zlacker

>>gruseo+(OP)
There's one single paragraph in this entire article that addresses the root of the problem:

> In 1970 the proportion of Americans behind bars was below one in 400, compared with today’s one in 100. Since then, the voters, alarmed at a surge in violent crime, have demanded fiercer sentences. Politicians have obliged. New laws have removed from judges much of their discretion to set a sentence that takes full account of the circumstances of the offence. Since no politician wants to be tarred as soft on crime, such laws, mandating minimum sentences, are seldom softened. On the contrary, they tend to get harder.

On top of that, you also have an entrenched set of special interests who benefit from the status quo (police unions, prison guard unions, private prisons, etc.), so the pressure on politicians is from two sides.

So how do you "solve" a problem that special interests, along with a sizable majority of the voting population, have no interest whatsoever in solving?

Without a massive culture shift, you don't.

>>jsdalt+85
Your hypothesis isn't the only plausible one. Have you considered that more crime = more inmates, sentences aside?

First: since you go to prison after the crime, the inmate population size should be a trailing indicator of the crime rate. More serious crimes affect the prison population for a long period, since their sentences are longer.

Second: take a look at these graphs, and how dramatically they shoot up around 1965:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=murder+USA

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=rape+USA

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=crime+USA

>>notadd+w7
All of those graphs show peaks in the early 1990s and a decline after then. That's long enough that if the number of crimes was the main causal factor, prison numbers would be going down by now.

>>cabala+F8
The issues are basically correct on both sides, however there exists the problem fact that while prison populations are - and have been on the increase - actual crime rates have been declining over the past decade plus. This is indicative that while crime has been diminishing, arrests and convictions for existing laws have been increasing disproportionately. The reason for the "peak" in the stats in the 90's is partially due to the discovery by private prison investors and private sector corporations of the federal PIECP program. This program allows partnerships between private sector companies and prison industries to use prison labor to manufacture their products or provide their services, which allows lower overhead and increased profits. In the mid 90's corporate America discovered the program and began to manipulate it. At the same time, prison numbers began to increase while the crime rate declined. This was a direct result of the realization of the amount of labor needed to fully exploit the program.To use the program to the maximum benefit, there had to be a continuous supply of manpower - whether the crime rate was holding steady or in decline.