BARTLET
Something horrible happened about an hour ago. C.J. Cregg was getting threats so we put an agent on her. He’s a good guy. He was on my detail for a while, and he was in Rosslyn. He walked in the middle of an armed robbery, and was shot and killed after detaining one of the suspects.
RITCHIE
Oh. Crime. Boy, I don’t know.
BARTLET
[sighs] We should have a great debate, Rob. We owe it to everyone. When I was running as a governor, I didn’t know anything. I made them start Bartlet college in my dining room. Two hours every morning on foreign affairs and the military. You could do that.
RITCHIE
How many different ways you think you’re gonna find to call me dumb?
BARTLET
I wasn’t, Rob. But you’ve turned being un-engaged into a Zen-like thing, and you shouldn’t enjoy it so much is all, and if it appears at times as if I don’t like you, that’s the only reason why.
RITCHIE
You’re what my friends call a superior sumbitch. You’re an academic elitist and a snob. You’re, uh, Hollywood, you’re weak, you’re liberal, and you can’t be trusted. And if it appears from time to time as if I don’t like you, well, those are just a few of the many reasons why.
The start of a great tune is played inside the theater.
BARTLET
They’re playing my song.
Bartlet stands and heads to the stairs, but he turns to Ritchie before reaching them.
BARTLET
In the future, if you’re wondering, “Crime. Boy, I don’t know” is when I decided to kick your ass.
— “The West Wing, Posse Comitatus” Season 3, Episode 21 or 22 depending on whether you count the special episodes that season, written by Aaron Sorkin
I think we can all agree that crime is not desirable. In my 59 years on this planet, I have yet to meet anyone who was in favor of more crime. I have no doubt such people exist. I’ve just never met them. I feel confident no one listening to this is in favor of more crime. I’m sure we would all like to see less of it. How could we do that?
First, we could eliminate some crimes by deciding they’re not crimes anymore. As I write I am, and just before I begin to record, I will be enjoying a nice bowl of marijuana. Less than a decade ago, I could never have said the publicly. I could be arrested for that. There are still places in the United States where I would be arrested for that. It’s legal here in Arizona. I could go to prison for that in Idaho. It’s precisely the same activity. I promise you I’m not hurting anyone. You could argue that I’m hurting myself, but cigarettes are infinitely more dangerous, and they have never been illegal in my lifetime. Alcohol kills millions of people a year, and it’s been legal in the United States since 1920. Marijuana legalization or decriminalization is only one example of many laws that are pointless. We could change some laws. That would be one step. It doesn’t get us anywhere near all the way down the road, however. Murders, rapes, robberies, kidnappings, and any number of other atrocities occur daily. All of those need to be illegal, and they need to be stopped. We need to do more.
We could also try to minimize the elements that contribute to crime. Poverty is the clearest indicator.
Most criminal justice experts contend that “successful reintegration requires employment and economic opportunities,” and that high recidivism rates are often caused by lack of meaningful employment. Since 2012, the federal Bureau of Prisons and state prison directors were tasked with providing incarceration data and identifying information for prisoners to the Internal Revenue Service – a process that accumulated data on 2.9 million prisoners, making an analysis of post-incarceration employment possible.
However, the Brookings report focused not only on the challenges faced by reintegrating former prisoners, but also on policies that might improve the lives of young children and keep them off the criminal justice treadmill.
According to the study, for individuals living in lower-income areas, “Three years prior to incarceration, only 49 percent of prime-age men are employed, and, when employed, their median earnings were only $6,250. Only 13 percent earned more than $15,000. Tracking prisoners over time and comparing employment and earnings before and after incarceration we find surprisingly little difference in labor market outcomes like employment and earnings.”
In short, having no money in a world that is, for reasons passing understanding, based on money is a good predictor of crime. We will do what we need to do to survive. I’m not going to go rob a convenience store tomorrow morning. I’m willing to bet you won’t either. I don’t need to. I don’t have much, but I have enough to survive if I’m very careful. I hope you have at least as much as I do. When a person is sufficiently desperate, a person will go to desperate measures. Reducing poverty reduces desperation. Reducing desperation reduces crime.
But The Brookings Report touches on the third element of crime reduction: recidivism. Many criminals committed a crime because they were desperate. They went to prison. When they got out, they committed more crimes. Didn’t prisons convince them not to break the law? No. It rarely does. It’s not breaking news that prisons are horrible places where horrendous acts occur far more frequently than they do while I’m sitting at my keyboard, smoking a bowl, and writing a podcast.
I’ve had roommates on both ends of the equation. One of them worked in prisons for several years. She was good at her job. And she would tell you that prisons are doing the very best they can with incredibly dangerous and violent people. Two other former roommates of mine were incarcerated, and they would both tell you that what happened to them while they were there was horrible.
What can we do to change this? Do prisons necessarily have to be horrible? No, in fact, they don’t. This is part of our American thinking. “Our way is the only way. If you’re nice to criminals, there’s no reason for them to stop committing crimes.”
