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| Erica Gaither Class of 2019 |
When did we as human beings
deem other human beings as disposable? This question has started to permanently
hold residence in a corner of my mind. The topic of conversation was our
criminal justice system- specifically, the ways in which prisons and jails were
continuing to fail. My eagerness to understand and find answers to this
question began with trying to figure out various color-coded pie-charts
displaying horrendous statistics. Then my curiosity shifted to-what I can best
describe as- bewilderment. As I scrolled through hundreds of articles and
videos sharing appalling testimonies, I literally wanted to hit something
because I just couldn’t believe what we had allowed this system to become.
Ultimately, I think it may have been my various visits to the over-crowded and
disheartening Louisville Metro Jail and Kentucky State Reformatory that tipped
me over the edge.
All of my textbooks read the
same motto, prisons were designed to have four main purposes: retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and
rehabilitation. History shows we’ve never been able to have a fair balance of
these concepts, we’re either too much of this or not enough of that. But
somewhere in time, we lost sight of what we were doing altogether. America
has went overboard with its exceptionalism this time, and managed to succeeded
in incarcerating more than 2.3 million individuals- a rate five times higher
than any other country in the world. I have to believe that it’s not just me
who is wondering who these 2.3 million people are. Who are we so easily locking
up and throwing away the key? Who are the faces in this system?
Let’s
begin with the obvious truth that so many do not wish to acknowledge. African-Americans
followed by Hispanic/Latinos are the two highest racial minority presences in
our criminal justice system. When combined, both races account for only approximately
30% of the U.S. population, but comprise nearly 60% of the prison population. African-Americans
alone make up nearly 1 million of the 2.3 million incarcerated population. At
the rate we are going, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1 in
3 black males and 1 in 6 Hispanic/Latino males, born in 2001, can expect to be
incarcerated within their lifetime.
As my own little experiment, I
decided to ask my10-year-old sister who she thought should be in prisons or
jails and she simply answered “bad people”. I kept prying for more, asking what
she meant by that. She answered back- almost like she was confused that I
didn’t get it the first time- “You know, like the bad people on the shows you
watch? They’re mean and kill people”. In my household, series like Law and Order and Criminal Minds run on a continuous loop. But, I never realized how
these shows were tremendously misconstruing the idea of our justice system to
not only my 10 year-old-sister, but more than likely the majority of society as
well. Much like my 10-year-old sister, I am willing to bet that the average
person believes our prisons and jails are protecting us from violent, brutal
offenders- too dangerous to function out from behind bars. Surprisingly, this
couldn’t be farther from the truth. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons
latest statistics, drug offenses make up a staggering 46.4% of inmate offenses.
Sex offenses, homicides, aggravated assault, and kidnapping COMBINED only make
up roughly 11% of offenses in total.
Cars are to junkyards, as certain
people are to any correctional facility. We have essentially turned our
correctional facilities into dumping grounds. If you were to walk into a
facility today, it’s not an overwhelming amount of “mean” or “bad” people you
would see. Instead, it would be a startling amount of individuals struggling
with mental health. The Bureau of Justice’s latest study reports that the rates
for mental health issues amongst men and women were as follows: State prisons: 73%
of females and 55% of males; Federal prisons: 61% of females and 44% of males;
local jails: 75% of females and 63% of males. Throughout every article I read
on this issue, almost every scholar and researcher tributes this rising problem
to the 1960’s shut downs of state psychiatric hospitals. In my criminal justice
courses, I’ve learned that our correctional facilities don’t have the resources
for the rehabilitation and programming they were “intended” to do, much less
the resources for treatment they have neither the training nor knowledge to
handle. I work as a mental health technician at a private psychiatric facility
and have seen first- hand the poor decisions and destructive behavior that a
person undergoes when not receiving the proper medication, attention or
therapy. I also know how demanding of a job it is to meet a mentally-ill patient’s
needs. The system is being forced to take on mentally-ill individuals who are
experiencing homelessness, committing crimes of survival, committing
non-violent offensives in a manic/psychotic state, etc. With a monumental
decline in mental health services for these individuals it isn’t uncommon for
crimes to be committed just to be put in the system. At least then, they will
be offered: a roof over their head, structured routine, hot meals and a place
to receive medication. The criminal justice system is being forced to become
the nation’s largest mental health care providers, and expecting correctional
staff and officers to take on this additional role with minimal training.
Mentally-ill inmates are more likely to experience harsh treatment from officers,
and fellow inmates who don’t understand their illness. They are also more
likely to be put into solitary confinement as punishment, which only takes a
larger toll on their mental state.
I have to believe that we are a
rational and empathetic society who sees how heinously broken and oppressive we
have let the criminal justice system become. However, we cannot begin to fix
problems that aren’t even acknowledged. Our past illustrates that the “tough on
crime” approach was not the answer- in fact I’m not sure how we are defining
crime these days. Is it fair to let the color of someone’s skin affect their
sentence? Is it a crime to have been deprived of vital resources and treatment?
Is it fair to be trapped within a system that only knows how to keep you locked
away? It almost seems silly to ask these questions, but when you analyze the
majority of the 2.3 million people we are incarcerating, this is exactly what
we are punishing people for. The distorted image of our criminal justice system
has to end, we cannot keep throwing people away.
All statistics used and additional information can be found
at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/mental-illness-prisons-jails-inmates_n_2610062.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/mental-illness-prisons-jails-inmates_n_2610062.html
Erica Gaither, a sophomore McConnell Scholar from Princeton, Ky., studies criminal justice, political science, and social change.