simply a tool of white supremacy to oppress blacks. As several prominent black scholars have emphasized, law-abiding blacks often want more and better law enforcement, not less. Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy emphasized that “blacks have suffered more from being left unprotected or underprotected by law enforcement authorities than from being mistreated as suspects or defendants,” though the latter claims often get more attention. Most crime is intra-racial, so black victims suffer disproportionately at the hands of black criminals. Yale law professors Tracey Meares and James Forman Jr. have observed that minority-neighborhood residents often want tough enforcement of drug and other laws to ensure their safety and protect their property values. The black community is far from monolithic; many fear becoming crime victims and identify more with them than they do with victims of police mistreatment. There is no racist conspiracy, nor are we locking everyone up and throwing away the key. Most prisoners are guilty of violent or property crimes that no orderly society can excuse. Black Democrats, responding to their constituents’ understandable fears, have played leading roles in toughening the nation’s drug laws. In New York, black activists in Harlem, the NAACP Citizens’ Mobilization Against Crime, and New York’s leading black newspaper, the Amsterdam News, advocated what in the 1970s became the Rockefeller drug laws, with their stiff mandatory minimum sentences. At the federal level, liberal black Democrats representing black New York City neighborhoods supported tough crackcocaine penalties. Representative Charles Rangel, from Harlem, chaired the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control when Congress enacted crack-cocaine sentences that were much higher than those for powder cocaine. Though many have come to regret it, the War on Drugs was bipartisan and cross-racial. More fundamentally, The New Jim Crow wrongly absolves criminals of responsibility for their “poor choices.” Alexander opens her book by analogizing the disenfranchisement of Jarvious Cotton, a felon on parole, to that of his great-great-grandfather (for being a slave), his great-grandfather (beaten to death by the Ku Klux Klan for trying to vote), his grandfather (intimidated by the Klan into not voting), and his father (by poll taxes and literacy tests). But Cotton’s ancestors were disenfranchised through violence and coercion solely because of their race. Cotton is being judged not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his choices. He chose to commit a felony, and Alexander omits that his felony was not a nonviolent drug crime, but murdering 17-year-old Robert Irby during an armed robbery. All adults of sound mind know the difference between right and wrong. Poverty and racism are no excuses for choosing to break the law; most people, regardless of their poverty or 3 race, resist the temptation to commit crimes. Cotton is not a helpless victim just like his ancestors, and it demeans the free will of poor black men to suggest otherwise. So the stock liberal charges against “mass incarceration” simply don’t hold water. There is no racist conspiracy, nor are we locking everyone up and throwing away the key. Most prisoners are guilty of violent or property crimes that no orderly society can excuse. Even those convicted of drug crimes have often been implicated in violence, as well as promoting addiction that destroys neighborhoods and lives. But just because liberals are wrong does not mean the status quo is right. Conservatives cannot reflexively jump from critiquing the Left’s preferred narrative to defending our astronomical incarceration rate and permanent second-class status for excons. The criminal-justice system and prisons are big-government institutions. They are often manipulated by special interests such as prison guards’ unions, and they consume huge shares of most states’ budgets. And cities’ avarice tempts police to arrest and jail too many people in order to collect fines, fees, tickets, and the like. As the Department of Justice found in its report following the Michael Brown shooting in Missouri, “Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the City’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs.” That approach poisons the legitimacy of law enforcement, particularly in the eyes of poor and minority communities. Conservatives also need to care more about ways to hold wrongdoers accountable while minimizing the damage punishment does to families and communities. Punishment is coercion by the state, and it disrupts not only defendants’ lives but also their families and neighborhoods. Contrary to the liberal critique, we need to punish and condemn crimes unequivocally, without excusing criminals or treating them as victims. But we should be careful to do so in ways that reinforce rather than undercut conservative values, such as strengthening families and communities. Conservatives cannot reflexively jump from critiquing the Left’s preferred narrative to defending our astronomical incarceration rate and permanent second-class status for excons. Historically, colonial America punished crimes swiftly but temporarily. Only a few convicts were hanged, exiled, or mutilated. Most paid a fine, were shamed in the town square, sat in the stocks or pillory, or were whipped; all of these punishments were brief. Having condemned the crime, the colonists then forgave the criminal, who had paid his debt to society and the victim. 4 That was in keeping with the colonists’ Christian faith in forgiveness, and it meant there was no permanent underclass of ex-cons. Preachers stressed that any of us could have committed such crimes, and we all needed to steel ourselves against the same temptations; the message was “There but for the grace of God go I.” The point of criminal punishment was to condemn the wrong, humble the wrongdoer, induce him to make amends and learn his lesson, and then welcome him back as a brother in Christ. The punishment fell on the criminal, not on his family or friends, and he went right back to work. Two centuries ago, the shift from shaming and corporal punishments to imprisonment made punishment an enduring status. Reformers had hoped that isolation and Bible reading in prison would induce repentance and law-abiding work habits, but it didn’t turn out that way. Now we warehouse large numbers of criminals, in idleness and at great expense. By exiling them, often far away, prison severs them from their responsibilities to their families and communities, not to mention separating them from opportunities for gainful work. This approach is hugely disruptive, especially when it passes a tipping point in some communities and exacerbates the number of fatherless families. And much of the burden falls on innocent women and children, who lose a husband, boyfriend, or father as well as a breadwinner. Even though wrongdoers may deserve to have the book thrown at them, it is not always wise to exact the full measure of justice. There is evidence that prison turns people into career criminals. On the one hand, it cuts prisoners off from families, friends, and neighbors, who give them reasons to follow the law. Responsibilities as husbands and fathers are key factors that tame young men’s wildness and encourage them to settle down: One longitudinal study found that marriage may reduce reoffending by 35 percent. But prison makes it difficult to maintain families and friendships; visiting in person is difficult and time-consuming, prisons are often far away, and telephone calls are horrifically expensive. On the other hand, prison does much to draw inmates away from lawful work. In the month before their arrest, roughly three quarters of inmates were employed, earning the bulk of their income lawfully. Many were not only taking care of their children but helping to pay for rent, groceries, utilities, and health care. But prison destroys their earning potential. Prisoners lose their jobs on the outside. Felony convictions also disqualify excons from certain jobs, housing, student loans, and voting. Michigan economics professor Michael Mueller-Smith finds that spending a year or more in prison reduces the odds of post-prison employment by 24 percent and increases the odds of living on food stamps by 5 percent. Conversely, prisons are breeding grounds for crime. Instead of working to support their own families and their victims, most prisoners are forced to remain idle. Instead of having to learn vocational skills, they have too much free time to hone criminal skills and connections. And instead of removing wrongdoers from criminogenic environments, prison clusters together neophytes and experienced recidivists, breeding gangs, criminal networks, and more crime. Thus, Mueller-Smith finds, long sentences on average breed much more crime after release than they prevent during the sentence. Any benefit from locking criminals up temporarily is more than offset by the crime increase caused when prison turns small-timers into career criminals. So conservatives’ emphasis on retribution and responsibility, even when morally warranted, can quickly become counterproductive. 