This week we will explore the world – Inside Incarceration. Once a person has been convicted of a felony, he/she can be pretty sure some amount of time will probably be spent in prison. How long the sentence is is determined by a number of factors.
The concept of sentencing is closely aligned with the theoretical schools of thought regarding punishment that we discussed last week. As noted in my lecture last week, Seiter (2014), the author of a text I have used previously, is noted as saying that sentencing is often described as one of the most complicated and critical components of the criminal justice process. Consider the scenarios presented on page 89 in your text (this is the first page of Chapter 5, which is not a chapter you have to read; however, this section is mentioned because it provides a great example of the complexities connected to the sentencing process). ‘Jane has no prior record. She fell on hard times and had to reluctantly resort to getting on public assistance to provide for herself and her children. During the Christmas Holiday she worked a temporary job and earned $1,200 that she did not report to her caseworker. An audit revealed her crime and she pled guilty to grand theft, which carries a possible sentence of 2 years in prison. ‘Jim’ has a lengthy record of criminal behavior which began when he was 10 years old. During one of his brief periods of employment, Jim stole money and auto parts totaling $1,200. He, too, pled guilty. Now, the CLASSICAL school of thought considers both crimes to be identical and says that both Jane and Jim should receive the exact same punishment regardless of their different circumstances because both freely chose to commit a crime. However, the POSITIVIST school of thought says the punishment for each of them should be determined based on their individual circumstances and should be appropriate for each person’s rehabilitation. Consider these two cases as we continue to discuss sentencing this week.
As I noted last week, our country’s punitive response to crime has led to mass incarceration. As a result, our criminal justice system is in need of an overhaul. As the new administration in Washington D.C. continues to get its footing, please observe the philosophies of the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. Many fear his beliefs will increase our country's mass incarceration rate, rather than reduce it.
Last week I discussed the concept of plea bargaining. I want to briefly revisit that. Consider the pros and cons of plea bargaining:
PROS:
Cases are disposed of quickly and easily, thus reducing prosecutor and public defender workloads and judges’ court dockets
A conviction is ensured
It is cost effective because long, expensive trials (which could result in a prosecutorial loss) are averted
CONS:
Conservatives consider pleas too lenient for guilty persons
Liberals argue that plea bargaining forces persons to waive their 6th Amendment right to a trial, their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination, and their right to an appeal
Can entice prosecutors to overcharge in order to gain bargaining leverage
Creates a tendency for persons who insist on going to trial to be ‘punished’ for exercising their rights by way of longer sentences if convicted
Once a person is convicted, the case moves to the sentencing phase. For many years, the court (judge) had significant discretion regarding the sentencing of convicted persons. This was achieved through indeterminate sentencing and is indicative of positivist type thinking. Indeterminate sentencing followed a guideline that identified minimum and maximum time frame. It was good in that individual circumstances and mitigating and aggravating factors could be taken into consideration. Mitigating factors are those things that help to explain a person’s behavior: drug addiction, acting under duress, mental illness, unaddressed childhood trauma, etc. Aggravating factors are those things that add harm to the act: use of a weapon, a planned crime, an act of vengeance, etc. The challenge, however, was when there were huge inconsistencies for the same crime – even with sentencing guidelines in place. This is called sentencing disparity. A person in Ohio could be sentenced to the minimum for his second conviction of a petty theft; while a person in Georgia with no priors might be sentenced to the maximum for the same offense. Unfortunately, many irrelevant factors were used to determine sentencing: race, socio-economics class, mood of the judge that day, etc.
Not all sentencing disparity occurred at the hands of the sentencing judge. An example of legislative sentencing disparity is the crack/powder cocaine disparity. In 1988, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act established 100:1 ratio differential between powder and crack cocaine. This resulted in a significant number of African-Americans being sentenced to longer prison terms than their white counter parts since African-Americans tended to use the cheaper, easier to obtain crack and whites tended to use powder cocaine. Public and political outcry led to the Fair Sentencing Act of 2009 which reduced the 100:1 ratio differential to 18:1. Page 101 provides additional information about this.
