In a non-capital punishment country the power of the State to deprive us of our liberty is one of the greatest concessions we the citizenry make to it.

It is a power that needs to be wielded with responsibility, compassion and a due recognition of the enormity of the act of incarceration.

It is why I view the use of private prisons as an abrogation of that responsibility.

However I have always seen a second, implied responsibility and that is to ensure policies are in place that strive to limit the number of people who require incarceration. These involve spending on social programs like a safety net, decent drug and prison rehabilitation, decent community housing, decent mental health facilities, programs for school retention, and a strong and adaptive justice system.

Whenever I hear ‘tough on crime’ messages around election time or the building of new private prisons, I know it is instead a ‘tough on criminals’ stance that is only half the picture. Both parties do it but the new government in my state of Victoria seems more than usually enthusiastic in fulfilling their election rhetoric.

I want to put forward the proposition that if the policies of a government taken as a whole result in a long-term increase in the proportion of us citizens behind bars then it should be seen as a failure. The difficulty in any proper assessment is the length of time many mitigation policies require to bear fruit. The question is how long should we wait before judging a government’s efforts?

As much as I admire America the obscenely high proportion of its population behind bars (nearly double the next contender) should really earn it the title of a failed state. Few should want our country to walk that path. What should we demand of government to ensure we don’t?

Csteele, I really don't care where criminals are sent, I just want then off the street, somewhere where they are no longer able to worry their betters.

I don't care if they are rehabilitated, so long as they are off the street. I have very grave doubts that any are rehabilitated, I believe the claims that they have not re-offended simply mean that they have not been caught again. There is fart too much unsolved crime to believe it is all committed by clean skins.

I think we should be making judges, & parole boards responsible for their decisions, by having then serve the same sentences as the people they allow out on suspended sentences, or parole, or bail, who then re-offend. If it was they, rather than the poor general public who suffered for their bleeding heart attitude, we would have better sentencing, & a lot less crime.

What we need is some Indonesian, & Malaysian prison governors down here running our prisons. They do know how to run a penal system.

Interesting post.

Remember that the critical difference between getting something done by means of policy, and getting something done by voluntary means, is that policy is enforceable and enforced. Policy always involves threats of force which would otherwise be illegal. If you don’t comply, action may start as a threatening letter, or an order to pay a fine. But ultimately, if you continue to insist on your liberty, a group of armed men will come and physically seize you. If you don’t resist, you’ll be locked in a cage. If you do resist, they’ll use an escalating range of force, up to and including handcuffing you, threatening to taser or shoot you, and if that doesn’t work and you continue to resist or to use weapons as they are do, they’ll shoot you.

It is this critical difference that makes policy solutions so attractive to those who advocate policy solutions: they don’t have to go to the bother of getting the *agreement* of people who disagree with them.

The fact that people recognize that resistance is futile, does *not* mean they agree, doesn't mean threats of of incarceration don't underly *all* policy, and does not mean the use of force is necessarily ethically justified.

So the first thing we can do to limit the number of people who require incarceration, is to recognize that policy always involves the ethical question, whether the problem, which policy is advocated to solve, justifies the use or threat of violence as a means to an end.

The second thing we can do is to limit the definition of “requiring” incarceration. The ethical argument is this. In general, aggressive violence should *not* be the basis of social co-operation. Freedom and consent should be. The use of force or threats is justified to repel or constrain aggressive violence; but not otherwise.

For example, the war on drugs is *not* a justifiable use of policy because using drugs or selling them does not amount to aggressive violence. The repeal of these laws would greatly reduce the numbers incarcerated both in the USA and here.

Peter will put.

R0bert

Dear Peter,

Thank you for the response. An argument about the 'evils' of Statism is probably relevant but possibly distracting. I feel most of us see it entirely appropriate to give up some freedoms to have a functioning communities.

But your post did have me dwelling on the differences between the USA and Australia. I think it is evident that the safety nets we have in place in this country are a lot stronger than those in America and I see them as having a bearing on incarceration rates.

Sustaining hyper-capitalism comes at a cost since the inevitable creation of winners and losers is more extreme than here.

But one gets the sense that the cult of individualism and personal freedom is a huge factor.

It is almost as if freedom is a 'capital', or a finite resource, there is only so much to go around and the more some people grab for themselves the less there is for others.