5 Another justification for prison is that the threat of punishment deters crime. The problem with deterrence, however, is that we overestimate prospective criminals’ foresight and self-discipline. At its root, crime is generally a failure of self-discipline. Conservative criminologists such as the late James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein pin primary blame for crime on criminals’ impulsively satisfying their immediate desires. They are shortsighted gamblers; who else would risk getting shot or arrested in order to steal $300 and a six-pack of beer from a convenience store? Impulsiveness, short-sightedness, and risk-taking are even more pronounced among the very many wrongdoers whose crimes are fueled by some combination of drugs, alcohol, and mental illness. But those very qualities make it hard to deter them. We naïvely expect to deter these same short-sighted gamblers by threatening a chance of getting caught, convicted, and sent to prison for years far off in the future. Of course, optimistic, intoxicated risk-takers think they will not be caught. And if they have cycled through the juvenilejustice system and received meaningless probation for early convictions, the system has taught them exactly the wrong lessons. To deter crime effectively, punishment must speak to the same short-sighted wrongdoers who commit crime — not primarily through threats of long punishment far off in the future, but more through swift, certain sanctions that pay back victims while knitting wrongdoers back into the social fabric. If we make punishments immediate and predictable, yet modest, even drug addicts respond to them. Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) is an intensive-probation program that has the hardest-core drug users face random urinalysis one day each week; violators immediately go off to a weekend in jail. Though the Left paints drug addiction as a disease requiring costly medical intervention, drug addicts can in fact choose to stop using drugs. Under HOPE, even habitual drug users usually go clean on their own when faced with the immediate threat of two days in jail. Well over 80 percent stop using drugs right away and remain clean, without any further treatment. The contrast with ordinary probation is stark. Probation officers juggle hundreds of cases, rarely see their clients, and routinely ignore multiple violations until they unpredictably send a client back to prison at some point in the future. Probation thus teaches probationers exactly the wrong lesson: that they are likely to get away with violations. It is no wonder that HOPE succeeds where ordinary probation fails. Applying the same insight to prisons could revolutionize them. UCLA professor Mark Kleiman notes that most inmates could be released early and watched round the clock with webcams, drug and alcohol testing, and electronic ankle bracelets via GPS. They 6 could live in government-rented apartments, see their families, and work at public-service jobs, all at much less expense than prison. These surveillance methods could enforce rules such as strict curfews, location limits, and bans on drug and alcohol use, with swift penalties for noncompliance. But the Left hates the idea, in part because its critics blame crime on society rather than on wrongdoers who need to be held accountable, disciplined, and taught structure and self-control. The more that punishment exacerbates the breakdown of families and communities, the more the overweening state and its social services and law enforcement grow to fill the resulting void. States like Texas and Georgia have already been experimenting with alternatives to endlessly building more prison cells. They have dramatically expanded inpatient and outpatient drug treatment as well as drug courts, diverted more minor offenders out of prison, kept juveniles out of state prison, and set up cheaper diversion beds for inmates who do not need to be in regular prison. For instance, Texas has begun creating special substance-abuse cells, so that repeat drunk drivers can get treatment instead of being housed with murderers and rapists. Risk-assessment tools can help to identify the sliver of recidivists and predators who pose the greatest danger and need long-term confinement. Most of all, the government needs to work on reweaving the frayed but still extant fabric of criminals’ families and communities. Both excessive crime and excessive punishment rend communal bonds, further atomizing society. The more that punishment exacerbates the breakdown of families and communities, the more the overweening state and its social services and law enforcement grow to fill the resulting void. The cornerstone of a conservative criminal-justice agenda should be strengthening families. More than half of America’s inmates have minor children, more than 1.7 million in all; most of these inmates were living with minor children right before their arrest or incarceration. Inmates should meet with their families often. They should be incarcerated as close to home as possible, not deliberately sent to the other end of the state. Visitation rules and hours need to be eased, and extortionate collect-call telephone rates should come down to actual cost. We should also pay more attention to the victims of crime. Victims are often friends, neighbors, or relatives of the wrongdoers who must go back to living among them. Though victims want to see justice done — including appropriate punishment — that does not generally mean the maximum possible sentence. In surveys, victims care much more about receiving restitution and apologies. So prison-based programs should encourage wrongdoers to meet with their victims if the victims are willing, to listen to their stories, apologize, and seek their forgiveness. Having to apologize and make amends makes most wrongdoers uncomfortable, teaching them lessons that they must learn. Over-imprisonment is wrong because state coercion excessively disrupts work, families, and communities, the building blocks of society, with too little benefit to show for it. Another important component of punishment should be work. It is madness that prisoners spend years in state-sponsored idleness punctuated by sporadic brutality. It is time to repeal Depression-era protectionist laws that ban prison-made goods from interstate commerce and require payment of prevailing-wage rates to prisoners (making prison industries unprofitable). All able-bodied prisoners should have to complete their educations and work, learning good work habits as well as marketable skills. One could even experiment with sending able-bodied prisoners without serious violent tendencies to 7 enlist in the military, as used to be routine (think of the movie The Dirty Dozen). Some of prisoners’ wages could go to support their families, cover some costs of incarceration, and make restitution to their victims. Finally, inmates need religion and the religious communities that come with it.