Judicial sentencing disparity resulted in legislative sentencing by law-makers; thus removing discretion from the courts. One type of legislated sentencing is Truth-In-Sentencing, which mandates that at least 85% of the sentence is served. With this type of sentencing, good time credit and parole eligibility are restricted. Another type of legislated sentencing is Determinate. This type of sentence is derived from the classical school of thought. Instead of a minimum and maximum range, a straightforward calculation was used to determine a fixed number of years for each crime category – regardless of individual circumstances. An example of this is Lee Wollard, in Florida. Mr. Wollard fired a warning shot in his own home to scare his 15 year old daughter’s abusive boyfriend into leaving the premises. Because of Florida’s determinate sentencing, the judge was forced to sentence Mr. Wollard to 20 years. The judge himself said he wished he had other options. A link to his story is available below. Mandatory Minimums is another type of sentencing model and can exist in both indeterminate and determinate sentencing types, With this type of sentencing, probation is not an option and legislative sentences must be followed for certain crimes. If you recall, one of the goals of corrections is to reduce recidivism. Legislators have identified a way to address this by way of the Habitual Offender law – otherwise known as the 3 Strikes law. Persons who are convicted of a third felony – no matter how minor it is, must be sentenced to either 20+ years or life (depending on the state they are convicted in). Sometimes a person may rack up several charges in a single incident (ie: assault & battery, kidnapping, and bank robbery). In such cases, the court may mandate that the sentences be served concurrently – at the same time. So, if Malcolm robbed a bank, held down the teller and beat her, and moved bank customers to the back room during the robbery before being apprehended, he could be sentenced to 20 years for each offense. That’s 60 years. However, he’d only serve up to 20 if they were to be served concurrently. If the judge mandated that the sentences be served consecutively, Malcolm would serve 60 years – each subsequent sentence after the first one would begin after the previous one was completed.
Once the defendant has been convicted and his/her sentence is determined, the next step is classification. The classification process determines where a person is housed – based on risks/needs assessment, treatment options, etc. Classification in jails is different from classifications in prisons. If a person is convicted of a misdemeanor or low level felony and is sentenced to one year or less, then he/she will serve their sentence in a county jail that is operated by the Sheriff in most states. In jails, classification takes place in the intake and diagnostic unit and is used to determine where the person will be placed within the facility. Care is taken to keep rival and same gang group members apart. Persons suffering from mental illness are kept in a separate area from the general population. Women and men are housed separately, as are violent and non-violent offenders. When I led the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office Work Release program, I worked closely with Classification and ensured that our program participants were kept separate from general population because they were able to leave the jail and we wanted to reduce the likelihood of contraband exchange. Classification within the prison system takes place at a prison designated as the Diagnostic and Classification prison. In Georgia, this is located in Jackson. Inmates may spend several weeks in the prison classification process. Upon completion, they are transported to the prison most appropriate for their needs
As you may be aware, jails and prisons are structured differently and they function differently. Our country’s jails have become ‘home’ for far too many mentally ill persons as a result of many mental health facilities closing. Unlike prisons, jails do not have security levels. They are primarily holding facilities while persons are awaiting trial or are awaiting transfer to the Classification and Diagnostic prison after conviction. Persons who are serving their time in jails have been convicted of misdemeanors or low-level felonies. Most serve between 30 and 90 days before being released. There are three basic physical designs for jails:
1st generation: linear design with officers at one end. The officer must walk up and down the hallway to converse with or look at inmates
2nd generation: more of a podular design with officers located within an enclosed space. Contact with inmates remains limited; however, visibility is improved and officers are more accessible
3rd generation: officers are located in the day room within a pod and are separated by a short wall or petition. Interaction with inmates is easy and encouraged.
State prisons, on the other hand, are designed by security levels. Basically, they have four (4) levels: minimum, low, medium, and maximum or high. This can vary from state to state. For example, Georgia has three security (3) levels: minimum, medium, and close. The close security is equivalent to a maximum security setting. Additionally, Georgia has 31 state operated prisons and contracts with two private prisons. The place where we house the worst of the worst are SuperMax prisons. Many states operate their own supermax prisons. It is not uncommon for a medium or maximum prison to have areas reserved for supermax type of inmates. Coastal State Prison, located in Garden City, has such an area. Inmates housed in the ‘SuperMax’ type area are in individual cages when they are allowed outside for recreation. Contact with others is highly restricted.