I find it staggering to think the US has over six times the rates of imprisonment to Australia and we have three times the rate of Denmark. Wealth distribution has to play a significant role.

But back to the original question, is the of its citizens behind bars a fair measure by which to judge the success or otherwise of a government?

I would argue it is. For instance a government that wanted to crack down on fraud without a decent policy addressing problem gambling is to me failing us.

“A study of offenders on community corrections orders in the Australian Capital Territory found that, of those who reported problem gambling, 26 percent admitted that it contributed to their offending, and 46 percent said they had obtained money illegally to pay for gambling or related debts” (Lahn 2005)

Looks like you’re in favour of a most expansive definition of who requires incarceration after all.

“But back to the original question, is the of its citizens behind bars a fair measure by which to judge the success or otherwise of a government? I would argue it is.”

This question is unclear, both because it’s missing a word, and if “number”or "proportion" is supplied between “the” and “of its citizens”, then you would be arguing that the number or proportion of citizens behind bars is a fair measure by which to judge the success or otherwise of a government.

I don’t think you meant to say that numbers incarcerated is a fair measure of the *success* of a government. But if you meant a fair measure of the *failure* of a government, obviously, it would depend on what is the criterion justifying imprisonment.

For example, you think everyone who disagrees with paying income tax should be imprisoned, don’t you, because you obviously
a) want to take the fruits of their labour without their consent so you can spend it on whatever you want, and
b) don’t think it should be voluntary i.e. people should be caged into submission, or threatened with being shot etc.

So let me ask you this. Are there any things that you believe *on principle* should not be decided by government and arbitrary political power? If so, what are they, and why?

The political controversies of the 16th and 17 centuries turned on religious issues and theological disputes, the how-many-angels-can-you-fit-on-the-head-of-a-pin?-type controversy. Similarly many political controversies of the 18th and 19th centuries were about nationalism, which simplifies history for its consumers into an ethnocentric-type us/them dichotomy. In their nature, these cannot be solved by reference to reason or evidence, and ultimately can only be resolved by appeal to arbitrary power.

But the political controversies of the 20th and 21st centuries resolve to issues of economics, and these propositions are amenable to rational proof or disproof. For example, your idea that somebody’s wealth must come from somebody else’s improverishment is the oldest fallacy in economic thought.

Similarly, your characterization of a coercive state monopoly that confiscates, under threat of incarceration, over fifty percent of the product of its subjects, and spends *all* of it on war, militarism, empire, counterfeiting, a growing police state, corporate handouts, inflating the currency, manipulating interest rates, creating and maintaining economic bubbles, privileges for political favourites left and right paid for by consuming capital on a grand scale, price controls, restricting productive activity in tens of thousands of ways, and every kind of arbitrary attack on voluntary liberty, as “hyper-capitalism” is to proceed by misunderstanding, empty slogans and circular argument instead of critical thinking.

“Nothing can be known about such
matters as inflation, economic crises, unemployment,
unionism, protectionism, taxation, economic con-
trols, and all similar issues, that does not involve and
presuppose economic analysis. . . . A man who talks
about these problems without having acquainted
himself with the fundamental ideas of economic the
ory is simply a babbler who parrot-like repeats what
he has picked up incidentally from other fellows who
are not better informed than he himself.”
Mises

"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance."
Murray Rothbard

Your self-contradictory belief that arbitrary imprisonment is a good or clever way to produce socially beneficial results is wrong both in ethics (that’s why you’ve just contradicted yourself), and in practice.

But if you are interested in understanding the basis of social co-operation on the basis of intellectual honesty, instead of slogans and beliefs that cannot withstand critical scrutiny, then I respectfully commend the following to your readership:
http://mises.org/Books/mespm.PDF

It's incongruous that a country like the US that takes freedom to the nth degree--even to the point where free health-care is seen as a threat to this ethos--is simultaneously the world's most prodigious incarcerator. If people are free to die in the streets unmolested, why are they punished for expressing themselves via crime? Despite all the rhetoric, the US is the ultimate in neoliberal stateism--that is collectivism is only only observed to protect the rump.
I'm blowed if I can see what there is to admire about the US, "the land of the free", what a joke!
More like the land of double standards, cowboy diplomacy and lies.

Dear Peter,

The missing word was 'minimizing' but it would not have made complete sense either as I don't want to be seen to support hunger strikes.