* Most prisoners are eventually released, and we do almost nothing to help them reenter society, simply providing a bus ticket and perhaps $20. But faith-based programs like Prison Fellowship Ministries can transform cell blocks from wards of idleness or violence to orderly places of prayer, repentance, education, and work. After inmates are released, these faith-based groups can also perform much of the oversight, community reintegration, fellowship, and prayer that returning inmates need. Inmates must accept their responsibility, vow to mend their ways, and have fellow believers to hold them to those promises. Having a job, an apartment, and a congregation waiting for them after release from prison offers ex-cons a law-abiding alternative to returning to lives of crime. [Me again. As you know, we want to avoid religious arguments. Instead, we want to challenge our thinking to focus on ideas we can all argue about. In the next paragraph, the author refers to morality. Morals are shared principles that exist in particular communities. While there are religious forms of community that share very particular principles, there are other forms of community that can help ground or provide roots for those leaving prison. Schools are examples of such communities. It’s okay to use religious community as an example of an environment that might help an ex-prisoner transition, but then use it as only one example among others.] American criminal justice has drifted away from its moral roots. The Left has forgotten how to blame and punish, and too often the Right has forgotten how to forgive. Over-imprisonment is wrong, but not because wrongdoers are blameless victims of a white-supremacist conspiracy. It is wrong because state coercion excessively disrupts work, families, and communities, the building blocks of society, with too little benefit to show for it. Our strategies for deterring crime not only fail to work on short-sighted, impulsive criminals, but harden them into careerists. Criminals deserve punishment, but it is wise as well as humane to temper justice with mercy. 0 — Stephanos Bibas, a University of Pennsylvania professor of law and criminology and a former federal prosecutor, is the author of The Machinery of Criminal Justice (Oxford). This article originally appeared in the September 21, 2015, issue of National Review. 8 Escaping  from  the  Standard  Story:   Why  The  Conventional  Wisdom  on   Prison   Growth   Is   Wrong,   And   Where  We  Can  Go  From  Here     John  F.  Pfaff*     Abstract     Whether  as  a  result  of  low  crime  rates,  the  financial  pressures   of   the   2008   credit   crunch,   or   other   factors,   policymakers   on   both  sides  of  the  aisle  are  trying  to  rein  or  even  reduce  the  US   incarceration   rate   after   an   unprecedented   forty-­‐year   expan-­‐ sion.   Unfortunately,   reforms   are   hampered   by   the   fact   that   we   do   not   have   a   solid   empirical   understanding   of   what   caused  the  explosion  in  the  first  place.  In  fact,  the  “Standard   Story”   of   prison   growth   generally   overemphasizes   less   im-­‐ portant  factors  and  overlooks  more  important  ones.  This  es-­‐ say  thus  does  two  things.  First,  it  points  out  the  flaws  in  five   key  aspects  of  the  Standard  Story:  its  argument  that  the  War   on  Drugs  is  of  central  importance,  that  trends  in  violent  and   property   crimes   are   relatively   unimportant,   that   longer   sen-­‐ tence   lengths   drive   growth,   that   the   “criminal   justice   system”   is   a   fairly   coherent   entity   advancing   specific   goals,   and   that   the   “politics   of   crime   control”   is   uniquely   dysfunctional.   And   second,  it  argues  that  an  increased  willingness  of  the  part  of   prosecutors  to  file  charges—a  causal  factor  almost  complete-­‐ ly   overlooked   by   the   Standard   Story—is   likely   the   most   im-­‐ portant  force  behind  prison  growth,  at  least  for  the  past  two   decades.   *  Professor  of  Law,  Fordham  Law  School.     1   Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2414596   Key   words:   Incarceration,   Incarceration   Rates,   Sentencing,   Criminal  Justice,  Crime,  Crime  and  Punishment,  Prosecutors     The   past   four   decades   have   witnessed   an   unprecedented   surge   in   the  US  incarceration  rate.  Stable  for  nearly  fifty  years  at  about  100  per   100,000,  it  started  surging  in  the  mid-­‐1970s  to  nearly  500  per  100,000   today.   It   is   an   explosion   unprecedented   here   or   abroad:   with   only   5%   of   the   world’s   population,   the   US   is   now   home   to   more   than   20%   of   its   prisoners.   But  relatively  low  crime  rates  and  tight  state  budgets  have  led  to  a   fairly   bipartisan   desire   to   reduce   the   scale   of   US   incarceration.   Reform   efforts,  however,  are  hampered  by  a  serious  limitation,  namely  that  we   don’t   really   understand   what   caused   this   growth   in   the   first   place.   Actu-­‐ ally,  the  problem  is  worse:  policymakers,  journalists,  academics,  and  the   wider  public  all  generally  accept  a  conventional  wisdom—what  I  will  call   the   “Standard   Story”—that   is   simply   incorrect.   It   is   a   situation   worse   than  ignorance.   In   this   short   essay   I   want   to   correct   several   of   the   more   durable   myths   or   misconceptions   that   are   at   the   heart   of   the   Standard   Story,   focusing  on  five  problematic  claims  in  particular:  (1)  the  War  on  Drugs   drives  prison  growth,  (2)  trends  in  violent  and  property  crimes  are  rela-­‐ tively   unimportant,   (3)   longer   sentences   drive   prison   growth,   (4)   the   “criminal   justice   system”   is   a   fairly   coherent   entity   with   identifiable   goals,   and   (5)   the   politics   of   crime   are   uniquely   dysfunctional.   There   are   other   aspects   of   the   Standard   Story   that   are   also   empirically   problemat-­‐ ic—such   as   claims   tying   prison   growth   to   private   prisons   or   to   increased   parole   violations   (particularly   technical   violations)  1—but   these   five   are   1  According  to  Bureau  of  Justice  Statistics,  only  about  8%  of  state  prisoners  are   held  in  private  prisons.  And  while  parole  violations  have  gone  up,  so  too  have   parole  releases,  thanks  to  rising  prison  populations.  Parole  releases  and  parole     2   Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2414596 among   the   most   important   claims,   and   my   space   here   is   limited.   After   pointing  out  the  deep  flaws  with  these  five  claims,  I  will  highlight  some   of  the  more  empirically  plausible  explanations,  emphasizing  in  particular   the   importance   of   prosecutors   and   their   willingness   to   file   felony   charg-­‐ es.     Five  Problematic  Explanations  of  Prison  Growth     The   Standard   Story   comes   in   many   different   forms,   but   across   a   wide   range   of   commentators   a   fairly   consistent—and   flawed—story   emerges.  Here  I  consider  five  common,  incorrect  aspects  of  that  Story.     The   War   on   Drugs.  This  is  perhaps  the  most  common  and  durable   explanation.   It   is   also   easy   to   dismantle.   Figure   1   plots   the   percent   of   state  prisoners  over  time  whose  primary  offense  was  a  drug  crime.2  Yes,   the  percent  rises  sharply  from  1980  to  1990,  when  it  peaks  at  22%.  But   that’s  only  22%:  nearly  four-­‐fifths  of  all  state  prisoners  in  1990  were  not   drug  offenders.3  By  2010  the  percent  of  state  prisoners  serving  time  for   drug  offenses  was  down  to  just  over  17%.     violations   move   in   relative   sync   (with   states   releasing   more   than   they   violate   back),   suggesting   that   parole   violations   are   less   the   cause   of   but   more   the   symptom  of  prison  growth.  See  John  F.  Pfaff,  The  Myths  and  Realities  of  Correc-­‐ tional  Severity:  Evidence  from  the  National  Corrections  Reporting  Program,  13   AM.  L.  &  ECON.  REV.  491  (2011).   2  The   national   statistics   on   imprisonment   prioritize   offenses,   ranking   violent   ahead   of   property   and   property   ahead   of   drugs.   