Is ‘Prisonomics’ lurking in our future?

 

Crime doubled in the '60s. It accelerated in the '70s. It remained constantly high in the '80s. Voters who were afraid and angry voted for “tree strikes and you’re out” in the 90’s.

Prisons were crowded, taxes cut and state after state had a problem. Where will all the prisoners go? This is the story of 30 years from now. It is the history of the future of crime.

Prisonomics.    That is what it is called. It is what you do when you can't find any more space for offenders, and the public is angry that criminals are let out early — or even let out at all, to go back and do more crime. Prison camps represent prisonomics of the future. Offenders work six days a week assembling a product that otherwise would have been sent to laborers in Mexico to manufacture at 50 or 60 cents an hour.

The company involved in the prison camp is private. Part of the profits pay for the state to house, feed arid shelter the offend era. Millions are in the camps.

Ultimately, it is not absolutely clear why people commit crimes. But some criminologists think part of the problem is genetic. It has to do with "impulse control." Therefore, if offenders are in for life and cannot have conjugal visits (heterosexual contact with the outside world), they cannot pass on a "bad seed" of impulsiveness to the next generation and to the next one after that.

Offenders also pass on behavior patterns. Kids who learn violence in the home, personal irresponsibility, lack of empathy, and related behaviors go out in the world and do the same thing. They are also likely to be severely beaten and sexually abused.

It is thought that on the whole, offenders are not very good parents. Therefore, if they are in forever, their kids may have a better chance in a foster home, an orphanage, or with a new stepfather or stepmother. Or they may grow up in prison with partial contact with the mother or father. Contact will probably be brief and monitored.

All of this is going to cost a lot of money and therefore whole new industries will arise with prison labor. This labor will need guards, medical personnel, correctional officers and others to staff prison industries.

Both political parties will continue the bidding for more camps, and with the decline in Pentagon spending, a new jobs program will probably emerge: Prisonomics.

Towns and cities will compete for the camps. Military bases, once closed, will open again for prison capitalism.

In the end, a lot of people will be behind bars, working to pay for their keep. In the meantime, the rest of us will be on the outside, looking in. Has our democratic experiment failed? What will become of us?

On the other hand, there is a land called Iowa with fewer than 3 million people. It is three times the size of Israel and has an incredibly low crime rate. In fact, it is so low that it is very similar to another country nearby. It is called Canada.

 

Joel Snell is professor of social science at Kirkwood Community College.