Just to be clear I personally don't want to forcibly take money off anyone to spend it on what I want.

I do however want to live in a society that takes a portion of each individuals earnings, based on their ability to pay, to finance the services of a government that allow us to live safe, healthy, and educated lives. There may well be some areas of spending that I may stridently disagree with but I'm not interested in overturning the system because of them, nor am I going to withhold the tax I pay.

So while others might disagree with paying tax (I don't think we shoot people for that in this country) I support the requirement to do so for exactly the same reason I want an excise tax on fuel and a tax on cigarettes.

As for the diatribe against my use of the word hyper-capitalism it smells of the rather lame argument of an ardent economic rationalist and I have heard it before. Whenever the West's most laissez faire capitalist society is challenged the retort is always something like "You call that capitalism? It ain't even close. If it was true capitalism then all the problems would disappear." The argument is no different to that used by those espousing communism.

The proof is plain to see. I have enjoyed, through many years of running small businesses, a capitalist society but I want it to continue to be of a civilized nature with restraints on both ends to address the obscenely poor and the obscenely rich.

Cont..

Cont..

Despite your claims to the contrary the US version is 'hyper' compared to the rest of the world's major capitalist countries. All of us have our visions of Utopia but the messiness of human affairs will always see them unrealized without substantial suffering for at least a segment of society. I'm not prepared to pay that sort of price for an ideology. So we try to work things into some degree of equable stability. I don't think the Yanks have got it right on incarceration nor we. The Danes would appear to be a lot closer.

An increasing number of a country's citizens behind bars is should be of concern to any thinking government. While the notion of full employment seems to be lost to capitalist whims and a figure of 5% our new 'stability' rate, what should we accept as an incarceration rate of our fellow citizens? 50 per 100,000?

I want to any move for tougher sentencing laws for instance to be counterbalanced by policy to maintain an agreed figure. Why is this unreasonable?

I don't want my country to end up with 1/4 of it's adult population ineligible for a job at an increasing number of businesses because they have a record. This is the case in the US.

Dear Squeers,

Lol. Slightly unexpected but taking no prisoners as always (so to speak). There was a time when a mock Gulag was build on the grounds at Havard University I think it was to highlight the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of Russians citizens. However rates in the US have left the Russian figures for dead. Why isn't a mock Texan Supermax replica being build now?

The answer of course is 'ours aren't there for their political views'. But surely that is worse.

To quote from our Watkin Tench, a young Marine officer with the original expedition to settle convicts in Australia: "The first step in every community which wishes to preserve honesty should be to set the people above want."

Squeers

I lived in the USA many years ago. It is a land of contradictions, being both damned and blessed. I became very irritated at being regarded as less fortunate for being from another country - many Americans know little beyond the 'shining seas'.

I also found it friendly, positive and magnificent in its self-confidence. And equally astounding in its myopia.

However:

>> More like the land of double standards, cowboy diplomacy and lies. <<

Show me a nation that isn't blinded by its own rhetoric. We are a tribal species, our brains have yet to catch up with our domination of this planet.

Csteele

Apologies, I read the end of the your thread and felt I should respond to Squeers.

Back to your topic.

Privatising prisons is yet another import from the USA we could do without. Public utilities should never be part of the for-profit sector - it is a conflict of interest between the well being of the prisoner for any chance of rehabilitation and the money to be made by keeping prison populations high and long-term.

In addition, like so many privatised enterprises, it still receives government subsidies. More examples of privatise the profits and socialise the losses.

The masses continue to be screwed.

Csteele and Ammonite,
I am conscious that I'm hard on the US and it's certainly true that Australia's no better. But the US set's itself up as a force for good in the world, sanctimoniously preaching freedom and democracy on the world stage when these are just hollow rhetoric. The incarceration rate is just one indicator that American imperialism is rotten.
It's surely true <that if the policies of a government taken as a whole result in a long-term increase in the proportion of us citizens behind bars then it should be seen as a failure> The fact that the vast majority are black is a further indictment. The US ought to get its own house in order before it preaches to the rest of the world.

Dear Ammonite,

All your concerns about privatisation of prisons are really valid.

The State of Texas is an extraordinary example of where things have gone entirely off the rails.

By the end of the 1990’s and George Bush’s governorship the state had an annual growth rate in its prison population of over 11% throughout that decade.

