1.United States

Over the course of the last century, the United States has quickly moved into having the largest prison population in the world. According to The Sentencing Project, the US used to incarcerate around 90,000 people (1925); however, this number peaked in 2009 when over 1.5 million people were incarcerated in the United States. In 2020, the last year data was tracked from this source, around 1.2 million people were found behind bars. While this number is smaller, it still accounts for around 25% of the world’s total prison population.

A rise from 90,000 to 1,500,000 people, even over the course of a near century, is extreme, but the change in just the last 40 years accounts for a nearly 500% increase in our total prison population. What’s the reasoning for such a drastic bump? In 1960, the crime rate in the United States was 1,887.2 per 100,000 people. Today, this rate has grown to 2,489.3 per 100,000 people; however, the crime rate in the United States peaked in 1991, when a whopping 5,897.8 crimes were committed per 100,000 people. With such an increased population locked up in our prisons, one would expect the crime rate to drop alongside it; however, it seems the large levels of incarceration that the US boasts haven’t had a large impact on the crime rate in the country.

On top of the fact that prisons are flooded with people in the United States, the quality of those prisons are not good. Prisons today are known for their increasing levels of violence, assault, and lack of treatment for mental illness, which only increases the amount of recidivism, the rate of criminal reoffenders, that we see once people leave the prison walls.  If the primary purpose of prison is to prepare offenders to re-enter society, then these conditions and lack of treatment are counterintuitive. I feel that the priority of prison should be to rehabilitate, rather than get retribution, and in order to reach this eventual goal and lower both the prison rate and the recidivism rate, the quality of prisons must be improved.

2.Norway

In some other countries, prisons and prison rates are severely more reformed. For example, Norway is often hailed as having the best prison system in the world for both those incarcerated, as well as the economy of the country. That’s right, the prisons in Norway promote economic growth. Not only are these prisons beneficial to the country, but they are not overly flooded and provide those incarcerated within them with opportunities for self-growth and trade skills to utilize once they leave the prison.

Beginning with their prison rate, Norway (population of around 5 million) has only 4,000 incarcerated people in their prison system. That’s around 75 people per 100,000, compared to the United States which has around 700 incarcerated people per 100,000. Additionally, Norway has a mere 20% recidivism rate, one of the lowest in the world, compared to a staggering 76.6% in the United States. In other words, in Norway when prisoners get out, they stay out. Here, when they get you, they’ll probably be back. 

Not only are the number of people that we see in Norwegian prisons lower than that we see in the United States, but the quality of prisons in Norway is wildly different from those that we find here. With no bars on windows, kitchens stocked with sharp objects and camaraderie between prisoners and guards, prisons in Norway promote normalcy; moreover, they offer vocational training to inmates in order to prepare them for life once they leave the prison walls. 

3.Conclusion

In the United States, the prison system is concerned with retribution first, then rehabilitation, but it’s clear that Norway’s method (rehabilitation first, then retribution) is more effective in lowering crime rates, lowering recidivism rates, and lowering prison rates. The United States is in dire need of prison reform as our current system becomes increasingly overflooded with multiple-time offenders. It’s time to make meaningful changes in our prison systems in order to ensure that those who leave prison walls don’t return, as well as lowering the number that becomes incarcerated, and Norwegian prisons are a prime example that the United States can use to start this process.

Sources:

https://www.sentencingproject.org/research/

https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

https://eji.org/issues/prison-conditions/

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-norways-prison-system-is-so-successful-2014-12

During the second Reagan Administration, and the infamous War on Drugs, mandatory minimums were enacted in order to curb the widespread distribution of drugs. This “one size fits all” sentencing method has led to the prison system being flooded with nonviolent drug users, including marijuana which is now being legalized in many states with pushes to legalize it federally. Moreover, drug additions and overdoses have not gone away as a result of these policies. Despite this, mandatory minimums, in most cases, are still in effect for many drug and gun charges; however, many strides have been taken to reduce the number of people incarcerated for simple marijuana possession charges.

Most notably, and recently, President Biden issued a federal pardon to all US citizens in prison for possession charges. This act, a controversial one at that, was the first major change, federally, to move towards the decriminalization of marijuana and the abolition of mandatory minimums for these crimes. Statistically shown to primarily impact communities and people of color (over 50% of all charges), these laws are overflowing our prison systems, and a large percentage of those incarcerated are from lower-income communities of color. 

When mandatory minimums were instituted in 1986, the United States incarcerated 100 people for every 100,000 citizens. In 2008, after only 32 years, that number rose to 760 per 100,000. The crime rate in that same time period fluctuated, but never grew to a level that would warrant this level of mass incarceration. There have been many strides, primarily during the Obama Administration, to begin to get rid of mandatory minimums. These strides did not come through Congress, however, and were never signed into law. Instead, Attorney General Eric Holder instructed prosecutors to only enforce mandatory minimums for the most serious drug offenses (e.g., distribution and possession of hard drugs). This was progress, and made a small dent in lowering the incarceration rate nationwide; however, during the Trump Administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions revoked this memo and released one of his own, instructing state prosecutors to do the opposite. Tanya Golash-Boza, a writer for Politico, categorized this as “a throwback to our failed experiment in mass incarceration in the 1980s and 90s”, also known as the War on Drugs. Since then, more significant strides have been taken by the Biden Administration; however, some states are deciding to start the process of reducing incarceration rates themselves while shifting their prison systems’ priorities away from retaliation.

States such as Oregon, home of one of the highest rates of drug and alcohol addiction, have taken this philosophy to a new level, decriminalizing almost all hard drugs and moving toward a system based on rehabilitation. This newfound law, the first of its kind in the United States, came via ballot measure in the 2020 election. Now, rather than flooding Oregon State Prisons with drug possessors and abusers, those convicted are faced with a small citation (similar to a parking ticket), as well as a $100 fine. Moreover, the fee can be waived after the completion of a health screening. Now, rather than spend taxpayer funds on maintaining a cramped prison system, Oregon is funneling money into counseling and rehabilitation programs, and while there have been some difficulties in implementing this system (with their healthcare system not being prepared for it), this program is the solution to the high incarceration rate in this country. 

Mandatory minimums, incarceration of nonviolent drug users, and the stigma of retaliation over rehabilitation are the major factors that contribute to 1-in-37 adults being imprisoned. Our crime rate has not been impacted nearly as much as our incarceration rate, yet the US has the 6th highest rate of prisoners per capita (behind El Salvador, Rwanda, Turkmenistan, American Samoa, and Cuba). While this rate is lower than it has been in the past, many solutions are on the table that can shrink our prison population, save taxpayer money, and ensure that people with drug addictions are not punished, but supported and led back to society as functioning members. Our policies on drugs, for the most part, have changed very little since President Reagan enacted the War on Drugs, but the stigma around addiction is beginning to change.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/end-mandatory-minimums#:~:text=Prosecutors’%20use%20of%20mandatory%20minimums,prison%20population%20in%20recent%20decades.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/5-charts-show-mandatory-minimum-sentences-dont-work

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/18/1007022652/oregons-pioneering-drug-decriminalization-experiment-is-now-facing-the-hard-test

https://www.statista.com/statistics/262962/countries-with-the-most-prisoners-per-100-000-inhabitants/

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