So   someone   sentenced   for   arson  and  drug  possession  would  appear  just  as  a  “violent  offender.”   3  About   half   of   all   federal   prisoners   are   serving   time   for   drug   offenses   due   to   the  federal  system’s  limited  jurisdiction,  but  only  about  12%  of  all  prisoners  are   federal   inmates.   So   adding   in   the   federal   system   raises   the   percentages   by   about  five  percentage  points,  not  enough  to  change  the  qualitative  story  here.     3   Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2414596 Fig. 1: Percent of Prisoners Serving Drug Sentences .05 .1 Percent .15 .2 .25 1980 - 2008 1980 1990 2000 2010 Year Note: Data from the National Prisoner Statistics   The  relative  unimportance  of  drug  incarcerations  can  be  illuminated   even   more   strikingly.   Between   1980   and   2009,   state   prisons   added   1,086,200   prisoners,   as   the   prison   population   rose   from   294,000   to   1,380,200.   This   increase   consisted   of   551,000   more   violent   offenders,   171,900  more  property  offenders,  and  only  223,000  more  drug  offend-­‐ ers   (with   the   rest   committing   public-­‐order   and   other   miscellaneous   crimes).   In   other   words,   the   increase   in   drug   incarcerations   explains   on-­‐ ly  21%  of  the  growth  in  state  prison  populations.4  The  increase  in  violent   offenders   alone   explains   51%—more   than   half—of   the   overall   growth,   and   that   in   violent   and   property   offenders   explains   67%.   When   some-­‐ one  like  Michelle  Alexander  argues  in  The  New  Jim  Crow  that  drugs  in-­‐ 4    223,000  is  21%  of  1,086,200.   4   carcerations  are  the  primary  source  of  prison  growth  she  is  simply,  cat-­‐ egorically  wrong.5   That  said,  it  is  possible  that  the  war  on  drugs  could  have  important   indirect   effects.   First,   drug   arrests   may   not   result   in   incarceration,   but   they  can  disrupt  the  offender’s  life  (relationships,  employment,  etc.)  in   ways  that  may  lead  to  future  criminality:  a  future  burglary  or  aggravated   assault   could   be   the   product   in   part   of   the   social   disruption   from   a   prior   drug  arrest.  Second,  drug  arrests  and  convictions  increase  a  defendant’s   criminal   history,   resulting   in   tougher   sanctions   or   treatment   for   future   non-­‐drug   offenses.6  Third,   prohibition   itself   can   lead   to   violence   and   other   crimes,   whether   by   destabilizing   drug   markets,   by   increasing   the   returns  on  illegal  activity,  by  making  it  harder  to  treat  drug  addiction  as   a  public  health  problem  instead  of  a  criminal  one,  etc.     The   policy   implications   here   are   clear.   Reducing   the   admissions   of   drug   offenders   will   not   meaningfully   reduce   prison   populations.   Ad-­‐ dressing  the  collateral  costs  of  the  war  on  drugs—such  as  longer  crimi-­‐ nal  records  or  the  social  destabilization  of  arrest—may  be  more  produc-­‐ tive.  But  it  is  much  more  likely  that  meaningful  reform  must  look  at  how   we  treat  violent  and  property  offenders,  to  whom  I  turn  now.       The  Importance  of  Violent  and  Property  Crimes.   One   surprising   as-­‐ pect  of  the  Standard  Story  is  that  it  downplays  the  impact  of  violent  and   property  crime  trends  on  incarceration  rates.  Its  insistence  that  the  war   5  This   is   not   a   strawman   argument,   nor   an   overstatement   of   what   she   says:   “The   impact   of   the   drug   war   has   been   astounding.   In   less   than   thirty   years,   the   U.S.   penal   population   exploded   from   around   300,000   to   more   than   2   million,   with  drug  convictions  accounting  for  a  majority  of  the  increase.”  Michelle  Alex-­‐ ander,   The   New   Jim   Crow   6   (2012)   (emphasis   added).   It   should   be   clear   by   now   that  this  assertion  is  fundamentally,  indeed  distressingly,  incorrect.   6  Some  preliminary  results  from  the  1997  and  2004  waves  of  the  National  Sur-­‐ vey  of  Inmates  in  State  and  Federal  Correctional  Institutions,  however,  cautions   against  putting  too  much  weight  on  this  theory  as  well.     5   on  drugs  is  the  primary  engine  of  prison  growth  surely  explains  this  to   some  extent.  Yet  this  is  a  serious  error  in  the  Standard  Story’s  account.   Figure   2   plots   violent   and   property   crime   rates   since   1960.   Between   1960   and   1991,   violent   crime   grows   by   371%   and   property   crime   by   198%   (from   a   baseline   ten   times   as   high).   Like   the   subsequent   expan-­‐ sion  in  prison  populations,  this  was  an  historically  unprecedented  explo-­‐ sion   in   crime.   Such   soaring   criminality   surely   changed   people’s   attitudes   towards  punishment,  but  it  also  likely  had  a  direct  impact  on  incarcera-­‐ tion   level.   Empirically   estimating   the   impact   of   crime   on   incarceration   is   actually   quite   tricky,  7  but   one   of   the   more   sophisticated—albeit   still   quite  problematic—estimates  suggests  that  a  1%  increase  in  crime  may   lead   to   an   approximately   1%   increase   in   incarceration. 8  If   so,   rising   crime  explains  half  the  prison  growth  up  through  1991.  Of  course,  that   means   other   factors   explain   the   other   half,   but   these   results   nonethe-­‐ less   place   changes   in   violent   and   property   crime   at   the   heart   of   changes   in  incarceration.   7  Perhaps   another   reason   the   Standard   Story   downplays   the   role   of   violent   and   property   crime   comes   from   the   trends   in   Figure   2.   Prison   populations   grew   when   crime   rates   were   rising   (1960   to   1980,   1984   to   1991),   falling   (1991   to   the   present),  and  flat  (1980  -­‐  1984),  suggesting  that  prison  populations  grew  inde-­‐ pendently  of  crime  rates.  Yet  simple  correlations  like  these  can  be  deceptive.   8  Yair  Listokin,  Does  More  Crime  Mean  More  Prisoners?  An  Instrumental  Varia-­‐ ble   Approach,   46   J.   L.   &   ECON.   181   (2003).   The   concerns   with   Listokin’s   results   are  technical  in  nature:  Listokin  uses  abortion  as  an  instrument  for  crime,  which   requires   abortion   to   be   otherwise   uncorrelated   with   incarceration.   This   is   likely   not   true   since,   for   example,   increased   abortion   could   free   up   female   labor   sup-­‐ ply   leading   to   higher   tax   returns,   higher   state   revenue,   and   thus   an   increased   willingness  to  incarcerate.  The  likely  absence  of  strict  exogeneity  dictates  that   we  treat  these  results  with  some  caution.     6   Fig. 2: Violent and Property Crime Rates 200 2000 Violent Crime 400 600 3000 4000 5000 Property Crime 800 6000 1960 - 2010 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 Year Violent Crime Property Crime Note: Data from the Uniform Crime Report and National Prisoner Statistics   In   fact,   Figure   2   may   actually   undersell   the   psychological   impact   of   the  crime  boom  of  1960  to  1991.  Figure  3  provides  an  alternate  version   of  the  US  incarceration  rate,  not  in  terms  of  prisoners  per  person,  but  in   terms  of  prisoners  per  crime;  call  this  the  “effective”  incarceration  rate.   What   is   striking   is   the   significant   decline   in   the   effective   incarceration   rate  from  1960  to  1980:  as  crime  rates  soared,  the  incarceration  rate— and  in  some  years  the  absolute  number  of  prisoners—fell  or  stayed  flat.     7   Fig. 3: Viol. and Prop. Crime Rates Per 1,000 Prisoners 0 200 400 50 100 150 Property Crime 200 Violent Crime 600 800 1000 1200 1960 - 2010 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 Year Violent Crime Property Crime Note: Data from the Uniform Crime Report and National Prisoner Statistics   Whether   the   decline   in   effective   incarceration   was   good   policy   is   immaterial.  