One in 20 adults were under the control of the justice system either through direct incarceration, parole, or community based orders. The figures are even more damning for young black men where one in every three was under some form of supervision.

Yet over the same period crime only dropped by 5% compared to the national average of 10% and California’s decline of 23%.

But why the huge increase in incarceration with a falling crime rate? The answer may well be here.

“At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom's, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call "highly skilled positions." At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.”

Cont..

Cont..

“Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.”

“[Former] Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that "there won't be any transportation costs; we're offering you competitive prison labor (here)."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289

Why don’t we call it what it is, legalised slavery. There are indications of its horrors in the annual staff turnover rates of the private prisons contracted by the State of Texas. It is 90%.

However I don’t think it is a coincidence though that during Bush’s governorship he passed the two largest tax cuts in the State’s history and the per capita spend of Texas is still the lowest in the nation.

My state of Victoria is a case in point. A relatively stable incarceration rate started climbing after Jeff Kennett was elected and by his second year when his cuts were starting to bite it was already 10% higher. At the end of his term they were over 25% higher but under the Labour Premier Bracks they continued to climb, even accelerate reaching a high of over 80 per 100,000 in his last year, a rate that eclipsed anything in the previous 100 years.

We need to be able to hold governments to account for these figures but it is hard to get past the ‘lock ‘em up and throw away the key’ mentality that prevails at election time.

Ammo:”Public utilities should never be part of the for-profit sector - it is a conflict of interest between the well being of the prisoner for any chance of rehabilitation and the money to be made by keeping prison populations high and long-term.”

Not much difference between a prisoner, foster child, and a hospital patient when it comes to profit. Funding depends on all services being well under par since a successful outcome would mean their services are no longer needed or the need is reduced along with the income/funding.

Ammo:”The masses continue to be screwed.”

Yep. The masses should wake up.

Dear Squeers,

While I don’t think a current incarceration rate in Australia of 133 per 100,000 compares with the American figure of 743 but I do note that if the Northern Territory were a country it would be second only to the US and yes the vast majority in this case are black as well.

One might think the NT has historically been a bit of a wild frontier and it certainly had those characteristics when I lived there pre cyclone but the recent increase in rates have been dramatic.

“At 30 June 2010, the Northern Territory continued to have the highest imprisonment rate at 663 prisoners per 100,000 adult population. All states and territories, with the exception of Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory, recorded increased imprisonment rates since 2000. The Northern Territory recorded the largest percentage increase in the imprisonment rate between 2000 and 2010, rising 41% (from 469 prisoners per 100,000 adult population to 663 prisoners per 100,000 adult population). This was followed by South Australia, increasing by 35% (from 113 to 153 prisoners per 100,000 adults). The imprisonment rate in Queensland decreased between 2000 and 2010 (3%, from 167 to 162 prisoners per 100,000 adults), and a slight decrease (1%) was also recorded for the Australian Capital Territory over the same period (from 102 to 101 prisoners per 100,000 adults).”

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/E3ADE4A394878BD1CA2577F3000F0A26?opendocument

While one might do it through gritted teeth there is a reason for tilting the hat to Queensland’s effort especially since it has its fair share of problem areas.

One might draw conclusions from high incarceration rates and relate this to mismanaged economies. The highest incarceration rates tend to be in those places where there is greatest disparity both in incomes and/or access to opportunity. Privatising detention centres has proven to be untenable. Experience reveals essential services and utilities are open to rorting when the private sector is involved particularly where there is little oversight.

It was the same in Iraq and Afghanistan where private contractors were found to be fleecing governments (taxpayers) with false purchases and over-calculating personnel and facilities costs. There are some services that should not be subject to a profit motive over a greater good or the collective interests. Where the line falls is the subject of disagreement. I don't find many people that believe all facets of life (products and services) should be provided by the private sector or the public sector to the exclusion of the other.

The US is on the surface about 'freedoms' but often it is distorted to facilitate easy exploitation of others (eg. low minimum wage) in the pursuit of wealth. The pursuit of wealth is very much wrapped up in the US psyche around freedoms at the cost of other factors.

Resistance against public health care is a good example. Safety nets allow freedoms and stability where sometimes a deregulated free market does not and where ownership of property rates higher on the moral compass than personal liberty (other than freedom to bear arms) and where one's labour is little valued.

