I am going to recommend that you take a position of strength on this issue and go along with what you feel the electorate wants from you, and support doubling the maximum prison time for armed robbery. I also want you to be prepared, should there be an overwhelming opinion one way or the other in the statehouse, to argue for your stance, or to be able to tell that same electorate why you had to change your mind should that be what happens. I want to stress what I will repeat in this information for you several times – increased prison time DOES NOT reduce recidivism unless the jail term is longer than 5 years. Anything lengthening a sentence by less will not make the streets any safer even if the electorate will fell safer because they feel the people are being locked up longer.
Armed Robbery is a serious crime in our state. It is treated as such by each and every member of the judicial branch, and none would take it lightly if such a case were to come before them. In most situations, it does require consideration of several factors:
- Armed Robbery as a state law, where the felon will be imprisoned for trying to take property that belongs to someone else.
- In most cases, federal laws regarding the possession of either an illegal firearm or a firearm by someone who is not allowed to have one.
- State laws regarding owning the firearm.
So it is immediately obvious that there are multiple laws that such a criminal could be held and tried for, all of which would add considerably to the amount of time he or she would serve in prison.
The problem arises, however, that it may not be beneficial to society to lock up some criminals for as long as others. In some cases, these laws are juggled about so that someone who is willing to cooperate with the police and prosecutors can admit guilt to one of them for a shorter sentence. Or in a truly hard-core case, those same police and prosecutors are allowed to charge the criminal with every law they can find to hold the person responsible for everything they can and to keep them out of the community to keep the residents of the state feeling a little safer.
At which point do we want to determine that the smartest thing to do is to place a required longer sentence on someone convicted of this crime? We need to consider many things: How much keeping this convict locked up is costing the public versus how much his continued freedom and robberies would cost the same public? Is there a governmental right that cannot be overturned in setting a longer prison sentence or will it be considered “cruel and unusual punishment”?
At this time the prison populations around the country are increasing much faster than the rate of new felony convictions are. Convictions are rising around 18% from 1992 to 2002, while the number of people in prison increased by 59% (Mauer, 702). Part of this may be answered by the large number of states that enacted “three strikes and you’re out” laws during the 1990’s. In California, that alone has caused an increase in the prison population to where there are now 8,000 people (among a prison population of around 1.2 million) serving terms of 25 years to life (Mauer, 702). Mandatory convictions for drug related arrests probably also increased this number, especially at the Federal level.
As noted at the beginning, the only time studies show a reduction in recidivism is when the jail term is longer than five years. “[T]he most comprehensive data on recidivism from the Department of Justice demonstrate that while recidivism rates are high—two-thirds of released prisoners are rearrested within three years of release—there is no significant difference among people spending anywhere from one to five years in prison. Only after five years do recidivism rates begin to decline somewhat …” (Mauer, 703). Realize that this reduction may be entirely due to the aging of that population. Older people supposedly commit fewer crimes, whether they have been in prison before or not.
Among those who are older and have been to prison, there is debate ongoing as to whether or not they return to prison because they are bad criminals, or because they just are caught more often (Marvell). We do know this: “After peaking around the age of 19 murder arrests per 100,000 population drop by more than an order of magnitude by the late 40s and continue to drop by another factor of 3 by the early 60s.” (Parker) From that we can assume that the commission of almost all crime drop after the perpetrators move past their 20s and 30s and make the assumption that age is part of what causes that change. (Although it could be what the police used to tell me when I was young and working for a small business and a kid was arrested for passing bad checks to the company – “Put the guy in jail so he can learn from the pros how to do it.”)
Before you wonder why we do not just automatically set a minimum of five years for any prison sentence, realize that such an action would most likely double or even triple the cost of imprisonment as the number of prisons needed increased. Which is why there was a mention made earlier of where, financially, this will sit well with the people who elect you to office, at what point will money in their pockets instead of money taken from them for taxes for more prisons cause them to change from their current “lock them up” mode to a “why more taxes from me?” mode.
As with Homeland Security and the way they react after someone attempts another attack on the United States, what is being done here is almost like theater. We are acting in these ways because we know it will make the people think we are acting, think we are doing something, and think that we are strong against crime. Actions like this do a great deal to help Mr. And Mrs. America feel as if they are safer in their homes tonight when in reality they are no safer than they were yesterday, and less safe than they will be if World War III broke out and all peace keeping forces and police were taken from the communities and the states. Nevertheless, they sleep better tonight knowing you were strong against crime, and that is what you need to look like if you plan to win reelection.
I am recommending you go along with this bill and support it. I have tried to give you all the good facts along with the bad that helped me in making this decision. Now let me put it on a more personal level. In Freakonomics, Levitt at one point details how according to criminologists and prison experts, the only way to have a good prison system that helps the prisoners is to remove the prisons. Many of the facts I have told you here today support that comment. As I look through the research, there are many people suggesting that there is a need to try to get criminals out of the prisons and back into society where they will supposedly learn the error of their ways while in the loving support of their families. I personally do not believe that. I cannot quantify it, but every criminal who is caught and put into prison does mean he is not out on the streets harming someone else. If you do that enough times it has to have the effect of removing an entire generation from society, and that generation would mainly be those who are already seen as down on their luck, having children before they are ready, and one push from being part of the criminal element already. The effect of locking them up, preferably through a good portion of their reproductive years, has the same effect that first got Levitt noticed, claiming that legal abortions caused the crime rate to drop. The fewer of the people who make up the majority of the criminal element, if not allowed to have children and introduce them into the same cycle, there are, the fewer future criminals there will be. And that allows me to sleep better at night.
REFERENCES
Levitt, Steven and Stephen J. Dubner (2005). Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. William Morrow/HarperCollins.
Marvell, T. , 2007-11-13 "The Relationship between Age and Crime Rates" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY, Atlanta Marriott Marquis, Atlanta, Georgia. Retrieved 1/6/10 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p200461_index.html.
Mauer, Marc. Social Research. Vol. 74: No 2 (2007) “The Hidden Problem of Time Served in Prison “ Retrieved 1/5/10. http://sentencingproject.org/Admin/
Documents/publications/inc_hiddenproblemtimeserved.pdf.
Parker, Randall. Futurepundit. “Personality Changes With Age And So Do Crime Rates.” Updated 5/13/03. Retrieved 1/6/10. http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001249.html.