The Punishist Conspiracy, from the eyes of a computer geek

Not ANY computer geek, mind you.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040812.html

Fred Nold's Legacy
Why We Send So Many Americans to Prison and Probably Shouldn't
By Robert X. Cringely

The interface between science and public policy is awkward at best. Scientists and academics need money for research, while politicians need research to build better weapons and sometimes to justify intended policy changes. But what happens if you look for scientific support for some new policy and the results of the research show that what you are intending to do is wrong? You can change your plan or ignore the research. This latter decision, one example of which is the topic of this column, brings with it some peril because if it later becomes known that the research was commissioned, completed, and ignored, then someone's job is on the line. So if you are going to bury research findings, it is a good idea to bury them deep.

America does a better job of putting people in prison than any other country. Just over two million Americans are behind bars right now, a number that has been growing far quicker than the overall population for more than 20 years. The impact of this mass imprisonment is felt especially in the African-American community, where one in 12 men are in prison or jail. The reasons given for these high numbers vary, but something that is frequently mentioned in any discussion is the impact U.S. federal sentencing guidelines have had on sending more people to jail for longer periods of time. Those very guidelines are now coming under scrutiny by the courts because their imposition may have denied some inmates their constitutional right to a trial by jury. That will be decided soon by the U.S. Supreme Court, but for the moment, all that I know for sure is that the sentencing guidelines in use now aren't working as intended, and the people who installed those guidelines probably knew this even before we started building so many prisons. (...)

Back in the early 1980s, a couple of economists at California's Hoover Institution (Michael Block and Fred Nold) did a study on the effect of monetary fines on antitrust enforcement. Their idea was to look at law enforcement as a purely economic activity. How could fines be structured to offer the greatest incentive to do the right thing? They did some research, gathered some data, published a paper and generally concluded that there were some economic forces involved and it just might be possible to not only encourage potential white collar criminals to think again -- these fines could also be a significant source of revenue for the enforcers. The paper was well received (you can still find it on the Internet), though no laws were changed as a result. But it got Block and Nold some attention from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Then the two got a call from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. This is the board that oversees federal criminal sentencing to ensure that sentences are being correctly applied by judges. "Correctly" in this case means that they are generally compliant with published guidelines. These guidelines are updated every 20 to 30 years, and it was time for such an update. The Feds thought that just maybe Block and Nold could come up with some economic twist for the new guidelines that would make them more effective at reducing crime. So they commissioned Block and Nold to do a big study budgeted at, I believe, $250,000. (...)

Then things began to go downhill. The DoJ didn't like what it was hearing as the study progressed, and they may have refused to accept the final paper. (...)

I don't usually like Cringely's stuff. Like many of the digeratti press he's overblown, and ironically for people who purport to write about the future, nearsighted. That being said, this is a must read.

What I take away from this article, and what Cringely doesn't quite come right out and say, is that the neocons actively, and knowingly, created the current prison system state to once again line their pockets.