How many Americans saw Johnny Cash at San Quentin?
Adam The NYTimes included an interesting article yesterday by Adam Liptak on a new Pew Report purporting that 1 in 100 U.S. adults is behind bars. This is true despite the report of the FBI that violent crimes have fallen by 25% from 1987.The report differs from the justice department statistics since it “calculates the incarceration rate by using the total population rather than the adult population as the denominator.”
The question for our readers is what the increasing prison population says about the legal practice and its punishment system. There is certainly a debate of whether we will be able to afford the incarceration of so many individuals now or in the future. Adam Gelb of the Pew Center says in the article, “Getting tough on crime has gotten tough on taxpayers.” One particularly wonders whether there needs to be a reconsideration of the current system especially in light of the decrease in violent crimes. Professor Frank Hermann, who teaches Criminal Law at BC, says, “Mandatory minimum sentences, particularly for drug offenses, are a large part of this number and many mandatory sentences need to be reconsidered.”
Eagleionline Question of the Day: Do you believe the US should reconsider its punishment system?
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