By Anthony Xerri

When asked about the relative crime problem in different countries, the average American might be surprised to learn that the United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, with approximately 2.3 million criminals locked up. For every 100,000 citizens, 751 are in jail or prison; 1 in 100 American adults is incarcerated.

A jail sentence is used to punish an individual who commits an act that is against the laws of the society in which he lives. The guiding principle of any such system is that a man who does something wrong deserves to be punished. From where does this idea come? Surely there is no property intrinsic to certain acts that makes them punishable.

The act of killing, for example, is something most people would agree is wrong. Yet the killing of animals and insects occurs every day, without the human masses even blinking an eye. Humans have been killing for food since the dawn of humanity. So it seems that when perpetrated against another man, killing becomes a punishable offense. This, however, is not the case either. Many men have been put to death at the hands of another in the name of the law. These executioners on the other end of the injection or electric chair receive no punishment for the killings that they themselves commit. In these cases, killing is promoted by the legal system.

Although it is clear that no act is intrinsically punishable, there are certain acts that prevent a society from running smoothly. It is for this reason that acts such as murder and stealing are forbidden. But if the goal is a society that runs smoothly, our legal system is taking the wrong approach. Jail time may be effective for scaring young shoplifters and other such offenders into living the straight life, but for many criminals this is not the case. According to the Department of Corrections, 55% of convicts in New Jersey return to jail after being released. Such a high rate of repeat offenders points to the failure of our penal system in discouraging crime, which should be the main objective.

The problem with our jails and prisons is that there is no attempt at rehabilitation. Criminals in jail are confined, supervised, and stripped of virtually all freedoms. While this is a serious punishment and prevents inmates from being a danger to society while they are inside, it does not change who they are. In fact, the hostile environment inside a jail can, and often does, further exacerbate sociopathic tendencies.

Our jails should be modeled after institutions for the mentally ill, staffed with positive and friendly workers rather than grumpy, aggressive officers on power trips. In order to ensure that convicts will not return to their old habits, counseling (psychological or otherwise) should be provided to inmates. Help them to see the error of their ways in the context of how it affects the victims rather than for fear of the possible consequences to themselves. This is the only way to get to the root of the problem and change the thinking of those who have committed crimes.

As a society, we must pave the way for convicts to live their lives in harmony with the laws and the rest of the population. We are currently far off from this ideal. A conviction and jail sentence can make it extremely difficult for a person to change his behavior, and the entire process is quite costly to the taxpayer.

Imagine that you have been arrested and charged with a felony, perhaps even one that you didn’t commit. Upon your admittance to a facility like our own Middlesex County Jail, you are immediately charged a processing fee of 50 dollars—that’s right—they charge you money to hold you against your will. Don’t have the cash on hand? No problem; for your convenience (or perhaps theirs) you have the right to use the jail’s on-premise ATM machine. At this point you generally have the option to bail yourself out. If you have enough money to pay the court directly, you will be reimbursed (minus a small fee, of course) upon your appearance on your scheduled court date. If you cannot afford to pay your entire bail, a bondsman will cover it for you for a fee that will not be refunded. Your next course of action is to find a lawyer. Unfortunately, if you want a lawyer with any clout you must be prepared to pay handsomely. Keep in mind that up until this point you could still be innocent and have already been inconvenienced to the tune of thousands of dollars.

If you are convicted, you will be returned to jail (tack on another 50 dollar processing fee) and probably slapped with court fees and castigatory fines, which could easily be another few thousand dollars. Considering the amount of crimes committed out of need for money by those who feel that illegal activity is their only option, the expense of the process is likely to be a heavy load. I need hardly mention that many criminals are unemployed and, upon release, tagged as convicted felons, making the search for employment exponentially more difficult. With the odds stacked in this way, it is not hard to see why someone might try to pick up some fast cash by selling drugs, robbing a local convenience store, or engaging in some other illegal activity that they are familiar with.

Certain aspects of the legal system make it seem as if the goal is to keep people locked up, rather than to help those the system is supposed to protect. Consider a man who misses a child support payment. A warrant for his arrest could be issued and he would be incarcerated. Upon his release he will have two weeks to make a payment or he will be once again thrown in jail (don’t forget about those processing fees). Even if he could find a job in two weeks, he would most likely not secure a paycheck in time to pay his child support. If he is arrested again, he will most likely lose his new job and find himself back at the beginning of the cycle. This is certainly of no help to the single mother who is waiting for her child support.

As a society, we need to think about what our goals are. If we are trying to get as much of the population as possible behind bars, we are well on our way. But if we want to get to the root of the problem and make people no longer want to commit crimes rather than blindly punish those who break the law, we are going to need serious reform.