-Welcome to the show. -Thanks. Great to be here.
You are considered by many
to be the leading expert on sentencing policy
and the criminal justice system in America.
This book, The Meaning of Life,
uh, specifically tackles abolishing life sentences.
The big question is, why?
Well, two reasons, mainly.
As we have a movement to end mass incarceration now,
which is very encouraging,
in far too many cases, I think people believe
if we just had some more drug treatment programs,
that would take care of the problem.
The problem's much deeper than that.
In terms of sentencing,
one of every seven people in American prisons today
is serving a life sentence-- 206,000 people.
So we can't end mass incarceration
unless we do something about excessive sentences.
-Right. -It's also a public safety problem,
and life sentences actually are counterproductive
for public safety.
The one thing we know about involvement in crime
is that people age out of crime.
Uh, mid-teen years, late-teen years, early 20s,
that's a high-risk time.
Crime rates go up in that age group,
but they rapidly come down.
So by the late 20s, 30s, 40s, certainly 50s and 60s,
the risk of involvement for criminal activity
is much diminished.
So if we have people in their 50s, 60s and 70s,
we're not preventing very much crime while they're in prison,
but we're spending enormous resources to do so.
-But now some people... -(cheering and applause)
I-I agree with you on this book,
but, I mean, there's obviously people who disagree
and say to you, "But shouldn't somebody spend life in jail
if they have taken somebody else's life, for instance?"
-Mm-hmm. -What would your argument be to counter that?
People have to be accountable for their crimes,
whether it's taking a life, whether it's shoplifting,
anything in between that.
But the scale of what should take place
is very different in the United States.
We are far more punitive than comparable nations.
If you look in Western Europe, it's very unusual
for anybody to spend more than 20 years in prison,
either by law or in practice,
and they say for the most serious crimes,
you will get 20 years.
For the less serious crimes, it may be ten or 15,
-and so on. -Right.
But we have a very different scale
with the death penalty atop of the scale,
life without parole at the top of the scale,
so it exerts pressure on crimes across the board.
That's part of the reason we have mass incarceration.
If you steal a car in the United States,
you're going to spend more time in prison than if you did that
in England or Italy or many other countries.
Right, but when you're trying to convince people of this idea,
a lot of the time, it seems like the arguments, um,
are framed in a way that benefits
someone who's committed a crime, you know?
Someone will say, "I understand this, Marc,
"but why should we reward somebody for committing a crime?
Should they not be punished as much as possible?"
How would you... how would you frame a benefit
to a citizen who has not committed a crime?
Why would it benefit them
to not have people spend as much time in prison?
Well, you know, if we care about public safety,
we have finite resources.
We have a certain budget at the federal, state and local level.
How do we want to spend that budget?
Now, normally it costs about $30,000 a year
to keep someone in prison.
When people are aging, it can be $60,000 more than that.
So we have to think,
do we want to spend money on aging people in prison--
sometimes they're in wheelchairs, incapacitated--
when we have a group of 14, 15, 16-year-olds
coming up every year.
If we could do something in preventing them
from getting into high-risk activities,
-we'd have a much better impact on crime. -Right.
So we have to think about what the balance is.
The balance we've developed in the last 40 years
is all about incarceration,
forgetting about prevention and treatment.
We-we recently saw a story
that has garnered a lot of attention,
-the case of Cyntoia Brown. -Sure.
And she was granted clemency by the governor, who's outgoing.
And this was a story of a young girl
who was, um, picked up by a man
-as basically a sex slave. -Right.
And, you know, she fought for her life
and says in her defense she killed the man.
And now this became the big story,
and people said she had to spend the rest of her life in prison
-as a child. -Right.
And after she was granted clemency,
the question then became, is this something
-that America needs to do for everybody? -Mm-hmm.
Do you think America is moving in the right direction?
Slowly but surely we're moving in that direction.
You know, we saw in Congress passing legislation,
the First Step Act, just a few weeks ago.
Uh, it's not gonna end mass incarceration,
but it reduces the use
of mandatory sentencing for drug crimes.
It'll have some modest effect
on reducing the number of people in prison overall.
So it's a beginning.
It's a first step, as it's called.
We need a second, third and fourth step
-if we really want to have an impact. -Right.
But after four decades of rising prison populations,
we're beginning to see some reduction,
a little more rational development policy now.
And then, what do you think the U.S. does
for those people who are let out and then repeat a crime?
Well, we have to look at what we're doing
to help people refrain from getting involved in crime.
You know, the movement for reentry,
people coming home from prison,
liberals and conservatives alike have embraced this idea
that people coming out of prison should have the skills,
should have the resources, the support they need
so they don't have to go back in prison.
-Right. -But the resources we're putting into it
is just a fraction of what's needed.
Uh, you have to remember,
when people go to prison at the age of 30,
far too many cases,
it's been a very dysfunctional lifestyle they've had--
family, community problems and the like.
That doesn't change overnight,
so we have to be much more serious
about reducing time people spend in prison
and focusing on that reentry back into the community.
Your book is amazing. Thank you so much for being on the show.
-Thanks so much for having me. -Pleasure having you.
The Meaning of Life, a really fantastic read,
is available now. Marc Mauer, everybody.