By Kate Watkins

A new report published by the Vera Institute of Justice examines the contested relationship between incarceration rates and crime reduction. Author Don Stemen opens Rethinking Incarceration: New Directions with the sobering fact that between 1970 and 1996, the U.S. increased the prison population by 628%. As a result, by 2000, nearly 3% of the population had spent time in a state or federal prison (3-4). (This number excludes those who had been incarcerated in county facilities.) This tremendous shift has generated many studies, but there is no obvious answer to whether incarceration reduces crime. Stemen analyzes the available research, discovers the conditions under which incarceration is associated with lower crime rates, and discusses reasons why this association eventually ends.

Because the last few decades of the 20th century saw both a dramatic increase in imprisonment and, in the 1990’s, a dramatic decline in crime, many have concluded that increasing incarceration reduces crime. The idea has certainly driven public safety policy, and there is research that can be cited support this conclusion. Studies can be cited to support very different conclusions, as well. As Stemen comments, “One could use available research to argue that a 10 percent increase in incarceration is associated with no difference in crime rates, a 22 percent lower index crime rate, or a decrease only in the rate of property crime” (3).

Stemen finds that these inconsistencies are due to the different methodologies used by researchers and that the most reliable results come from research that takes data from the local level (counties), takes into account the fact the crime and incarceration rates will influence one another, and takes into account the influence of factors other than incarceration rates on the crime rate. Under the most favorable conditions, a 10% increase in incarceration is associated with a 2-4% decrease in crime (5).

This comparatively modest reduction in the crime rate will not be sustained, though. First, the reduction in the crime rate associated with each additional new person incarcerated becomes progressively smaller. Second, the relationship between incarceration and crime reaches “an ‘inflection point’ where increases in incarceration rates are associated with higher crime rates” (7; emphasis added).

For insight into why this should be, Stemen cites researchers Dina Rose and Todd Clear, who examined this phenomenon at the neighborhood level in Florida. They offer an explanation that echoes observations long made by community advocates. Rose and Clear argue that high incarceration rates “break down the social and family bonds that guide individuals away from crime, remove adults who would otherwise nurture children, deprive communities of income, reduce future income potential, and engender a deep resentment toward the legal system” (6). When the “more is better” philosophy prevails and incarceration becomes prevalent enough, disrupting families, stigmatizing communities, and saddling staggering numbers with CORIs, increasing the incarceration rate beyond the inflection point encourages conditions that are associated with increased crime rates.

Other researchers have looked to sentencing policy as a reason that increasing incarceration levels eventually lead to rising crime rates. The surge in the prison population was driven chiefly by stiffened penalties for drug offenses, displacing violent offenders who contribute more to the crime rate (12). Sentencing practices also may help explain this. Incarceration is associated with other activities—educational and therapeutic programming in prisons, post-release supervision—that, Stemen notes, are associated with reductions in recidivism and may account for some of the association between rising incarceration rates and falling crime rates (8). If that is the case, it is easy to see how pressure to control the costs of rising incarceration levels leads to cuts in funding of the programs that may actually support incarceration’s relationship to falling crime rates.

Because existing research has only looked at whether there is a relationship between incarceration and crime, it is impossible to know why this relationship exists or how policy should respond. But in addition to discussing the kinds of data that still need to be collected and examined, Stemen urges his colleagues and readers that we should put aside the question, “Does incarceration work?” Instead, we should ask what the best strategies for reducing crime are. Evidence suggests that there are effective and cost-efficient strategies to be developed by focusing on factors more strongly associated with crime rates. Incarceration is associated with, at most, 25% of the reduction in crime in the 1990s. The other 75% resulted from demographic changes, rising real wages and education levels, more police staffing, and other factors. A 10% rising real wages may account for as much as a 25% reduction in the crime rate (9, 11).

Close to the time that the Vera Institute report was released, the Pew Charitable Trust published its projections of state and federal prison population growth between now and 2011. If accurate, the Pew report is dismaying, given concerns about incarceration as a crime control strategy. Massachusetts’s incarceration rate is projected to climb 5% during the period.

