Prison Growth In American From 1970-2008

Why has there been a massive growth of the prison industry in America since the 1970's?

Since the 1970's there has been steady increase in the prison population where statistics now show from the BJS that more than one in every 100 adults are now in imprisoned. Statistics from the "PEW" state that one in 30 men between the ages of 20-34 are behind bars, however just because there is an increase in the numbers it does not mean it's down to an increase in crime. To further emphasise just how significant the growth is, the population in 1970 was around 300,000 but now the population in 2008 is over 2.3 million (BJS 2006). However there is not necessarily a parallel increase with crime; instead experts are putting the growth down to popular measures such as the "three-strikes", "truth in sentencing" and "broken window" policies. Different states have diverse policies and so when talking about America as a whole it is hard to talk about the prison industry as a whole, due to the fact that each state makes the line fluxuate.

During the 1970's Nixon endeavoured to be "tough on crime" however since that pledge the population his risen at least 6 times. There were significant tax cuts which resulted in social decay thus the chance for economic opportunities and possibility to purse the "American Dream" deteriorated. Therefore the rise in petty crime and drug use heavily increased. This can be backed up by statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice which illustrates an increase from 63,140 in 2000 to 77,987 in 2006 of inmates held in state and federal jails for petty crimes. If you were to apply Merton's "Strain Theory" in some states the most obvious way to achieve success would be to become a drug dealer consequently resulting in crime which does appeal to many people, hence by Clinton and Bush reducing tax meant that there would be a significant increase in the prison industry.

The government has tried to battle this rise in the prisons by imposing larger sentences to act as a deterrent and other policies which are known as the "broken window". They have introduced the "three strike" policy which means that if you are convicted of any 3 offences you will receive life which is a very good deterrent as Virginia applies this a lot of the time and has managed to slow the growth of the population (Bratton 2002). The government are trying to impose other punishments such as rehabilitation for drug offenders and thinking about legalising drugs because when the prohibition on alcohol ended statistics taken from "ACS" indicate that crime actually went down. All of these ideas however have not seemed to affect the general trend of the growing prison industry.

In Texas the prison industry there faced a 300% increase from 1970 to 2006 forcing a major expansion in the actually prisons. Instead of paying over 500 million dollars Texas decided to authorise a makeover of the prisons introducing drug treatments and diversion beds. By authorising this it meant that there was a huge demand in the market for new treatments and equipment which meant companies could now compete in this market. Consequently by Texas authorising this it meant that there was a sudden boost in the interest in the prison industry (John Moritz 2007). TX State Rep. Jerry Madden said that "It's far better for our society if we can get rid of the drug habit than if they just serve a short period of incarceration and go back to drugs after they come out". Texas are trying to actually cure the problem that just building more prisons and not working on rehabilitation and just working on punishment. There are a lot of states now that do not funding by the amount of prisoners they have or prisons but by their performance. Ken Moor, Director, Reno County believed that "For continued funding, we have to achieve that goal state-wide. The DOC has announced to us our funding will no longer be based solely on how many clients we have, but on our performance." Therefore we can see, using Texas as an example, states are trying to work on rehabilitation and not punishment to reduce numbers by curing the problem and as a result opening up the market to more companies for that reason making the industry much stronger and greater.

The prison industry is now much bigger than ever before worth around 40 billion dollars a year. Due to the overcrowding in state prisons and federal prisons which are on average 34% over designed capacity according to the BJS report, the prison industry has to rely on private prisons. Many states enjoy the companies taking on the task of building the prisons and covering the costs and just charging the state per inmate as the state tends to be a lot more lenient to a convicted felon in order to save money. Within the prison industry food, sanitation and clothing is required which means it offers more competition to the market for companies to become the supplier sparking huger interest in the growth. The private prisons try to incarcerate more for profit which does affect the trend.

The lack of rehabilitative approach in some states has led to high levels of recidivism for lots of criminals committing drug offences and minor crimes but the "three strike" law finds them with a life sentence (PEW 2008). The disadvantaged communities with a distinct lack of money find themselves in jail, and when they come out there is no way they can get a job due to ethnicity and having a criminal record. Consequently it means they will have to carry on their life of crime thus increasing their chances of going back to jail hence increasing the number of people in prison.

One theory for the sudden growth in the prison population is largely because of tougher state and federal sentencing imposed since the mid-1980's. Minorities have particularly affected: One in nine black men ages 20 to 34 is behind bars and black women ages 35 to 39, the figure is one in one 100 compared to one in 355 for white women the same age (PEW 2008).

Sociologist James Q. Wilson who helped develop the "broken window" theory stated that sentences for drug crimes were too long. He goes on the state that the reason there is such a huge prison industry is down to the fact that from the 1970's there has been a huge increase in public safety. The revised 1986 federal law mandating prison terms for crack cocaine offences that were up to eight times as long as for those involving power cocaine were found to be a harsh sentence. Laws such as these tell us how America has gone hard on its criminals and not letting people get away