6.6.1: Street Crime and Prisons

Let’s begin our overview of street crime and prisons with a stunning statistic: 

The United States has only 5 percent of the world’s population but about 25 percent of the world’s prisoners (Notar 2019).

 One of 40 Americans age 15 and over, 6,750,000 people, is on probation, on parole, or in jail or prison (Statistical Abstract 2019: Tables 10, 380, 381, 386). 

No other country comes close to these totals. 

There are so many prisoners that, running out of places to keep them, the state and federal governments pay private companies to operate “private prisons.” About 128,000 Americans are locked up in these for-profit prisons (N. Smith 2019). 

To see how the number of prisoners has surged, look at Figure 6.2. As you can see, the number of prisoners peaked in 2009 and has been dropping since then. With the decline in violent crime, which we will review shortly, this decrease is likely to be permanent. The broken line on this figure gives a rough indication of what the future might look like. Figure 6.2 How Much Is Enough? The Explosion in the Number of U.S. Prisoners

SOURCE: Based on Statistical Abstract of the United States 1995:Table 349; 2014:Tables 2, 6, 363; 2019: Table 380. 

The broken line is the author's estimate. The horizontal axis of the graph represents “Years” ranging from 1970 to 2020 in increments of 10 while the vertical axis represents “Number of federal and state prisoners (in thousands)” ranging from 0 to 2,000 in increments of 100. 

The graph begins slightly below 200 in 1970, which is shown increasing till 2009, beyond which it is shown to decline. 

The data presented in the graph is as follows: 

1970: 196,000 

1980: 316,000 

1990: 774,000 

2000: 1,391,000 

2009: It is marked with a text box that reads, “2009 was the peak of incarceration, with 1,616,000 prisoners.” 

2015: 1,527,000 Note: All data is approximate. 183 Who are these prisoners?

 Let’s compare them with the U.S. population. As you look at Table 6.3, several things may strike you. Forty-three percent of all prisoners are younger than 35, and almost all the prisoners are men. 

Then there is this remarkable statistic: Although African Americans make up just 12.7 percent of the U.S. population, there are more African American prisoners than white prisoners. 

Table 6.3 Comparing Prison Inmates with the U.S. Population

Notes: Age refers to Americans age 18 and over, the percentages will not agree with other totals in this book. 

For education, the percentages are based on Americans age 25 and over. Age, race-ethnicity, and sex of prisoners are from Carson and Anderson while their marital status and education are from Sourcebook. 

The "other" Race-Ethnicity category is the remainder after Sourcebook lists African American, white, and Hispanic apparently includes Asian Americans, Native Americans, and people who claim two or more races. 

Marital Status of prisoners only applies to inmates on death row. 

Data not available for other inmates. Sources: Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics.” Washington, D.C.: U.S.Government Printing Office, 2013.; Carson, Ann E., and Elizabeth Anderson. “Prisoners in 2015.” Bureau of Justice Statistics, December 29, 2016.; Statistical Abstract of the United States. Washington, D.C.: U.S. CensusBureau, 2019. Published annually:Tables 6, 8, 10, 32, 56, 382. 

Finally, note how marriage and education—two of the major ways that society “anchors” people into mainstream behavior—keep people out of prison. 

About half of prisoners have never married. And look at the power of education, a major component of social class.

 As I mentioned earlier, social class funnels some people into the criminal justice system while it diverts others away from it. 

You can see how people who drop out of high school have a high chance of ending up in prison—and how unlikely it is for a college graduate to have this unwelcome destination in life. 184 For about the past thirty years or so, the United States has followed a “get tough” policy. 

One of the most significant changes was “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” laws, which have had unintended consequences, as you will see in the following Thinking Critically about Social Life.

Thinking Critically about Social Life What Should We Do about Repeat Offenders? 

The “Three-Strikes” Laws In 1993, Polly Klaas, a 12-year old in Petaluma, California, had a sleepover at her home. 

A man on parole from rape slipped in, tied up the girls, put pillow cases over their heads, and took Polly. Two months later, her partially nude body was found in a wooded area (Callahan 2013).

 Back in the 1980s and 1990s, alarm and fear grew as violent crime soared. 

Amid outrage that violent criminals were being paroled from prison only to commit more violent crimes, the public demanded that “something be done.” 

Politicians, also outraged at the crimes of repeat offenders like the man who abducted, raped, and killed Polly Klaas, passed “three-strikes” laws: Anyone convicted of a third felony would receive a mandatory sentence. In California, the third felony meant twenty-five years to life. Delaware’s version requires a life sentence for anyone convicted of a third violent crime (Albright 2016). 

As intended, these laws have kept many repeat offenders off the street, but they also have had some unanticipated results: In California, a 64-year-old man who stole a package of cigarettes was sentenced to twenty-five-years-to-life in prison (Phillips 2013). 

Another California man, who passed a bad check for $94, was sentenced to twenty-five years to life (Jones 2008). 

In Florida, a man who stored cocaine in his girlfriend’s attic was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, but his 27-year-old girlfriend, a mother of three, was sent to prison for life. 

The judge said the sentence was unjust, but since it was her third felony conviction he had no choice (Tierney 2012). 

In New York City, a man who was about to be sentenced for selling crack said to the judge, “I’m only 19. This is terrible.” 

He then hurled himself out of a courtroom window, plunging to his death sixteen stories below (Cloud 1998).

Sequoia, 11, Floyd, 8, and Deonta, 6, hold photos of their father, Floyd Earl, who is in prison for 25 years to life for theft. 

California voters had approved the three-strikes law amid public furor over the 1993 kidnap, rape, and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas by Richard Allen Davis, a repeat offender on parole at the time.

 Credit: Damian Dovarganes/AP Images A sort of Oops! moment followed. 

This isn’t quite what was intended. 

The public had in mind someone who was convicted of violent crimes, such as a third brutal rape, being sent to prison for life. 

As in California, though, in some states the politicians neglected to limit the three-strikes to violent crimes.

 Judges complained that the three-strikes laws bound their hands, limiting them from taking into consideration the circumstances that surround a crime. 

With the longer sentences taking many repeat offenders off the street, though, the public felt relieved, and there was little rush to change these laws. 

Eventually, the gap between justice and unfair sentencing became too great to ignore, and the states are now softening their three-strikes laws. 

Not incidentally, a political consideration in the face of budget deficits is the huge costs of keeping offenders locked up. Each prisoner costs taxpayers an average of $36,000 a year (Notar 2019).

 For Your Consideration Apply the symbolic interactionist, functionalist, and conflict perspectives to the passage of the three-strikes laws and to their revision.

 → For symbolic interactionism, how does the meaning of these laws depend on social location, especially where someone is in the criminal justice system? 

→ For functionalism, what are some of the functions (benefits) of three-strikes laws? Their dysfunctions?

 → For the conflict perspective, which groups are in conflict? What different interests are represented, and who has the power to enforce their will on others?