Crime, punishment, and the American criminal justice system.

When the law gets something wrong, it can do so in a way that adversely affects many lives, often profoundly. Specifically, to society’s great detriment, the corrections arm of the American criminal justice system appears to have the distribution and administration of punishment exactly backward. We typically sentence young men who have committed their first violent felony—that group of offenders most likely to go on to commit further violent crimes over the next decade or two—to but a brief period of incarceration and sometimes to just probation, while meting out the most severe punishment, typically 25 years to life, to middle-aged, three-strike offenders who for a variety of demographic, psychological, and biological reasons are least likely to reoffend. Thus, there is conversion of maximum security prisons into fantastically expensive homes for the aged. In short, basing the length of incarceration primarily on the number of felonies committed is irrational, as well as wasteful of correctional resources. It stuffs our prisons with elderly, debilitated men whose criminal careers have come to an end. In my experience, the system generally works in the following way. A juvenile is convicted of a series of misdemeanors and is confined to juvenile hall for several months. Then, in his early 20s, he goes on to commit his first felony. Since he has not yet accumulated much of a criminal record, he can expect to be treated with judicial benevolence: say, a year in the county jail followed by 12 months of probation. Then in his mid-20s he goes on to commit his second felony, for which he might receive perhaps 5 to 10 years in state prison. He serves his time and finally, several years later, commits his third violent felony. At long last he has the book thrown at him: 25 years to life. What renders this system so manifestly topsyturvy is that approximately three-quarters of all violent crimes in this country are committed by men under the age of 30, and more than 90 percent of all felonies are committed by men under the age of 50. (For example, in California, the average age for the third felony conviction is 43.) Rephrased in the inverse, men in their 50s and older are likely to be relatively law-abiding citizens, however antisocial their previous conduct. The forbearance with which we respond to youthful offenders has resulted in neighborhoods where violent gangs and assorted other predators make an evening stroll potentially lethal. Meanwhile, our prisons are bursting with now toothless, diabetic, increasingly demented old men whose maintenance costs taxpayers three to four times what it would to house them in a pleasant retirement home. A maximum security system can ill afford mistakes and so provides these enfeebled individuals with close, costly 24/7 supervision. Of course, even if we wanted to, we are unable to transfer these prisoners to homes for the aged because of constraints imposed by their sentences of mandatory imprisonment without parole. This is not a concern that is limited to the occasional institution. The United States contains less Dr. Blinder is Past Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, and Past Adjunct Professor of Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco, CA. Address correspondence to: Martin Blinder, MD, 50 Idalia Road, San Anselmo, CA 94960. E-mail: [email protected].