It  could  be  that  an  increase  in  effective  incarceration  would   have  led  to  more  crime,  or  that  no  reasonable  increase  in  incarceration   could   counteract   the   broad   social   and   demographic   upheavals   that   pushed   up   crime   in   the   1960s.   But   what   may   really   matter   is   that   the   Baby   Boomers—a   large,   politically   powerful   bloc   of   voters—saw   crime   soar   while   prison   populations   fell   and   thought   a   causal   connection   ex-­‐ isted.  And  this  perception,  whatever  the  true  causal  relationship,  likely   influences  the  politics  of  punishment  to  this  day.     The  (un)importance   of   longer   sentences.  Another  core  argument  of   the   Standard   Story   is   that   longer   sentences   have   driven   up   prison   popu-­‐ lations.   We   are,   according   to   some   leading   criminologists,   in   a   “throw   away  the  key”  era.  Yet  despite  anecdotes  of  bracingly  long  sentences  for   relatively   minor   offenses,   the   evidence   suggests   that   time   served   has   remained   relatively   stable   over   many   years.   In   fact,   not   only   is   time     8   served   stable,   but   at   least   for   many   Northern   states   (which   provide   more   reliable   data),   it   is   surprisingly   short:   median   sentence   lengths   are   on  the  order  of  two  to  four  years,  with  three-­‐fourths  of  all  inmates  re-­‐ leased  in  about  six  to  eight  years.  Two  or  six  years  in  a  state  prison  is  a   serious  sanction,  but  such  sentences  are  not  throw-­‐away-­‐the-­‐key  long.   Figure   4   provides   intuitive   evidence   that   sentence   length   has   not   grown  noticeably  over  time.  All  Figure  4  plots  is  the  total  annual  number   of  admissions  to  and  releases  from  state  prisons.  Were  sentence  lengths   growing   systematically   tougher,   we   should   expect   releases   to   grow   at   an   increasingly   flatter   rate   relative   to   admissions.   And   while   there   is   some  such  flattening  in  the  early  1980s,  over  the  rest  of  the  period  the   two   lines   track   each   other   closely—and   they   even   converge   in   the   2000s.  More  rigorous  studies  using  various  forms  of  inmate-­‐  and  state-­‐ level  data  appear  to  confirm  this  intuition.9   9  Pfaff,   The   Myths   and   Realities   of   Correctional   Severity,   supra   note   1;   John   F.   Pfaff,  The  Durability  of  Prison  Populations,  2010  U.   CHI.   LEGAL   F.  73  (2010);  and   John  F.  Pfaff,  The  Centrality  of  Prosecutors  to  Prison  Growth:  An  Empirical  Anal-­‐ ysis  (unpublished  manuscript,  2014).     9   Fig. 4: Admissions and Releases from State Prisons 0 200000 400000 600000 800000 1977 - 2009 1970 1980 1990 Year Admission 2000 2010 Releases Note: Data from the National Prisoner Statistics   This  is  an  admittedly  bold  claim,  and  I  want  to  note  a  few  reserva-­‐ tions.   First,   that   time   served   has   been   stable   does   not   mean   tougher   sentencing  laws  are  irrelevant.  As  I  will  discuss  below,  at  least  since  the   early  1990s  the  primary  engine  of  prison  growth  has  been  an  increased   willingness   on   the   part   of   prosecutors   to   file   felony   charges.   By   giving   prosecutors   bigger   hammers   to   wield   during   the   plea   bargaining   pro-­‐ cess,  tougher  sentencing  laws  may  enable  prosecutors  to  extract  guilty   pleas  more  quickly  from  defendants  (by  offering  not  to  use  the  tougher   law).   Thus   convicted   defendants   may   serve   the   same   amount   of   time   as   before,  but  more  defendants  plead  out  (rather  than,  say,  risking  a  trial   or  having  their  cases  dismissed  or  knocked  down  to  a  misdemeanor).   Second,   admissions   have   been   rising   during   a   time   of   declining   crime,   which   means   that   states   must   be   admitting   increasingly   marginal   offenders.   If   so,   perhaps   we   should   have   expected   time   served   to   fall,   not  stay  flat.  That  time  served  has  remained  stable  could  reflect  that  we   are   imposing   harsher   sentences   on   less-­‐serious   offenders   than   before.     10   Tests  for  this  effect  seem  to  confirm  that  it  is  present,  but  not  necessari-­‐ ly  that  it  is  particularly  strong.     The  criminal  justice  system  is  not  a  system.  The  Standard  Story  also   treats  the  criminal  justice  system  like  some  sort  of  coherent  entity  with   defined   goals;   at   the   very   least,   it   posits   that   those   at   the   top   of   the   po-­‐ litical   hierarchy—governors,   presidents,   political   parties—use   “the   sys-­‐ tem”  to  accomplish  certain  objectives,  such  as  reducing  crime  or  regu-­‐ lating   and   controlling   minority   populations.   In   fact,   this   is   a   common   view  of  criminal  justice  in  many  areas  of  research  and  policy.  But  it  is  a   deeply  flawed  one.   The  criminal  justice  system  is  not  a  “system”  at  all,  and  treating  it  as   such   can   lead   analysts   to   overlook   important   causes   of   prison   growth.   This   alleged   “system”   is   actually   a   poorly   thought   out,   sprawling   mé-­‐ lange  of  competing  institutions  with  different  constituencies  and  incen-­‐ tives,  and  which  at  times  do  not  work  well  together.  It  consists  of  local   police,  county  district  attorneys,  county  or  state  judges  (who  are  either   appointed   or   elected,   and   if   elected   are   chosen   in   partisan   or   non-­‐ partisan  elections),  state-­‐level  governors  and  parole  boards,  and  hybrid   state  legislators  (who  hold  state-­‐level  office  but  often  represent  hyper-­‐ local   districts),   not   to   mention   various   federal   bureaucracies,   county   sheriffs,  regional  task  forces,  state  sentencing  commissions,  and  so  on.   And  not  only  is  authority  divided  across  these  actors,  but  there  is  often   no  clear  logic  to  why  authority  is  divided  the  way  it  is.   Consider   one   clear   example   of   a   poorly-­‐reasoned   allocation   of   au-­‐ thority  and  its  costs.  Jails  and  probation  offices  are  funded  by  counties,   prisons   by   states.   This   creates   a   significant   moral   hazard   problem   for   county  prosecutors:  their  constituents  don’t  pay  the  full  cost  of  the  fel-­‐ ony   convictions   they   secure,   although   the   prosecutors   reap   the   full   tough-­‐on-­‐crime  political  benefits.  In  fact,  prosecutors  are  incentivized  to   charge  borderline  cases  as  felonies,  since  misdemeanors  resulting  in  jail   or   probation   accrue   less   political   benefit   and   increase   county   costs.   A     11   model   that   treats   the   criminal   justice   system   as   a   coherent   entity   will   miss  such  moral  hazard  issues—which  is  exactly  the  trap  into  which  the   Standard  Story  falls.   By   ignoring   these   institutional   factors,   the   Standard   Story   fails   to   identify  who  is  driving  prison  growth:  are  police  arresting  more  offend-­‐ ers,   district   attorneys   charging   more,   judges   convicting   and   sentencing   more,   judges   (or   legislators)   sentencing   them   to   longer   sentences,   or,   say,   parole   officers   restricting   releases?   The   Standard   Story   glosses   over   these   questions   and   generally   relies   on   broad   state-­‐   or   federal-­‐level   dis-­‐ cussions.  This  oversight  imposes  two  serious  costs.   First,  and  more  technically,  non-­‐institutional  empirical  models  yield   relatively  uninformative  results,  even  if  the  models  are  methodological-­‐ ly  sound  (which  they  almost  never  are).10  What  does  it  mean  if  a  study   reports   that   a   1%   increase   in   young   black   men   in   a   state   leads   to   a   1.2%   increase  in  the  prison  population?  Is  it  because  police  are  biased?  