Stemen, Don. 2007. Rethinking Incarceration: New Directions in Reducing Crime. New York: Vera Institute of Justice. On-line at http://www.vera.org/publication_pdf/379_727.pdf

JFA Institute. 2007. Public Safety, Public Spending: Forecasting America’s Prison Population 2007-2011. Washington, D.C.: The Pew Charitable Trusts. On-line at http://www.pewtrusts.com/pdf/PSPP_prison_projections_0207.pdf

By Ed Bowser

Introduction by CJPC

A Boston Globe February 21, 2006 article, "State is faulted over rise in suicides," shared critiques of a recent study commissioned by the DOC regarding suicides. A copy of the report, authored by Lindsay Hayes of the National Center for Institutions and Alternatives, is on the DOC website - look down in the right hand corner and click on "Hayes Inmate Suicide Report."

For further information,see our May 2006 Newsletter, where under the heading, "Joint Committee Hears Testimony on Prison Mental Health Issues," we reprint testimony which Leslie Walker, Executive Director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, gave before the legislature’s Joint Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse. Her testimony outlines practices in the Commonwealth’s correctional facilities that contribute to prisoner suicides, including understaffing mental health professionals and inappropriate management of mentally ill prisoners.

An additional perspective comes from the following personal account of prison suicide, produced, the author writes, “after making a public records request that indicated that prisoner suicides rose 300% between January 2005 and November 2006” and after learning of two additional suicides in December. Hoping to add to the discussion of this important issue, he details the emotional stressors in the prison system that led him to consider ending his life. CJPC presents this article believing that it will be of value to our readers. As with all submissions from outside the organization, we cannot verify the facts presented and do not necessarily subscribe to the views expressed.

Ed Bowser has been incarcerated within the Massachusetts prison system for more than 30 years for a crime he committed as a juvenile. A former Chairman and current member of the Board of Directors of the Lifers’ Group, Inc., Ed has been actively involved in prison reform throughout his incarceration and has earned several college degrees while in prison including a Masters Degree from the Boston University Prison Education Program. Ed can be contacted at: P.O. Box 43, Norfolk, MA 02056-0043.

Several weeks ago I heard the news of yet another prisoner who had committed suicide while in the custody of the Massachusetts Department of Correction. Steven Koumaris, though not yet 50 years old, had served more than 30 years in prison for a crime he committed as a teenager. At the time of his suicide in early October he was housed at the old Colony Correctional Center (OCCC) in Bridgewater.

What struck me most about this particular suicide was the fact that I knew Stevie many years ago. Our contact was superficial and based solely on the fact that we were both young “lifers” housed in the same prisons so I don’t know many of the details of Stevie’s life before prison. I do know that we both entered the prison system as teenagers in the mid 1970s.

I knew others over the years of my incarceration who have taken their own lives, but the news of Steve Koumaris’ suicide seemed to be something I could not stop thinking about. The obvious question—why—weighed heavily on my mind. Reports of prisoner and staff abuses leading up to Stevie’s death were already circulating around the prison system. At least one prisoner alleged that Steve had been sexually assaulted by two other prisoners and that staff response was anything but appropriate.

So, while the obvious reason(s) for Steve’s death were becoming known—I became aware of what it was that disturbed me so much about his suicide: I realized that I could relate to the underlying feelings of isolation and despair that most certainly must have preceded his decision to bring an end to his own personal suffering.

Of course, it is impossible to know for sure what went through Steve’s mind before he took a razor blade and cut two openings in an artery in his thigh and another in this throat. We can be sure, however, that he was not thinking that life was worth living or that there was some hope for a brighter future.

In preparing to write this article, I wrestled with whether or not I wanted to share my own personal experience with thoughts of suicide which arose after my second parole denial in 1994. My fear was that an admission that I had once contemplated suicide would result in my being labeled as somehow less stable. After a discussion with a respected Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker, I realized that the subject of suicide in prison seemed more important to me than my paranoia about how I might be viewed because I once considered suicide.

Though people have different reasons for committing suicide, I am convinced that the underlying feelings that precipitate the act itself are universal. These feelings include: a very deep and abiding sense of isolation, hopelessness, despair, and loneliness. The magnitude of the emotional and psychological pain is so deep and so intense that it feels like the only way out – the only way to end the pain – is through death.

As noted above, my own experience with the thought of suicide arose after receiving my second parole denial in 1994. My first parole denial after serving 15 years was painful, but the second denial was a devastating blow. At the time the maximum allowable time that the Parole Board could set until the next parole review was 3 years. The idea of another 3 years on top of the first 3 year setback seemed like an eternity. I had already served 18 years at that point and had completed every rehabilitative program available to me; including earning a Bachelors Degree from Boston University; spending nearly 8 years in minimum security; completing 49 unsupervised furloughs and spending 5 days a week in service to the community through two programs that I was instrumental in creating.