Prisons serve a purpose in protecting the 'innocent' from the guilty but I do think there is room for big reforms including a different way of approaching drug rehabilitation (over incarceration for low end users) as well as better rehabilitation services overall especially for the young.

Shortage of space means separation of the most hardened of criminals from younger and/or less dangerous prisoners is not well oversighted. Prison is a good place to learn and foster criminal behaviour. I cannot see how privatising prisons would encourage a rehabilitation agenda over a purely protection agenda.

Steele, we all know that the war on drugs is an abject failure, that placing or keeping people behind bars for wanting to medicate themselves is absurd, while we as a society sell actual dangerous drugs to anyone over 18 who wants them.

The lot should be legalised and regulated, then they will cause the same boost in taxation that alcohol and tobacco do (without the deaths).

We could cut the billions spent on prisons, on police and on "law and order", 90-odd percent of all crime is done by people looking for money to get stoned, get rid of the overpriced, street drugs and actually treat it as a health problem, then its game over.

Even if drugs were sold openly, by government licensed vendors, to over 18's only, with a daily limit (and need for id for purchases), the number of users will not jump dramatically (Portugal decriminalized all drugs years ago so the data exists). The money will be gone, thus so will the criminals, the corruption and the vice that surrounds the same.

Then we'll have a huge number of people who can be highly (speedfreaks especially so) productive members of society.

I like what you say, csteele, though I also think Hasbeen has a point.

Some of our inmates are imprisoned for crimes that are arguably "crimes of desperation". When I arrived in this country back in '88, the Australians I met were busy glamorising the "First Fleeters", many of whom were apparently innocent victims of poverty, transported for stealing loaves of bread to feed their starving families. It was my understanding, as a new arrival, that I should feel sorry for these people.

Now, in 2011, I've given up hanging my shirts out to dry on my washing line because, if they're out there for a full day (or night), they are routinely stolen. I live within walking distance of a rather impoverished neighbourhood, and I'm guessing that many of the people who are now wearing my shirts do so because they are desperate. I'm not encouraged to feel sorry for them. However, addressing the cause of that desperation would, by extension, address the crime and, perhaps, reduce the frequency with which it occurs. Eliminating the causes of desperation (a pipedream, no doubt) would reduce the rates of some crimes and reduce the numbers of people in prisons.

Where I say Hasbeen has a point is that our legal system releases these people back onto the streets (having learnt a skill or two in the big house) without addressing the causes of their crimes. They return to civilisation with the same problems they had when they were put away, fewer job prospects (and fair enough: I don't particularly like the idea of employing a thief, arsonist, murderer, rapist, etc.) and the same avenue for escape - crime.

I think there are some people who are impossible to rehabilitate. There are some people who are just plain malicious, whose crimes deserve little sympathy and lots of punishment. For those people, prison is a suitable place. Our crime rate will never dwindle to zero, but it might be reduced if we make a more concerted effort to address the causes of crime while maintaining (or strengthening) our hardline on its effects.

csteele,

I didn't mean to suggest above that Australia's incarceration rate was comparable to that of the US, only that, as has often been said, in general Australia is like the 51st state of the US.
You've obviously done your research and it's great to see a patriot taking such a critical position.
I agree with Otokonoko that some people just belong in prison, or at least not in society, but for mine these are a tiny minority and the rest are symptomatic of a criminal and sick society.
I've long been critical of the way we treat "individuals" rather than the environment that produced them, however, whether for mental illness, drug addiction, or criminal behaviour; as if the problem inevitably resides with them rather than the society that propagates the behaviour.
I don't believe our species, by and large, is recidivist or mentally compromised or dissolute by nature; these "disorders" are cultivated and exploited in turn. And so long as "offending" individuals are "dealt with" by the sanctimonious State as "recalcitrants", or "pathological" (and credulously own themselves as such), the state will add insult to injury by taking kudos in locking them up, or medicating them! In effect distancing itself from associations "it" nurtured.

csteele, Otokonoko, Squeers, Pelican.

I cannot add much to the points you have all made, apart from agreeing with Custard about decriminalising drugs - however would draw the line at such drugs being as readily available as tobacco and alcohol - we have enough problems with those drugs already.

Treating addicts as criminals achieves nothing, apart from making money for private prisons. They require help, rehabilitation. Decriminalisation would wipe out the top heavy criminal element.

There is no single easy answer, however that we refrain from taking action which we know works far better than what we have at present (from the efforts taken by other countries and in NSW) is either a lack of common sense or an indication that there are people higher up who continue to benefit from the status quo.