DAs?   judges?  And  in  urban  counties?  rural  ones?  or  high-­‐crime  rural  or  low-­‐ crime  urban?  A  state-­‐level  model  that  does  not  account  for  the  various   institutional  actors  involved  simply  yields  an  uninterpretable  average  of   all   sorts   of   local   effects,   and   there   is   absolutely   no   reason   to   assume   that   the   effect   is   the   same   across   all   institutions,   or   across   all   types   of   counties.   Second,  and  more  significantly,  non-­‐institutional  models  provide  lit-­‐ tle   insight   into   where   to   target   reforms.   For   example,   without   under-­‐ standing  who  is  driving  prison  growth,  it  is  unclear  how  important  it  is  to   revise  state  sentencing  laws.  Consider  the  recent  history  of  punishment   in   New   York   State.   The   Rockefeller   Drug   Laws   (RDLs)   were   passed   in   1973,   yet   the   percent   of   drug   offenders   in   New   York   State   prisons   re-­‐ mained   flat   or   fell   until   1984.   County   DAs   simply   ignored   the   RDLs   for   10  I   point   out   the   substantial   methodological   flaws   with   almost   all   empirical   papers  on  prison  growth  in  John  F.  Pfaff,  The  Empirics  of  Prison  Growth:  A  Criti-­‐ cal  Review  and  Path  Forward,  98  J.  CRIM.  L.  &  CRIMINOLOGY  547  (2008).     12   over   a   decade,   since   whatever   national-­‐level   politics   inspired   Nelson   Rockefeller  to  advocate  for  them  didn’t  matter  at  their  local  level.  And   then   drug   incarcerations   started   to   decline   steady   from   1997   on,   even   though  the  legislature  did  not  amend  the  RDLs  until  2004  (weakly)  and   2009  (more  seriously).  In  other  words,  the  county  DAs  also  stopped  rely-­‐ ing  on  the  RDLs  well  before  Albany  got  around  to  modifying  them.11     In   fact,   in   a   recent   paper   I   demonstrate   that   at   least   since   1994,   the   primary   force   behind   prison   expansion   has   been   an   increased   willing-­‐ ness   on   the   part   of   district   attorneys   to   file   felony   charges:   crime   is   down,   arrests   per   crime   are   generally   flat   or   falling,   prison   admissions   per   felony   case   are   flat,   as   is   time   served,   but   filings   per   arrest   have   soared.12  These   results   indicate,   then,   that   reforms   targeting   prosecu-­‐ tors   are   more   important   than   those   looking   at   legislators,   or   at   least   that   legislative   reforms   are   important   only   insofar   as   they   alter   how   prosecutors—over   whom   legislators   have   no   direct   authority— behave.13   Moreover,  this  institutional  approach  demonstrates  that  we  need  to   study   punishment   at   the   county   level,   not   the   state   or   federal,   since     district  attorneys  are  county  officials  who  respond  to  county  incentives.   And   once   we   start   looking   at   counties,   interesting   features   that   the   Standard   Story   simply   cannot   detect   emerge.   One,   obviously,   is   the   moral  hazard  problem  noted  above.  Another  is  that  counties  can  differ   in  systematic  ways.  New  York  State,  for  example,  has  witnessed  a  long-­‐ running  decline  in  both  its  overall  prison  population  and  the  percent  of   11  To  be  clear,  the  RDLs  were  not  immaterial:  local  DAs  could  not  have  been  as   harsh  in  the  1980s  and  1990s  had  the  legislature  not  given  them  that  option.   12  Pfaff,  The  Centrality  of  Prosecutors  to  Prison  Growth,  supra  note  9.   13  Other  examples  of  these  sorts  of  agency  problems  abound.  Dan  Richman,  for   example,   pointed   out   that   the   New   Orleans   Police   Department   effectively   thwarted   the   New   Orleans’   DA’s   efforts   to   avoid   pleading   out   cases   by   refusing   to  improve  the  quality  of  the  its  investigations,  and  thus  the  quality  of  the  cases   the   DA’s   office   could   mount.   See   Daniel   Richman,   Institutional   Coordination   and  Sentencing  Reform,  84  TEX.  L.  REV.  2055  (2006).     13   inmates  serving  time  for  drug  offenses.  Both  declines  are  due  primarily   to  New  York  City:  while  the  City’s  five  counties  have  been  sending  fewer   total   people   and   relatively   fewer   drug   offenders   to   prison,   the   less-­‐ urban  counties  of  the  state  have  been  doing  the  opposite.  Other  studies   have   yielded   similar   rural-­‐urban   distinctions.   These   results   raise   inter-­‐ esting  questions  about  how  to  structure  and  design  reforms  that  state-­‐ level  analyses  cannot  help  but  miss.   Of   course,   we   don’t   want   to   overstate   the   disaggregate   nature   of   criminal  justice  in  the  US.  While  police  chiefs,  district  attorneys,  judges,   and   governors   are   all   relatively   autonomous   and   responsive   to   different   constituencies,  they  also  all  still  read  the  same  op-­‐eds  in  the  same  pa-­‐ pers  and  are  buffeted  by  the  same  broad  cultural  winds.  Thus  they  are   all   likely   influenced   by,   say,   the   rise   of   the   “nothing   works”   attitude   in   the   1970s   or   the   increased   interest   in   re-­‐entry   or   problem-­‐solving   ap-­‐ proaches  today.  At  the  same  time,  they  likely  respond  to  these  changes   differently,  and  any  model  of  criminal  justice  outcomes  that  fails  to  ac-­‐ count  for  the  diffuse  nature  of  authority  and  responsibility  will  miss  im-­‐ portant  explanations  for  what  is  happening.       The  “politics”  of  crime  are  not  that  unique.  The  final  erroneous  as-­‐ pect  of  the  Standard  Story  that  I  want  to  address  is  its  broad  assertion   that   the   politics   of   criminal   justice   are   uniquely   dysfunctional.   It   is   an   admittedly  intuitive  claim:  while  most  policy  issues  have  clearly  defined   antagonistic   sides—labor   vs.   management,   greens   vs.   industry,   pro-­‐life   vs.   pro-­‐choice—there   does   not   appear   to   be   anyone   to   counter   the   “tough  on  crime”  side.  Furthermore,  numerous  criminologists  and  soci-­‐ ologists  have  argued  that  crime  control  is  a  uniquely  effective  election-­‐ eering   topic   in   today’s   political   environment,   leading   politicians   to   focus     14   on  it  to  a  disproportionate  degree.14  Taken  together,  these  observations   suggest  we  should  see  a  one-­‐way  ratchet  of  ever-­‐tougher  crime  policies.   And  it  is  true  that  politicians  have  generally  not  rolled  back  criminal   statutes  or  weakened  sentencing  laws.  Yet  the  story  is  more  complicat-­‐ ed  than  that.  Consider  Figure  5,  which  plots  correctional  spending  as  a   share   of   state   budget   outlays.   Correction’s   share   of   the   budget   rises   from   the   1970s   through   the   early   1990s—which   coincides   with   the   crime   boom—but   then   remains   relatively   flat   during   from   the   mid-­‐ 1990s   onward.   In   other   words,   once   crime   leveled   out   in   the   early   1990s,  so  too  did  relative  correctional  spending.     Fig. 5: Correctional Share of State Budgets .02 .04 .06 .08 .1 1952 - 2008 1940 1960 1980 Year % of Total Spending % of Discretionary 2 2000 2020 % of Discretionary 1 Notes: Data from the Census Bureau's Annual Survey of Government Finances. Discretionary 1 and Discretionary 2 refer to two seaprate ways of calculating state discretionary spending. More details are available in John F. Pfaff, The Micro and Macro Causes of Prison Growth, 28 Ga. St. L. Rev. 1239 (2011).   14  Surprisingly,   these   researchers   rarely   explain   why   crime   has   been   such   a   powerful  electoral  topic,  or  at  least  why  politicians  have  favored  it  over  other   potential  issues.  