When I received the news of my second parole denial and the attendant 3 year setback, I was being housed at MCI-Shirley medium where I had been transferred directly from my parole hearing. When the decision came several months later, I remember being called to the Institutional Parole Office. Once there I was met by the Institutional Parole Officer (IPO). The IPO told me that she had my parole decision and asked me to take a seat. I was feeling a combination of anxiety and fear. I remember asking: “Did I get a parole?” The IPO was as gentle as she could be in saying: “No, you were denied.” I then asked: “When do I see the Board again?” When she said “1997” I repeated it in question form: “1997?” I suddenly felt as if I weighed several hundred pounds. I halfheartedly asked for a copy of the decision and asked if I could go.

As I walked back to my cellblock with the decision in hand, every step I took seemed to take every bit of energy I could muster. The buildings around me seemed to be getting bigger and I felt as though I were shrinking. By the time I made my way back to the cellblock I felt smaller and more insignificant than I ever had in my life. I felt as though I had to wade through the deafening din of life going on in the cellblock as I headed toward the telephone. Everything seemed distant and surreal. All I could think about was how the news of another denial was going to hurt the people that I loved and cared about. In particular, I was concerned about the impact that I knew this decision would have on the woman who had dedicated the last 11 years of her life to me. As I thought about the look of disappointment and pain in her face when I delivered the news of the first denial 3 years earlier, I walked directly past the telephone feeling the deepest sense of sadness and hopelessness I had ever experienced in my life. When I arrived at my cell I sat on my footlocker. I felt numbness come over me and it was as if I were looking at the world through a veil.

Though I don’t recall ever having a conscious thought of killing myself I began shredding a bed sheet in to long strips. I then stripped down and headed to the shower room at the end of the tier just a few feet from my cell with the strips of bed sheet in my hand. Once I was in the shower I tied the sheets securely around the showerhead and turned the water on. I stood there in the stream of water thinking this will end it. No more disappointments, no more pain. As the water streamed over me I felt that water cutting through the numbness and I was again feeling the overwhelming sadness and pain. A sudden release of tears caused me to squat down under the stream of water. With my head in my hands I began to think of how the news of my death would impact my loved ones. The thought of them being told I was found hanging in a prison shower suddenly seemed selfish and grotesque. From outside of the shower I heard someone asking who was next in the shower. I said nothing, I simply untied the bed sheets gathered up my stuff and returned to my cell.

For me, what may have been the critical moment had passed. I was fortunate to find my way through the fog that clouded my thinking. Others, like Steve Koumaris, Mike Keohane, Manuel Tilleria, Anthony Garafalo, Nelson Rodriguez, Andrew Armstrong, Sean Turner, and Shane Acker – all men who committed suicide in Massachusetts prisons between March, 2005 and October, 2006 – were obviously so steeped in their pain, hopelessness and despair that they saw no other way out.

Recent conversation with other prisoners about the subject of suicide has been an eye-opening experience. While it is common in the testosterone filled cellblocks of most prisons to label anyone who commits suicide as “weak,” the numbers of men who have admitted that they had considered and/or attempted suicide at some point in their incarceration is mind-boggling.

My heart goes out to the families of those who have lost a loved one to suicide while in prison. I wish I could say that it will never happen again, but the reality is that it will most definitely happen again, and probably soon. From March of 2005 through October 2006 there have been on average 1 suicide every 2½ to 3 months.

The Massachusetts prison and parole systems have manufactured a very real and very dangerous hopelessness among prisoners in Massachusetts. Over the past 17 years or so, the Department of Correction and the Parole Board have continued to implement more and more restrictive policies which have resulted in overcrowded conditions, prisoners serving longer sentences and ultimately stripping many prisoners of any hope for a brighter future—the net of which is guarantee that there will be more suicides in this so-called era of reform.

The Sentencing Project has issue a second edition of executive director Marc Mauer’s Race to Incarcerate. This new edition brings the influential 1999 volume up-to-date, providing revised statistics and information about current policy.

For more information on the book, go to this link: http://www.sentencingproject.org/NewsDetails.aspx?NewsID=152

The paperback edition is available for $15.95 from The Sentencing Project. Call 202-628-0871 or e-mail, [email protected] to purchase.