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Persuasive Speech Outline
Who’s Going to Jail Next?
Introduction
I) Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in prison.
Okay. You’re either all very good citizens, too embarrassed to raise your hand, have the money for a good criminal defense attorney...or there are some liars among us.
So let’s try this: look at the people sitting on either side of you, in front or behind you, or just an arm’s length away. Wish them all good luck, because based upon what’s happening in our country today, one of you is going to spend some serious time behind bars.
II) I’m going to tell you the truth about your country, America, and how it manages to have the highest rate of incarceration of any country in the world. Any country. We lead the world in many things, but this should not be one of them.
III) How significant is this? Consider that the world’s totalitarian regimes, found in vacation spots like North Korea, China, the Middle East, Southern Asia, and a number of African nations (anybody want to visit Uganda or Rwanda lately?) don’t even compare to the U.S.’s ability to throw people in prison, and it has become a problem too big to ignore. According to sentencingproject.org and the Bureau of Justice Statistics Prisoners Series, with 2.2 million people now behind bars in America, Federal and state governments are “being overwhelmed by the burden of funding a rapidly expanding penal system, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not the most effective means of achieving public safety.”
Before we explore the causes of what I can only call a shameful mess, let’s look at the difficulties we’re all suffering because of it.
Body
I. Problem
A. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 provides in its text for, among many other things, “criminal penalties for any person who assembles, maintains, or places a boobytrap on Federal property where a controlled substance is being manufactured, distributed, or dispensed.” The problem is that the Act itself has ensnared us in our own boobytrap.
B. Since the inception of this “war on drugs”, the number of drug offenders in the Federal prison system has increased more than tenfold. In state prisons, the number of those incarcerated on drug-related charges exceeds even that. One out of every ten people in the country has had his or her life irrevocably impacted by a drug-related arrest.
C. The social and economic effects of this enforcement are negative in the extreme.
1. 2.2 million people, 95% of whom are men, rather than contributing to the economy have forcibly become, at the behest of the government, an anchor holding the ship of state fast to the bottom of the ocean…and the tide is rising. If this continues—the rate of incarceration has increased 500% in the past 30 years—this boat is in serious danger of sinking. The cost of housing an inmate in the New York City Jails, according to The New York Times, is $168,000 per year. California, with a prison population exceeding that of China’s, appears more efficient with a per-prisoner cost of $48,000/year…but with the highest total national prison budget at $8 billion. This, in a state that can’t afford to fill its highway potholes.
2. According to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, the number of women incarcerated on drug charges has increased by nearly 800% since the inception of the Act. This is more than twice the rate of men imprisoned for drug offenses, and with women now accounting for 7% of the nationwide prison population, an entire population of their children are left in the marginal care of grandparents and/or are dependent upon state welfare systems. The downslope effect of this is increased high school dropout rates, unemployment, and continually increasing pressure upon those welfare systems and the taxpayers who pay for it all.
3. We as a nation are consigning entire populations of minors and young people to the stigma of felony criminal records. With 23% of convicted drug dealers—the vast majority involved in selling marijuana to their acquaintances—under the age of 18, the impact of a felony arrest upon their future educational and earning potential is lifelong.
4. The costs of enforcing federal and state marijuana laws alone exceeds $7 billion each and every year the Act remains unchanged, costs borne again by the taxpayers who pay for it all. The impact of this expenditure is an embarrassment that legislatures are slow to recognize. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) reports that “escalating marijuana arrests over the past two decades have failed to have any impact on marijuana use rates or other indicators to measure success.”
5. Law enforcement agencies nationwide, dealing with hundreds of thousands of marijuana drug violators annually--and the judicial system which incarcerates them--are made to appear feckless, generating widespread social and political unrest.
Given these obvious and pervading problems caused by widespread and nearly indiscriminate arrest and punishment protocols emanating from current drug enforcement policies, we have to wonder how this all happened. Why are things such a mess?
II. Causes
Incarceration rates are not the result of more criminal conduct, but of stricter enforcement of a single area of the law: drug abuse. The vast majority of drug-related crimes involve the sale, possession, and use of marijuana.