That seems to be a good argument, at least at first blush. The problem with it is that it’s not supported by evidence. Let’s see what the statistics tell us. Norway’s statistics are on the left. America’s are on the right.
| Gun crime > Guns per 100 residents | 31.3 Ranked 11th. | 88.8 Ranked 1st. Nearly 3 times more than Norway | |
| Intentional homicide rate | 0.68 Ranked 59th. | 4.7 Ranked 7th. Nearly 7 times more than Norway | |
| Murder rate per million people | 5.93 Ranked 84th. | 42.01 Ranked 43rd. More than 7 times more than Norway | |
| Murders per 100,000 population. | 29 Ranked 76th. | 12,996 Ranked 9th. 448 times more than Norway | |
| Rapes | 938 Ranked 20th. | 84,767 Ranked 1st. 90 times more than Norway | |
| Rapes per million people | 191.85 Ranked 15th. | 274.04 Ranked 9th. 43% more than Norway |
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Norway/United-States/Crime/Violent-crime
Wow! There’s a lot more crime in America than in Norway! I wonder why that is. Let’s examine that just a little bit.
Norway has consistently ranked number one on a number of lists entailing the best, most comfortable prisons in the world. Since the 1990s, Norway’s prison system has evolved into spaces that represent comfort, healing and inclusivity. Changing its approach and attitudes towards prisoners, Norway is molding high-functioning members of society. In return, former prisoners are gaining the necessary skills in order to contribute to Norway’s economy.
Norway practices Restorative Justice. What does that mean? It’s an effort to change the circumstances that contribute to recidivism.
Many factors contribute to breaking cycles of crime, but Prison Fellowship International (PFI) finds two drivers to be most relevant and effective. First, prisoners form new positive self-identities that replace past negative self-identities, and second, they develop healthy social relationships that support them when they return home. These ideas are interconnected: prisoners are more likely to seek and develop healthy social relationships as part of the self-identity transformation process.
In other words, prisoners are treated more kindly. They are given more trust. They have facilities that make it possible to begin to heal the trauma that caused them to commit a crime in the first place, as opposed to causing additional traumas that push prisoners into an even darker place.
Norway has the primary goal of reintegrating its prisoners as stable contributors to communities. The first way it is accomplishing this is by creating jail cells that closely resemble small dorm rooms. Many prisons in Norway have completely banned bars in their architectural design and have “open” style cells. At the maximum-security Halden prison, each prisoner has a toilet, shower, fridge and a flat TV screen with access to kitchens and common areas.
In short, their prisoners have nicer homes than many “free” people in The United States have.
These institutions tend to be better for those who work there, as well.
…. evidence began mounting that the punitive settings were also undermining the health of staff. Officers reported witnessing violence almost daily and worrying constantly about being attacked. They experienced high rates of diabetes, heart disease, mental health problems, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). On average, they die by age 60.
“That got people’s attention,” says Cyrus Ahalt, MPP, a UCSF public health researcher who has worked with Williams since 2010. “We realized these environments are so corrosive that even stepping foot in them as a worker is elevating your risk of stress-related illness and the social outcomes of that, like divorce, addiction, and suicide.”
https://magazine.ucsf.edu/norways-humane-approach-prisons-can-work-here-too
What’s better for the prisoners also turns out to be better for those who work at prisons.
Known as “dynamic security,” it focuses on the role of prison workers. Norway’s correctional officers routinely socialize with residents, joining them for meals and card games and talking through problems. Officers are trained to use force when absolutely necessary but also study law, ethics, human rights, and the science of behavior change. They learn that building positive relationships with incarcerated people helps them get their lives on track and reduces the risk of violence. Even in maximum-security prisons – where most people are in custody for violent crimes like murder or rape – assaults against officers are rare, Eberhardt says.
That may sound counterintuitive if you’ve been taught to think of security in terms of barriers, weapons, oppressive rules, and threats of added punishment. But a Norwegian officer will explain that getting to know incarcerated people on a personal level better alerts you to potential conflict and earns you their respect. “A lot of my colleagues, they will say, ‘If you meet an ex-inmate in a pub, there’s a much bigger chance he will buy you a beer than knock you down,” Eberhardt says. “It’s true. Whenever I’ve met formerly incarcerated people on the outside, they are often thanking me. It’s always a very rewarding experience.”
When Williams first visited Norwegian prisons, in 2014, she was surprised to hear so many officers say they loved their jobs. They weren’t overly stressed and hypervigilant. They didn’t perpetually fear for their safety. They didn’t think about killing themselves or take out their frustrations on their families… It gave prison residents a chance at a healthy, meaningful life and made the lives of staff healthier and more meaningful, too.
https://magazine.ucsf.edu/norways-humane-approach-prisons-can-work-here-too
Shockingly enough, treating people kindly does more to help them than treating them cruelly. Is our need for revenge (You can check out Episode 132: “A Dish Best Served Cold” for more information on this) more important than our need to reduce crime? Who is better off for hurting someone who hurt you? Does killing someone bring back to life the person they killed? Does locking someone up in horrible conditions do anything to heal the trauma of the person who was raped or kidnapped? Does forcing people to endure horrible environments restore the lost property of someone who has been robbed? We don’t heal through hatred.
If we want to reduce crime, we can reduce its causes by removing people from poverty. We can decriminalize behaviors that don’t hurt anyone but the consensual participants. And when those steps still aren’t enough, we can create prisons committed to reform before vengeance. In short, we can lead with Love. We can make a better world by changing the way we treat each other. Maybe we could all work on that. I’ll start. I love you.
Fred's Thoughts 