A  likely  explanation  is  that  our  high  rates  of  crime  itself  made   crime   control   a   salient   political   issue,   but   as   noted   above   the   Standard   Story   generally   downplays   the   violent   and   property   crime   surge   that   started   in   the   1960s.     15   It   is   true   that   absolute   correctional   spending   rose   steadily   during   the  1990s  and  2000s,  from  almost  $20  billion  in  1991  to  nearly  $50  bil-­‐ lion   in   2008   (a   159%   nominal   increase,   although   only   a   63%   real   in-­‐ crease,   and   only   a   35%   real   increase   per   capita).   But   look   at   Figure   6,   which  plots  real  per-­‐capita  state  revenues  and  expenditures  from  1952   to   2008:   state   fiscal   capacity   grew   steadily   over   that   time,   and   spending   moved  in  lockstep  with  revenues.  States  were  spending  more  on  every-­‐ thing,   including   corrections.   In   fact,   for   all   the   talk   of   “crowding   out,”   correctional  spending  is  generally  positively  correlated  with  spending  on   welfare,  education,  transportation,  etc.15   Fig. 6: Real Per Capita State Revenues and Expenditures 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 1952 - 2008 1940 1960 1980 Year Revenues 2000 2020 Expenditures Note: Data from the Census Bureau's Annual Survey of Government Finances.   In  other  words,  spending  on  corrections  ultimately  does  not  appear   to  be  as  exceptional  as  it  seems  at  first  blush.  Once  crime  began  falling   15  Of  course,  there  is  crowding  out  on  the  margin:  perhaps  educational  budgets   would   have   grown   even   faster   had   states   spent   less   on   corrections.   But   all   budget  lines  have  tended  to  grow  with  rising  state  budgetary  power.     16   in  1991,  spending  on  corrections  simply  maintained  pace  with  growing   overall   spending.   Of   course,   that   the   percent   of   the   budget   given   over   to   corrections   stayed   flat—rather   than   fell—during   a   time   of   falling   crime  is  perhaps  somewhat  surprising,  and  it  suggests  that  correctional   systems   have   been   effective   at   staving   off   budget   cuts.16  Yet   it   seems   likely  that  many  government  agencies,  not  just  departments  of  correc-­‐ tion,  are  able  to  fight  off  retrenchment  in  situations  like  these.   That  the  relative  size  of  prison  budgets  remained  fairly  stable  since   1991  actually  is  not  that  surprising,  since  the  Standard  Story’s  claim  that   tough-­‐on-­‐crime   policies   face   no   meaningful   opposition   mischaracterizes   the   nature   of   state   budgetary   politics.   State   budgets   are   much   more   restricted  than  the  federal  budget,  since  states  are  often  subject  to  bal-­‐ anced-­‐budget  provisions  (of  varying  degrees  of  effectiveness),  must  bor-­‐ row  money  at  less  favorable  rates,  and  cannot  print  their  own  money.  In   short,   state   budgeting   is   much   more   a   zero-­‐sum   game   than   federal   budgeting,   creating   clear   antagonists   to   tough-­‐on-­‐crime   policies:   not   “soft  on  crime”  groups,  but  schools,  hospitals,  departments  of  transpor-­‐ tation,  and  everyone  else  clamoring  for  a  piece  of  a  fixed  pool  of  money.   Every  dollar  that  goes  to  a  prison  doesn’t  go  to  a  school,  and  at  the  state   level,  lobbies  like  the  National  Education  Association  are  quite  powerful.   In   light   of   these   political   realities,   we   should   be   concerned   that   the   Standard  Story  overemphasizes  the  extent  to  which  “crime  is  different.”     Where  Do  We  Go  From  Here?     16  New  York  State,  for  example,  has  seen  its  prison  population  drop  steadily  by   about  1%  per  year  for  over  a  decade,  yet  until  very  recently  it  has  had  a  hard   time   closing   prisons   that   are   almost   entirely   empty   now.   See   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/nyregion/17about.html   and   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/nyregion/closed-­‐new-­‐york-­‐prisons-­‐ prove-­‐hard-­‐to-­‐sell.html.     17   It   is   relatively   straight-­‐forward   to   summarize   the   Standard   Story’s   core  assertions:  prison  populations  have  been  pushed  up  by  a  relatively   coherent   and   politically   powerful   criminal   justice   system   that   has   cho-­‐ sen  to  target  drug  offenders  and  to  rely  on  increasingly  long  sentences.   And   while   none   of   these   claims   is   necessarily   wrong,   as   shown   above   each   has   profound   weaknesses   and,   taken   together,   provide   a   highly   misleading   account   of   prison   growth.   The   path   forward,   however,   should  be  fairly  clear  as  well.  A  few  quick,  representative  suggestions:     1.   Focus   less   on   drug   inmates   and   more   on   violent   and   property   offenders.   That   a   majority   of   prison   growth   since   1980   has   come   from   locking  up  violent  offenders  does  not  mean  our  prisons  are  overflowing   with  murderers  and  arsonists:  many  of  these  violent  offenders  may  be   guilty  of  low-­‐level  acts  of  violence  that  would  have  resulted  in  probation   ten   or   fifteen   years   ago,   and   who   may   not   pose   serious   public   safety   risks.   But   the   politics   of   dialing   back   enforcement   against   violent   of-­‐ fenders  is  qualitatively  different  than  that  looking  at  drug  offenders.     2.   Focus   less   on   sentence   length   and   more   on   admissions.   At   one   level,   the   distinction   here   may   be   slight:   any   new   admission   can   be   thought   of   as   raising   the   time   served   from   zero   to   non-­‐zero.   A   new   mandatory   minimum   could   be   seen   as   both   a   time   served-­‐side   and   an   admission-­‐side   policy.   That   said,   it   should   be   clear   that   our   attention   should  be  on  figuring  out  what  is  driving  up  felony  filings  and  thus  ad-­‐ missions:   is   this   simply   a   change   in   prosecutorial   attitudes;   is   it   due   to   (short)  mandatory  minimums  denying  probation  to  defendants  without   making   them   serve   much   time;   is   it   that   prosecutors   use   massively   longer  sentences  as  effective  hammers  to  bang  out  pleas;  or  something   else?     3.   Develop  richer  institutional  accounts.  It  seems  likely  that  prison   growth   is   less   the   product   of   some   coherent   plan   and   more   the   unin-­‐   18   tended  result  of  actions  taken  by  numerous,  relatively  autonomous  bu-­‐ reaucracies,   many   situated   in   relatively   small   geographic   areas   such   as   cities   and   counties   (which   should   only   emphasize   the   uncoordinated   nature  of  growth).  It  is  impossible  to  explain  how  growth  has  occurred— and   thus   how   to   adjust   it—without   understanding   the   interaction   of   various   agencies’   decisions.   Unfortunately,   we   have   very   little   data   on   these  interactions  yet  at  this  point,  since  widespread  adherence  to  the   Standard   Story   has   caused   most   social   scientists   to   design   only   state-­‐   and  federal-­‐level  models.     Reforming  penal  practices  in  the  United  States  is  impossible  without   a  solid,  rigorous  understanding  of  the  key  forces  at  play.  Unfortunately,   we  are  currently  saddled  with  a  conventional  wisdom  that  is  truly  inad-­‐ equate.  Hopefully  we  will  be  able  to  move  beyond  it  before  the  oppor-­‐ tunity  for  meaningful  reform  passes.       19   6/19/2017 Jeff Sessions vows to ramp up drug enforcement and prevention - Business Insider Jeff Sessions 'appears intent on taking us back to the 1980s' and the 'War on Drugs' JEREMY BERKE MAR. 16, 2017, 4:20 PM Sessions wants to crack down on drug offenders Says violent crime is rising nationwide Experts say Sessions wants to take us back to '80s and '90s style punishments His comments about marijuana may be the most impactful Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowed on Wednesday to ramp up enforcement of drug crimes to combat what he says is a nationwide increase in violent crime, a move some experts say channels the "drug war" era of the 1980s. Sessions delivered a speech to law enforcement officers in Richmond, Virginia, where he touted the effectiveness of Project Exile, a two-decade old program that enforced mandatory minimum sentences on felons caught carrying firearms. