Michael Gerson: Caring for lives of prisoners makes our lives better

Cleveland has written the latest chapter in the unfolding scandal of the American criminal justice system.

A report by the U.S. Marshals Service details a series of failures and abuses in Cleveland’s jails: Overcrowding. Frequent lockdowns to make up for understaffing. Food denied as punishment. Pregnant inmates sleeping on the floor. Mice-infested food storage. Young offenders thrown into the adult prison population. Inmates with mental illness denied treatment and placed in isolation.

A merger of Cleveland’s city and county systems was sold as a cost-saving measure. It resulted in a penal system in which there were 55 attempted suicides in one year. After the seventh inmate death from suicide or drug overdose, the reorganization was put on hold. The Marshals Service report found “insufficient and unclear answers” about recent inmate deaths. “I’m not saying it should be a hotel or a party,” former inmate Cecil Fluker told the county council, “but damn, can we come out alive?”

With no other group dependent on government care does the discourse begin, “Well, who cares?” And there is no doubt that among the more than 2 million incarcerated Americans are some vicious and violent characters who deserve to be right where they are.

But there are several good reasons to care what happens in American jails and prisons.

First, this is a social stress test of sorts, measuring our commitment to human dignity. Do we believe that every life has value? Or do we judge some men and women less than human and beneath our concern?

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