A recent example, is the request by the Richmond City council in Victoria, requesting a safe injecting room for addicts in an effort to get these people off the streets leaving syringes and other detritus lying around. The State Government would not even enter into discussion, despite the evidence of success by the Kings Cross drug treatment centre.

WOULD NOT EVEN DISCUSS. This same government recently introduced on the spot fines for swearing. Why do conservatives howl "nanny state" when out of power? Yet apply far more draconian restrictions when in power?

http://tinyurl.com/3l8gy8l

"Zero tolerance" neo-con speak for "nanny state".

How to break the "black market" is the question, while there is an unmet demand, we will continue to have a "black market" for drugs. Police, Judges and most Politicians, would, if they had the guts to tell the truth, tell you they know 'dammed' well that the "War" cannot be won. They also know 'dammed' well that over 1/3 (rapidly approaching 1/2) of all people have used drugs or their family does. How can a government retain legitimacy while it fights a war on behalf of a law that almost 1/2 of all Australian's disagree with? How can a law be valid, given our Constitution, if over 25% of people disagree with it? Why aren't they given the opportunity to have their say at the ballot box? How can the current laws be legitimized without testing the question at the ballot box?

Dear pelican,

You will not get an argument for private prisons from me. I also think blame for many of the issues in our detention centres can be laid directly at the feet of cost cutting, particularly around staff numbers and training.

There is ample evidence that mismanaged economies do add to incarceration rates, however policy decisions can also have quite dramatic effects on numbers. Take my state of Victoria. While it is easy to point the finger at the Kennett cuts to public spending, for instance one of the schools he closed saw only 2/3rds of the students enrolling elsewhere and one can not help but think some of the other 1/3rd may be contributing disproportionally to our prison population, it is the whole story.

Unless it can be illustrated otherwise I will continue to believe the introduction of casinos and poker machines into this state, initiated by Kirner, accelerated by Kennett, and cemented in place by Bracks, should shoulder a large part of the blame for incarceration rates jumping by 60%.

Some of the measures of the Brumby government may well have seen the figures plateauing, but I contend they are abnormally high and only strong action on the issue of problems gamblers will see a decline (thank you Andrew Wilke).

Dear Custard and Ammonite,

It was interesting to hear a story about the former premier of Victoria, one Jeff Kennet, having had a really decent crack at decriminalizing marijuana in this state. His views on the issue had been changed through a conversation with his teenage sons as he drove them to school one day. In the eyes of the law their friend's recreational use would have viewed them as engaging in criminal behaviour. Kennett recognised the absurdity a law that could have seen promising lives and careers ruined through possible arrest and conviction.

I accept that it will take a courageous conservative government to manage change in this area. The Labour Party or the Greens just couldn't get away with it. Unfortunately courage seems to be a little lacking in our incumbents at the moment.

Dear Otokondo and Squeers,

While Australia is certainly more focussed on rehabilitation than the USA, countries like Denmark leave us for dead. Their view is that criminal behaviour is an illness and as such generally treatable. The result is their stunningly low recidivism rates.

From what I can gather recidivism rate is Denmark is around 27%. Here it is 38.2% and the national rate in the US is 68.5% which is insane. Our highest state or territory unsurprisingly is the NT at 44.8% but the standout state for reducing rates was Victoria who dropped theirs by 12% over the five years to 2009 to 35.6.

Your post Otokondo does raise another point. Victims of crime are naturally and understandably less sympathetic to criminals and rehabilitative spending. It is obvious some jurisdictions like Texas get themselves into cycles where as crime increases so do the calls for harsher sentences in environments less favourable to rehabilitation, resulting in hardened criminal classes and thus more crime.

To have the people of that state approve several billion dollars to TRIPLE the size of their prison system in the early 90's was to me barely conceivable, but it happened. The mentality of the police and courts became 'You build 'em and we'll fill 'em', and they did, so much so that the State now has to pay local county jails to hold the overflow.

