The Washington Post has this editorial, titled "Too Many Prisoners." The editorial bemoans the high number of prisoners and the financial burden of the prisons. No dispute there. The editorial also says, "Tough sentences for murder, rape and the like are unquestionably necessary and contributed to a drop in such crimes over the past two decades." Right.
Then there is this sentence: "But prisons should be focused on holding the most dangerous criminals rather than on warehousing nonviolent, first-time offenders."
The implicit premise in this statement is that a large chunk of the current prison population consists of offenders who are in the big house for their first offense of a nonviolent crime and that releasing people who fit that description would make a big dent in the prison population. A closer look is in order.
For starters, over half of state prison inmates have a commitment offense classified as violent. See BJS summary and graph here. Okay, so what about the others? According to this report, based on a survey of exiting inmates, 95% of the "nonviolent" inmates had prior arrests and 80% had prior convictions.
The report also looks at "serious offender indicators." These are use of a weapon in the current offense, prior violent conviction, on probation/parole/escape at time of offense, and multiple prior sentences. Of those classified as "nonviolent" based on the commitment offense, 88.4% had at least one of these indicators.
The particular measures the Post favors in the remainder of the editorial are certainly worth considering, but they are not going to make dramatic reductions in the overall number of prisoners. Most of the people presently in prison need to be there.
"For there is always an easy solution to every problem — neat, plausible and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken
Prior post : Who Is In Our State Prisons?
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