Today marks Daily Longread #100! The blog has also surpassed 1000 pageviews! Neither of these are huge milestones, but hopefully the blog will keep growing and reaching new readers. Thanks to all the regular readers out there -- keep coming back!
I thought it would only be appropriate to pick something especially thought-provoking for the 100th longread, and in general this week I am going to post longreads that tend toward the controversial. I'm not sure I'll be able to top today's installment, which begins with a compelling indict of the American prison and criminal justice system. The author makes a number of bold statements and recommendations about how to confront this system. I'll post my thoughts in the comments later, but for now, I'll let you read for yourself and form your own opinions.
"Raise the Crime Rate" by Christopher Glazek
Published in n+1, January 26, 2012
http://nplusonemag.com/raise-the-crime-rate
Eric
i'm not sure he makes enough of a point to be controversial. prisons clearly have a way to go in terms of what goes on but simply abolishing them doesn't present a strong alternative. It seems to me finding some sort of middle ground would make sense.
ReplyDeleteI think that precisely what makes the article controversial is the argument that there is no middle ground -- that the maintenance of our prison system is fundamentally unethical. We've been undertaking prison "reform" projects for decades amounting to little if any real progress. Instead of trying to fix the prison system, we should accept a society that is less safe. To me, that is a pretty controversial claim.
ReplyDeleteI see it more a short sighted and ignorant then controversial. Just because you have a national forum to present outlandish ideas does make them relevant nor worthy of debate. His argument is no good because there is zero realistic chance of it happening. I think a better use would be looking at dramatic reforms as opposed to whwatever he feels isn't working today
ReplyDeleteI don't think something being unrealistic from a policy perspective is grounds for dismissing the argument. Given the pace of change in our society, it is often necessary to have radical views that challenge the presumptions of the status quo. For example, there was certainly a time when passage of something like the Civil Rights Act would have been considered completely unrealistic. That didn't mean that it wasn't productive to envision alternatives to the racist discrimination that was manifest in "separate but equal."
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day, I think this article forces the reader to ask, "what kind of prison system am I ethically willing to tolerate?" For the author, the answer is that there is no prison system that is tolerable. For him, a higher risk of crime in society is more ethically acceptable than the existing prison system (including tweaks to it that might occur under the banner of prison reform).
I think many people, myself included, tend to envision the prison system as being unsavory but simply acceptable because certain people (criminals) "deserve" such conditions. At the least, they deserve these conditions more than the average person deserves to be at a higher risk of violence in everyday life. However, I'm not sure anyone can deserve the kind of punishment going on in prisons as documented in this article. Furthermore, the entire premise of the "it's justified" model is that the criminal justice system itself does an accurate job of identifying who the criminals are. Unfortunately, we know that there are tremendous errors committed within this system. Moreover, these errors disproportionately punish already marginalized groups such as racial and ethnic minorities and the poor.
I don't think I can advocate for full prison abolition at this point, but this article brought me far closer to that viewpoint than I even remotely thought possible. At the least, I think it forces a critical examination of the role of prisons in our society and the criminal justice system that fills them. Unfortunately, a critical examination may help me sleep better at night, but ultimately isn't doing anything to help people who are suffering deplorable conditions behind bars throughout our country.
As usual, no easy answers. But I think it's unwise and unfair to write this author off so quickly.
Eric