We need to guard against the danger of instigating just such a cycle here although the figures from the NT would indicate that in one jurisdiction at least we may be too late.

csteele,

it seems the mania for locking up its citizens in the US is defensible after all. In fact it's virtuous in the most sublime way it can be virtuous: it's profitable! http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289
What a great way to stay profitable; move manufacturing to prison at 25 cents an hour, even China can't compete with that! The ultimate in segregation; keep the undesirables off the nice middle-class streets and make money at the same time.
Why should we follow rehabilitation regimes like Denmark's when there's money to be made? The US is leading the way.
The ancient Greeks ethically-agonised over their dependency on slavery, but the US has solved the problem: reassign them "criminals", then they can be ethically exploited in order to pay off their debt to society.

Well Squeers, there is still some hope for the US after all.

They are still having good ideas after all, unlike so much of the old world.

Still I think they may have copied that one from China.

Wow, Squeers, What a revealing article!....and what a diabolical system it exposes.

It is slavery! - and all those corporations invest in the slavery - not to mention that economically stunted communities have in the past vied competitively to lure prison complexes to their towns in the U.S. because of the economic boost that comes with it.

Blacks and Hispanics make up the majority of slaves.

"The Land of the Free' - I don't think so....more like the land or corporatised slave farms

Dear Squeers,

Every now and then I need a reminder to keep my posts a little more succinct and you have just done that. The link you quoted is I think one I quoted from and posted "by csteele, Tuesday, 7 June 2011 2:22:51 PM". I need to tighten things up.

And I entirely agree. The fact that the vast majority are black must lend weight to the term legalized slavery. Perhaps a boycott of Target in Australia with the slogan "Keep the products of American slave labour off our shelves" might be interesting.

Apologies for that, csteele. I hadn't read the link you provided but just found the article via search terms along the lines of "prison profit". I hope you won't change your style, you're already one of the most lucid posters on OLO.

in-car-ser-ration
in car seration

either way its unpleasant
[i have word for 25 cents an hour
and been in private and public prisons]

most are there for defaulting an order
[this is the highest ratio of crime]
those too poor to pay punative fine regemes
[like being one day late with rego costs near 2000 plus court costs]

so you couldnt afford rego
who cant govt..could..auto-fine you the cost of rego
[that then..if unpaid puts you in jail...[for a week]
we could free up the courts]

but im sick of giving them ideas
they want legal slavery..and got it
now they need to make up the numbers
so the capitalists..can reap in nice govt capital
by lobbying morer crime..[more reasons to jail]

and when discharged..you be homeless
and the wife and kids are gone

a great system..
that capitalists have be-gotten.

religeons for creed abouve need
yes abrogating responsability governance regress
compounded by odious debt...exposing the real criminals

Dear Squeers,

Thanks for the compliment but happy enough if I can hold down middle rung, particularly as the majority of my post are off an iPhone and OLO is not yet the most friendly for editing with the device. I often wince at the number of dropped words I find when reading the thread again.

As for the link it certainly deserves being posted more than once. It is damning.

Squeers, csteele, Poirot

Thanks for keeping this thread as interesting as it is informative. Many years ago an Aussie film titled: "Ghosts of the Civil Dead" was made on the topic of privatised prisons. Worth a watch just for the ending: filmed in my home town which really brought me an extra chill and sense of despair. Nick Cave makes an OTT cameo (can't help myself - live for music, film, the arts in general).

I see no end in sight of unfettered capitalism of all our essential services from our current political system. Also I do not get the anachronism trotted out by those of "left" or "right" wing - the winner is money ahead of humanity.

Cannot believe Labor government prepared to send unaccompanied children to Malaysia - incarceration of children, I am sickened by it all. Didn't think we could get any lower than the "children overboard" shite and we have.

Poor Country Australia.

Squeers,

Man I used that on Belly's missing children thread and nobody was the least bit concerned at the US and it's organised slavery.

It's only slavery of men mostly, so it's probably not a human rights issue and nothing to do with equality I suppose.

Houellebecq,
the article has done the rounds then--I suspect modern versions of slavery are a huge issue for women too, but less so prison slavery.

" Squeers, csteele, Poirot

Thanks for keeping this thread as interesting as it is informative".

Thanks Ammonite, but I deserve very little credit here. Have been run off my feet and unable to contribute much at all of late.
I think this thread deserves far more attention than it's received.

squeers,

'I suspect modern versions of slavery are a huge issue for women too, but less so prison slavery.'

Female slavery on the whole is an outrage, male slavery not so much.

I reckon it would be much more public knowledge and a massive scandal if those prison inmates were women. The fact that they were in prison would be explained away and excused by inequality and poverty, and the stats would be used as further evidence of women's oppression.

