What Are Prisons For?

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Space is most often the problem. The Florida department of corrections, under whose auspices a quarter of all U.S. inmate suicides occur, finally agreed with a judge to put no more than four prisoners in space designed to hold three. In Texas, where until a year ago 2,000 inmates had to sleep on the floor, officials for one week in May simply stopped admitting new prisoners rather than flout Judge Justice's order. Illinois is appealing last year's federal court order to house inmates in single cells, which officials estimate would require $400 million in new construction. Michigan (like Iowa and Minnesota) has a law that automatically provides for releasing inmates when overcrowding becomes abject. Twice this year the statutory safety valve was triggered in Michigan, instantly subtracting 90 days from the sentences of most prisoners. By the end of the year 1,400 will have been freed early. Crowdedness has forced Illinois prison officials to lower their standards for giving "meritorious good time" to inmates. Alabama let out 277 surplus inmates last summer on the order of a federal court. Over the past five years, meanwhile, Alabama's prison budget has quadrupled.

Wardens will whisper their private gratitude that courts have finally got money out of legislatures, but the budgets have only begun ballooning. Experts estimate that between $6 billion and $10 billion will have to be spent simply to bring existing prisons up to snuff. Yet states surely cannot expect much help from the budget-cutting Federal Government. In short, there is an upper limit to how much imprisonment citizens will underwrite, despite the talk about cracking down on criminals.

Until the past few years it was all talk, not widely translated into concrete toughness. So why the imprisonment spree now? Essentially, because U.S. citizens reached a critical level of panic and anger at what they feel is a constantly lurking threat. Moreover, prosecutors in some states are winning a lot more cases, in part because they are concentrating their efforts on the career criminals responsible for a disproportionate share of street crime. Between 1972 and 1979 in Chicago's Cook County, felony convictions increased 470%. Many trial judges, roused by fierce, if glancingly focused public rage, have been imposing longer sentences. In New Jersey, the average prison sentence is 40% longer than that given four years ago, and the number of sentences increased in just one year from less than 14,000 to 18,000. Then there is the matter of parole. Four states have done away with it entirely, and in others its use has gone from prudent to stinting. Since 1977, 37 states have passed mandatory sentencing laws for certain crimes, which inflexibly deny judges the right to shorten or suspend sentences.