rates of incarceration – USA Gov Policy

In the aftermath of the October killing of a New York City police officer by a career criminal, outrage was expressed by many that the perpetrator was not in jail.

Despite the reality that an increase in incarceration, (rates of incarceration increased by 400% from 1970 to 2010, according to the Marshall Project) has resulted in a significantly lower crime rate for the past several decades, some continue to call for alternatives to incarceration that would allow some criminals to roam free.

In his October 17 weekly address, President Obama reiterated several of the myths guiding the call to reverse the strategy that has lowered crime. A White House description summarizes his comments:

“In this week’s address, the President highlighted the problems in our criminal justice system. Our country faces a vicious cycle of poverty, criminality, and incarceration that traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities. There are 2.2 million people behind bars in America today, compared to 500,000 just 30 years ago. This topic isn’t new – the President has talked about the unfairness of much of the criminal justice system since his time in the Senate. And while we’ve taken steps to address this issue, members of both parties agree that we can do more. Over the next few weeks, the President will travel the country and meet with Americans who are working to fix the criminal justice system, from law enforcement officials working to lower the crime and incarceration rates, to former prisoners who are earning their second chance. And he promised to continue to work with Congress to pass meaningful criminal justice reform that makes the system cost-effective, fairer, and smarter, while enhancing the ability of law enforcement to keep our communities safe.”

The Manhattan Institute’s Heather MacDonald writing in the Wall Street Journal, notes that America is in the midst of “the biggest de-legitimization of law enforcement in recent memory.”

Progressives incorrectly allege that the prison population is comprised in large part of nonviolent minor drug offenders. Ms. MacDonald provides more accurate statistics indicating that violent criminals and serial thieves constitute the vast majority of the incarcerated population. 87% of prisoners are in state jails. In 2013, drug offenders made up less than 16% of state prison populations. In the far smaller federal system, only 1% were imprisoned for simple drug possession, and 49% for serious drug trafficking. The next review will find that even those comparatively small numbers will be lowered even further in the aftermath of the dismantling of tough drug laws in the past few years.

The campaign against incarceration has produced a number of startling comments. A New Yorker article by Adam Gopnik typifies the progressive perspective: “How did we get here? How is it that our civilization, which rejects hanging and flogging and disembowelling, came to believe that caging vast numbers of people for decades is an acceptably humane sanction…William J. Stuntz, a [deceased] professor at Harvard Law School… startlingly suggests that the Bill of Rights is a terrible document with which to start a justice system—much inferior to the exactly contemporary French Declaration of the Rights of Man, which Jefferson, he points out, may have helped shape while his protégé Madison was writing ours.The trouble with the Bill of Rights, he argues, is that it emphasizes process and procedure rather than principles. The Declaration of the Rights of Man says, Be just! The Bill of Rights says, Be fair!”

As attitudes against incarceration harden, violent crime increases. Melanie Batley, writing for Newsmax provides a number of examples:

“A city-by-city look shows:

In Baltimore, shootings are up 82.5 percent, or nearly double from last year…
In Chicago, there have been over 900 shootings this year, a 40 percent increase, and a 29 percent increase in homicides in the first three months of the year…
In New York City, murders have increased 20 percent and the mayor has already announced that he will put an additional 330 cops on the street by Monday in response to the spike in homicides and shootings.
In Los Angeles, violent crime rates increased by more than 25 percent and the city is also deploying more officers to areas where crime is on the rise…

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And according to Townhall.com:

In St. Louis, there have been 55 murders this year
In Dallas, violent crime is up 10 percent
In Atlanta, homicides are up 32 percent
In Milwaukee, homicides have increased by 180 percent.”

The clear correlation between the increase in incarceration rates and the historic decrease in crime cannot be overlooked. To undue that success poses a true danger to the public.

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.