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Associated Press/Susan Walsh "All of us who work in law enforcement want to keep people safe," Sessions said, according to prepared remarks. "That is the heart of our jobs; it is what drives us every day. So we are all disturbed to learn that violent crime is on the rise in America, especially in our cities." While Sessions admitted that crime rates in the US were at "historic" lows, he pointed out that, according to the FBI, incidents of violent crime rose by more than 3% between 2014 and 2015. Sessions tied this increase in violence to the "unprecedented epidemic" of heroin and opioid abuse. "My fear is that this surge in violent crime is not a 'blip,' but the start of a dangerous new trend," Sessions said. "I worry that we risk losing the hard-won gains that have made America a safer and more prosperous place." Sessions outlined three main ways to fight the "scourge" of drugs: criminal enforcement, treatment, and prevention. He highlighted prevention campaigns — including Nancy Reagan's "Just say No" efforts — as effective tools for bringing down rates of drug use. The results of "Just Say No," and similar abstinence-oriented prevention campaigns like D.A.R.E, are mixed. A 2007 study from the University of Missouri, St. Louis found that the programs are mostly over-funded and ineffective. http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-sessions-vows-to-ramp-up-drug-enforcement-and-prevention-2017-3 1/5 6/19/2017 Jeff Sessions vows to ramp up drug enforcement and prevention - Business Insider However, a 2011 study, cited by Scientific American, from the University of Texas School of Public Health found that certain abstinence programs can be effective, provided they reinforce the lessons over a multi-year time period. Taking it back to the '80's A Drug Enforcement Administration officer patrols outside of a medical clinic in Little Rock, Ark., Wednesday, May 20, 2015. AP Photo/Danny Johnston Criminal justice and drug policy experts say that Sessions' focus on cracking down on drug offenders is an unwise strategy borne out of the "War on Drugs" era of the '80s and '90s. Michael Collins, the deputy director of the Drug Policy Alliance, called Sessions' emphasis on sentencing and enforcement as a response to the opioid epidemic "deeply disconcerting." "He appears intent on taking us back to the 1980's with his drug war rhetoric," Collins told Business Insider. "Locking up more people exacerbates the problem." Marc Schindler, the executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, criticized Sessions support of Project Exile, which he called "political will" to remove black and brown people from communities. The program heavily penalizes gun offenders, according to Schindler, but does nothing to stem the flow of guns into cities and neighborhoods. http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-sessions-vows-to-ramp-up-drug-enforcement-and-prevention-2017-3 2/5 6/19/2017 Jeff Sessions vows to ramp up drug enforcement and prevention - Business Insider "The approach to addressing violence in our communities being put forth by AG Sessions is not based on research, and lacks the context that should be considered to inform sound policy decisions," Schindler told Business Insider in an email. The research on Project Exile is far from clear. FiveThirtyEight has the rundown: A 2003 study found that in Richmond, Virginia — where Sessions gave his speech — the city would have experienced a similar reduction in homicide rates with or without Exile. But, a 2009 study found evidence supporting Exile's efficacy. Among the sample group, cities with high levels of federal prosecution for federal gun crimes experienced a 13% decrease in violent crimes, compared to an 8% increase in cities that didn't, even when controlling for other factors like incarceration rates and poverty. However, "none of this stuff is as neat as even the peer-reviewed publications put it," John Klofas, a professor of criminal justice at the Rochester Institute of Technology told FiveThirtyEight. John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University in New York who recently published a book on the causes of mass incarceration, told Business Insider in an email that Sessions is probably not trying to specifically revive the "War on Drugs," but rather looking to justify "harsh punitive responses to crime more broadly." Incarceration would be an easy sell politically for Sessions and the Trump Administration, even if its an inefficient way of controlling crime, he added. "Sessions' insistence that the recent uptick in violent crime is not just a blip but the start of a longer trend (which, to be fair, could be the case — but also may not be so at all) seems to be part of a rhetorical push to make nonprison reforms riskier to adopt," Pfaff said. A variety of medicinal marijuana buds in jars are pictured at Los Angeles Patients & Caregivers Group dispensary in West Hollywood. Thomson Reuters Sessions vs. marijuana http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-sessions-vows-to-ramp-up-drug-enforcement-and-prevention-2017-3 3/5 6/19/2017 Jeff Sessions vows to ramp up drug enforcement and prevention - Business Insider Sessions honed in on his opposition to legalizing marijuana on Wednesday, saying that he "realizes this may be unfashionable in a time of growing tolerance of drug use." Pfaff suggested that Session's comment on marijuana may have "the biggest short-run impact." Sessions railed against medical marijuana, and the notion that increasing access to the drug can be a tool to help counter opioid and heroin addiction. Research has shown that in states that have legalized medical marijuana, addiction and opioid overdose rates have dropped, reports Business Insider Kevin Loria. Though he's opposed to marijuana legalization, Sessions did tell reporters after his remarks that he may keep the Obama-era Cole Memo — which directs the Justice Department to place a low priority on prosecuting legal marijuana businesses that comply with state laws — though with some modifications, reports MassRoots' Tom Angell. Sessions indicated that the federal government may not have the ability to enforce federal marijuana laws in states that have legalized. Mason Tvert, the communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, told Business Insider in an email that Sessions' comments do not seem like a "call to shut down" licensed and regulated marijuana businesses. "It sounds more like a call to go after unregulated marijuana producers and dealers who are operating in the illicit market," Tvert said. http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-sessions-vows-to-ramp-up-drug-enforcement-and-prevention-2017-3 4/5
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here is the outline and introduction

Surname: 1
Student’s Name
Instructor
Course
Date
Drug Abuse and Mass Incarceration

Outline
Main Claim: Drug Abuse and the “war on drugs” is not to blame for America’s high incarnation
rate considering that there are other factors contributing even higher towards the increasing
prison population.
Sub claim 1: Segregation by income is evident in the U.S is a major contributor towards the
increasing prison population in the country
Evidence 1: Wilson (2015) argues that population by income intensifies segregation by race
resulting in overpopulated disadvantaged black neighborhoods that are exposed to violent crime
(1). This is evidence that income segregation is the main cause of crime in segregated regions
rather than drug abuse.
Evidence 2: Most crime happens to be intra-racial; hence, black victims are suffering
disproportionally at the black criminals’ hands (Bibas, 3). Violent crime is not caused by drug
abuse but segregation, which makes it common to the race.

Surname: 2
Conclusion...


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