There are 117 federal prisons which are operated by the Federal Bureau of Prison. The Federal Prison system has five (5) security levels: minimum, low, medium, high, and Administrative Maximum (ADX) - Supermax. Some people fell that minimum level federal prisons are like country clubs. While they may be 'nicer' than other levels and definitely 'nicer' than any state prison; remember that freedom for incarcerated persons is still restricted and thus being imprisoned is never a 'joy-ride' - mostly all prisoners feel some degree of pain or punishment - even in the prison where Martha Stewart did her time! On the opposite end of the security spectrum from low level federal prison is the ADX - Supermax located in Florence, CO. In the words of my son, Supermax is maximum security on steroids! I've been there once. I can truly say it is not a place I ever need to visit again. The worst of the worst are imprisoned in ADX. There are two (3) basic ways to get there: 1) engage in extreme or repeated violence in a lower level security prison - ie: killing a guard or other inmates 2) commit a terrorist or heinous crime - ie: The Boston Marathon Bomber, Terry Nichols, an accomplice in the Oklahoma City bombing 3) be a leader/member of a notorious gang who agrees to 'debrief' or tell correctional officials everything they know about the gang's operation and membership (they may be sent to Supermax for the term of their sentence because they would not be safe anywhere else - this happens more often on the state level). Note that there is only one Federal Supermax and it houses men only. There are no federal Supermax prisons for women.
Violence in prisons is an ongoing problem – particularly in male prisons. So, much so, that in 2003 the Prison Rape Elimination Act was established. Contrary to its name, however, it was not designed to eliminate prison rape, but rather to heighten awareness and create a mechanism to collect data.
Much has changed in corrections over the past two decades. First, more persons are being incarcerated, more women are being incarcerated, more African American males are being incarcerated, and more persons are aging within our prisons. Your text discusses several reasons why African-Americans are incarcerated at a higher rate and offers a perspectie that racism in the criminal justice system may very well be a false perception. I contend that institutional racism is played out in policies such as mandatory sentencing, the 3 strike laws, and the cocaine/crack-cocaine sentencing disparities. These are all contributing factors to the high number of African-Americans behind bars. I am not so quick to agree that racism in the criminal justice system is not real. I've seen too much! Consider the PDF I've attached with charts on incarceration rates vs. the U.S population rate. Something happened between 1999 and 2010 that changed the face of who is in prison - and it isn't reflected in the racial make-up of the U.S. population
Many experts agree that we have an incarceration crisis in the U.S. Eric Holder, the previous Attorney General for the U.S. once commented that we cannot incarcerate ourselves into a safe society. Yet, we keep building more prisons and spending more money to incarcerate more people. The question is does incarceration actually help people to return to a crime-free life when they are released? Our incredibly high recidivism rate would suggest this is not so. So then, what is life like for the imprisoned adult? Chapter 9 paints a good picture. Additionally, I have attached an article written about life in Georgia's prison system for this week's reading assignment.
I have operated programs in both male and female prisons and gave leadership to a co-ed federal halfway house. I have had much more experience working with the male prison population and personally feel males are easier to work with than females. It will be interesting to see what conclusions you come to after reading Chapters 9 and 15.
Admittedly, when I first enter a male prison, it’s always a bit scary because they tend to be verbal with their sexual remarks. However, after they realize I’m not down for foolishness, they quickly change their tune and give me the respect I demand. I’ve not ever had to go through that with female inmates. It’s as if the male inmates get off on seeing if they can rattle me and need to see how far I’ll let them go. I always have to be harder on them from the very beginning. Once I establish the boundaries though, I am able to develop much better relationships with them than females. Imprisoned females tend to be rather petty and extremely emotional. I find that they play games much more often and for much a longer period of time. What I mean here is that the males may play games initially – like I said, to see how much I’ll take. Then they stop and we can get down to the business at hand. Females seem to never stop the game playing! While these statistics are true for both males and females, females tend to manifest behaviors in prison that are much more disruptive (at least for me). With male inmates, the staff know when trouble is brewing. Female inmates are much more conniving, cunning, cut-throat, and ‘behind-your-back’. That’s just been my experience. Give me a male prisoner any day!
I want to address one final area in my lecture that is not fully discussed in Chapter 15 of your text. Women arrive in prison often by way of a different route than men – what I mean is that often women are coconspirators with their man or are doing time for their man. These choices are often connected to unaddressed childhood trauma. Criminal justice professionals have recently begun to accept the premise that unaddressed childhood trauma impacts both men and women who find themselves behind bars. Persons may have similar traumatic experiences, however, one may be traumatized by the experience and another one will not. It is a very individual phenomenon. Additionally, it is not only the traumatic experience, but also the response to the trauma that can create challenges and problems for the victim. The trauma an individual may experience includes sexual, verbal, or physical abuse, neglect, witnessing the abuse of a parent-particularly the mother, witnessing a murder of a caretaker, etc.