Male prisoners on the other hand deserve to be in there and that there are more male prisoners than female is no evidence of inequality but rather the innate abusive nature of men.

Dear Ammonite,

Privatization brings the sort of obscenity that has judges incarcerating hundreds juviniles for extended periods in the name of profit.

"On March 26 the Supreme Court approved Grim's recommendations and ruled that Ciavarella had violated the constitutional rights of thousands of juveniles, and hundreds of juvenile convictions were ordered overturned."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

Just read between the lines and listen to this corporate speak from a company pushing for the privatization of the Texan prisoner health services. "Company officials could not be reached to elaborate, but its written proposal says it would cut costs by reducing admissions of prisoners to hospitals and by reducing the number of inpatient days that prisoners are there — a rate that the company says is 300 percent higher in Texas than the average at its locations.  It would also enhance medical treatment in prison clinics, as a way to keep convicts from being sent to a hospital, where the costs would be higher. Reducing annual admissions by 140 percent would yield a potential savings of $34 million, the proposal states...."
http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2011/05/private-providers-seeking-piece-of-prison-health-care-pie-in-texas.html

But returning to our own house I am wondering if anyone has a position on whether governments should be held accountable for increases in incarceration rates? Why can't we settle on a desirable figure and treat it like a budget? If Victoria wants to introduce mandatory minimum sentences or if WA wants a three strikes rule then why shouldn't they be forced to find mitigating policy like drug decriminalization to 'fund' it?

I would be interested to hear some thoughts?

Houellebecq,

your point does make sense; there is an intuitive logic, which we don't question, that men are predisposed to offend. Maybe the system fails men more than it does women..
Glad to see you're in favour of radical reform : ) Though the ladies might have something to say about that!

csteele,

I think your budget idea has great merit (with a provisor); surely letting society degenerate to such high proportions of incarceration is as much an election issue as tax cuts? You'd think so..
A police state surely suggests something's wrong?
Though I don't know if lowering the bar of acceptable behaviour is the answer, that just means degeneracy wins, doesn't it?
Hence my provisor; it's a great idea if we see the current set-up as redeemable, and so worthy of remedial action. But sometimes we have to accept that the disease is fatal and keeping the patient alive is pathetic and cruel.
Seen from the point of view of the "prosperous", the system certainly seems worth preserving as it is (though don't look too closely--they're a shallow lot), but from the point of view of the "degenerates" (anyone who's not well off), a radical redistribution (rather than magnaminous tolerance) might be in order?

Dear Squeers,

Thanks for the response.

Agree entirely. I believe it is talked about as spending on the front end of life rather than the back end. It was estimated that every juvenile offender in WA will cost the state through their lifetime around $400,000. Also the younger they are when they make their first court appearance the more serious the crime they are likely to commit later in life.

$150,000 would by the best private school education.

Governments have a responsibility to husband the whole of society. Where some make a mistake is thinking incarceration is the key to lowering crime rates. It is often the easiest measure to take since getting tough on criminals will generally garner votes. However it is short sighted and generally cheats society of appropriate social spending.

The flight to private schools is a case in point. If a government maintained absolute funding levels we would now have one of the best education regimes in the world. Instead it is in their interest to underfund and have more parents fund a percentage of their child's education in the private sector.

Chronic and continuing underfunding impacts on dropout rates which are on the rise in Victoria particularly in rural areas. Another policy that will come home to roost in the incarceration rates.

Early and adequate intervention of those who are likely to fall through the cracks should be the commitment of any society that values human lives. It is a pity to think it takes a cost benefit analysis to sway a government into action. We should be funding it because we don't want to see blighted lives perpetually carried through the justice system.

csteele

Agree entirely. We have lost sight of the reason we have governments, that is to provide services that for either economic conflict or moral reasons private enterprise cannot provide to the same level of accountability. Well that was how it was supposed to be.

On accountability, governments have become exceedingly opaque, thus giving reason for the levels of welfare to the private sector, such as in schools. The private sector has eagerly promoted this belief, that public enterprises are less efficient.

If the trend continues, government will put itself out of a job, there is no other single body set up to take responsibility for the treatment of people judged to be criminals.

The art of governing is not the same as running a business - yet that is apparently how governance is perceived to be today - all about making a profit instead of putting back into a nation's needs.