In other essays in this group, I discuss the breakdown of the family and the impact of family breakdown on moral formation. I suggested that inadequate moral formation is the root cause of crime. I suggested the possibility that the breakdown of the family has damaged its role in moral formation and that has contributed to the escalating rate of crime and incarceration. I have also discussed the important role that the peer group plays in moral formation and the fact that usually the “peer group” is found in schools, churches, families, and other community organizations. Those organizations help to build good citizens, but not all peer groups are helpful. I have pointed out that an economy that assigns economic value to individuals based on skills place a low value on individuals with poor skills. These individuals will ultimately be deemed “worthless”. According to one study, in the prison population, the average full range IQ is 92, (low average) with linguistic skills being even lower. So, in this essay, I will discuss the role of penitentiaries as a solution to crime, and the prospects are not good.
The modern prison system originated in Philadelphia in the early 1800’s. The idea behind penitentiaries had a somewhat theological basis. The idea was that individuals are born with a conscience and that if, after committing a crime the individual is given time to think about his or her inappropriate behavior, he or she will become penitent. Hence the word penitentiary. The thought ran, we will isolate them from society and give them time to think about their criminal activities. Given time to think about it, they will repent. The idea of penitentiaries that would rehabilitate criminals quickly spread and became an established part of our criminal justice system. Those ideas are not consistent with what we know about human development and moral formation. Even though the underlying theory was doomed to failure, penitentiaries were accepted as a way to remove the criminals from the street and to make the world a safer place to live. From the vantage point of the non-criminal population, it seemed like a good idea. Out of sight, out of mind.
There are significant problems with this approach. First, the approach ignores the real basis of moral formation. Morals are instilled by family and peer groups. What are we doing when we take all of the bad guys and put them at the same location? Who is the “peer group”? What are the chances that the original theory of penitence will work in that environment? Instead of an institution in which individuals become penitent, we are creating a graduate school for inappropriate moral formation. Just as the abusive father and immoral mother install the conscience backwards, the penitentiary peer group will move individual development in the wrong direction! At the end of the sentence, we send these individuals, who were probably economically handicapped to begin with, and with the stigma of penitentiary even more economically handicapped, back to the street.
The cost of penitentiaries is spiraling upward. The rate of incarceration in the United States remained constant from 1924 to 1964, but, over the past 50 years the rate has greatly escalated. The cost is very high. I suspect that the cost of maintaining our prisons is greater than the cost the State of Alabama pays for all its efforts in higher education. The spiraling costs and overcrowding creates pressure for early release, and the rate of recidivism is high.
The problem with incarceration of large numbers of people in penitentiaries is that although it is a very expensive burden for tax payers, it is not an effective solution to the problem of crime. Solutions to these problems is not at all easy or obvious. Intuitively, it is clear there has got to be a better solution to the problem of criminal conduct other than assembling all of the criminals at a mega-prison. The Alabama Department of Corrections is a law unto itself, and is the way its officers and employees make a living. They are skillful at playing the State off against the Federal Courts and overcrowding, and prospering economically as a result. The system lobbies to perpetuate itself. The problem is the system and the solution must be a system founded on proper moral formation. We need intervention at a many earlier stages in the moral development of the individuals who are likely candidates, or likely to become candidates for incarceration. Although the traditional family has broken down, we need to be very vigilant in attending to the moral formation needs of the very young. We need to find training programs so that those persons who are not talented in the ways of traditional education can nevertheless, find meaningful activity in which they make a meaningful contribution to society. They need to be appreciated. Incarceration in a central penitentiary needs to be a last resort. Needless to say there are hardened criminals who need to be locked up for long periods of time. But for others, we need to find better local, non-centralized penitentiary solutions. Local communities need to take a stronger interest in dealing with the problem. To make probation more successful, during my tenure as judge, I worked hard to promote a concept of probation sponsorship. I describe the probation sponsorship program in more depth in another essay in this group. But the next essay deals with the disproportionate rate of incarceration of the black race.
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