A. The vast majority of juveniles currently serving significant prison terms have been convicted under marijuana-related drug violations.
B. The “War on Drugs” has been the major factor contributing to the dramatic rise in the prisoner population, yet it has had little or no positive effect in preventing drug-related offenses.
C. The Federal and State prison systems, widely acknowledged as overcrowded and criminogenic (prisoners leave prison more criminally-inclined than they were when they entered custody), commonly operate as publicly funded corporate entities wherein cost controls drive operational protocols. Many states with physical facilities overwhelmed by sheer numbers, now outsource the task of incarceration to for-profit corporations with an economic incentive to keep beds filled with inmates serving more and longer sentences. When inmates are held in for-profit prisons, a constant stream of “customers” is essential to maintain that profit.
D. Prison guard labor unions, among the strongest labor organizations in any state, hold considerable sway over political forces responsible for the enforcement of drug-related laws. Labor negotiations between Federal and state governments continue to focus upon wage rates, overtime guarantees, and generous benefits packages, all pressure points when governments are faced with increasing rates of incarceration. The ongoing increases in the cost-per-inmate of incarceration are directly attributable to increases in staffing expenditures.
Faced with these apparently insurmountable realities, where do we look to find solutions?
III. Solutions require innovation and a new cultural and political mindset.
A. Legislatively reduce marijuana-related offenses from felony status to infractions. Several states have already done so, while the United States Justice Department continues to enforce such offenses as hard-drug crimes. Many countries outside the U.S. no longer enforce any such laws, including Argentina, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Germany…and Dennis Rodman’s favorite vacation spot, North Korea.
B. Provide technology to enable earlier probation and parole for those serving drug-related offenses. Release those non-violent offenders to accelerate the elimination of prison overcrowding.
C. Improve labor market access for those released from prison for whom the only viable income option is re-engaging with the illicit drug business.
D. Create public awareness of the reality that increased rates of incarceration have little effect upon the reduction of crime rates. As noted by the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab report on the subject, “it may well be that America has gone too far in the direction of mass incarceration”.
E. Admit that we are currently in a zero-sum game; to continue in the current direction guarantees system failure. The first step toward success is to admit our failures.
F. Eliminate the cultural stigma currently attached by the media to drug use.
G. Expose the myth that increased arrest and incarceration rates prevent crime.
Conclusion
I. America’s current world-record rate of incarceration is unsupportable from social and economic standpoints. If the prison population continues to increase as it has over the past two decades, a time will come when 50% of the people will be behind bars.
II. When we have prisons overflowing with low-level drug users serving draconian sentences at the behest of legislatures who owe their political power to prison guard unions, we are headed for the precipice. If the purpose of prisons is to keep our streets safer, we need to re-examine the rational behind out drug laws and the penalties we impose for violating them.
III. Nearly 800 of every 100,000 Americans is behind bars. If you’re a black male, you have a 60% statistical chance of joining them. If you’re smoking pot, your chances aren’t any better. Look around your classmates again. Who’s going to jail next?
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Bibliography
“CRIME LAB.” CRIME LAB. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2015. <http://crimelab.uchicago.edu/>.
Marijuana Law Enforcement Costs More than $7 Billion a Year – and Doesn’t Work, Says New Report. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2015. <http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/379/report1.shtml>.
“National Council on Crime & Delinquency.” National Council on Crime & Delinquency. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2015. <http://www.nccdglobal.org/>.
Santora, Marc. “City’s Annual Cost Per Inmate Is $168,000, Study Finds.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 23 Aug. 2013. Web. 23 Feb. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/nyregion/citys-annual-cost-per-inmate-is-nearly-168000-study-says.html>.
“The Sentencing Project News – Incarceration.” The Sentencing Project News – Incarceration. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2015.
“U.S. Has World’s Highest Incarceration Rate.” U.S. Has World’s Highest Incarceration Rate. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. <http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2012/us-incarceration.aspx>.
“Vera Institute of Justice: Making Justice Systems Fairer and More Effective through Research and Innovation.” Vera Institute of Justice. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2015. <http://www.vera.org/>.
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