Knowles: Robbers, rapists, murderers, and the like make up
the majority of inmates that the abolish prisons crowd
wants to let out of state penitentiaries.
The proponents of the over-incarceration myth usually begin
by pointing out
that America has the highest prison population,
the highest incarceration rate, anywhere in the world.
We are number one.
As though the fact that we imprison lots of people
somehow proves that we imprison too many people,
as though leading the world in prisoners
is necessarily a bad thing.
But you know, we lead the world in lots of other stuff, too.
We lead the world in GDP.
Does this mean that America is making too much money?
We lead the world in military power.
Does this mean that America is too strong?
We lead the world in immigration.
Does this mean that America
is taking in too many immigrants?
Actually, yes, probably we are taking in
too many immigrants. [audience laughter]
Poll after poll shows that the American people agree
with that statement,
but I doubt that the liberals pushing
the over-incarceration myth would agree with that.
The immigrants themselves, by the way, clearly don't believe
that America is some sort of dangerous prison state,
full of slaves and gulags and prison camps.
No. If they did,
they probably wouldn't be so keen on coming over.
Actually, on the contrary,
I suspect America's historic ability to keep people safe
by keeping criminals off the streets
is a great inducement to immigration
for people who are living in countries
that do not keep criminals off the streets.
The relevant question for criminal justice
is not how many people we have in prison,
but rather how many people we have in prison
for the right reasons.
If American prisons were full of innocent people
or people convicted on trumped-up charges,
political dissidents, for instance,
such as we see in Communist China,
well, that would be one thing.
But America does
not imprison very many political dissidents.
In fact, as far as I can tell,
the only political dissidents
that America is imprisoning right now
on trumped-up charges are the eccentrics
who made a mess of the Capitol rotunda back in January.
Many of those guys are currently being held
in solitary confinement.
Generally speaking, though,
a handful of exceptions aside,
America's prison inmates are, at most,
serving punishments that fit their crimes.
Very often they are serving sentences
that are far too lenient
when you compare them to their crimes.
One of the most common arguments put forward
by proponents of the over-incarceration myth
is that our prisons are teeming with people
who are there for first-time, simple drug possession.
You know, a kid got busted with
a dime bag of the sin spinach,
you know, the devils lettuce,
you know what I'm talking about,
the old Peruvian parsley,
and that's why he got thrown into prison.
This is not the case.
As the Hudson Institute has observed,
just 3.6% of state inmates are in the can
for drug possession offenses of any kind,
including heroin, including really serious drugs.
When you look at the federal prisons, that number drops,
that number drops to 0.9%.
And even those numbers are misleading, by the way,
because drug traffickers often accept plea bargains
whereby they will confess to some lower crime
and then they'll go to jail, not for trafficking,
but a lower offense, such as simple possession.
In 2014, which is the most recent year
for which Hudson compiled its data,
the number of inmates sentenced to federal prison
for marijuana possession was 75.
Not 75,000 not 7,500.
75.
And who knows how many of them pled down?
A full 97% of federal inmates
in the clink for drug offenses
are there on trafficking convictions,
which is not as non-violent
as many liberals and libertarians would have you think.
Last year, for the first time in American history,
an estimated 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses.
America had already been
in the throes of an overdose epidemic so deadly
that it is reducing the average American life expectancy.
And then overdose deaths spiked 30% in just one year.
These traffickers pedal poison, often to innocent kids,
and still, by the way, they make up less than 20%
of the combined state and federal prison population.
Even the Prison Policy Initiative,
which seeks to reduce the prison population,
they're part of the over-incarceration myth,
they admit that most prisoners are in jail
for more serious crimes,
offenses against public order, weapons charges,
driving while intoxicated, that sort of thing,
property crimes, burglary, theft, carjacking
and violent crimes.
Even the Prison Policy Initiative admits
that the majority of state prison inmates are there
for committing violent crimes.
Assault, robbery, rape and murder.
And state prisons comprise the vast majority of inmates,
more than five-and-a-half times as many as federal prisons.
So robbers, rapists, murderers, and the like make up
the majority of inmates that the abolish prisons crowd wants
to let out of state penitentiaries.
And still that does not fully express
the severity of America's under-incarceration problem.