Factories, Schools, and Prisons: A Comment

Victoria L. Swigert, Professor of Sociology

When I look at the splendid array of photographs of factories, schools, and prisons I am looking at three important correlates of the social problem, crime: the economy, education, and corrections. For more than a century, these have fueled the debates in academia, in public discourse, and in legislative fora about what to do about crime. We have made a choice: it's the final photograph in this exhibition - brand and shiny new, the multi-million dollar correctional facility in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The choice, I think, has been guided by chronic frustration, rage, and fear of crime, all of which has been manipulated by every politico in every political platform for the past thirty years. The payoffs are election or reelection and prison construction as a growth industry, one which claims the largest share of our public housing dollars (The Nation, 1995: 223). The hottest trend is privatization, really commodification, of corrections: where punishment becomes a product bought and sold on the open market. It is instructive that education and health have seen a similar transformation: colleges advertise their products, students and parents are seen and see themselves as customers, and we talk about discount rates and right sizing and product liability right along with Chrysler. HMOs hawk their wares, promise one-stop shopping, offer coupons, and every time I hear the expression " fee for service" I am reminded I need to have my oil changed or my tires rotated. Education, health, social control, like family and religion are a society's moral order. Their commodification does not bode well. And while this is a whole separate topic, it is intimately related to what I see when I look at these photos or read year after year the mind numbing facts about crime. What are the ties that bind us together?

What has happened to the moral fabric? Can we talk any more about values --not the politically expedient conversation about "family values" that has driven every election since Reagan, and certainly not the market value of health, education, and corrections for sale. Do we recognize the value of our lives together? Can we find the humanity in those from whom we are separated by a widening gulf? The brilliance of Michael Jacobson-Hardy's photos is in the eyes of the subjects. They remind me that we are in this together. Something, I think, that has become increasingly difficult to remember.

Look at the photo of the classroom. What does this teacher see in her students, what do those children see in her eyes. Look at the man who looks at us through the bars. Is this what it means to be the keeper of one's brother? How does he see me? Do we live in the same world? If not, if our worlds have become so alien to each other, what are we going to do about that? There is no human in the photo of the cages; these are not places for people to be and yet they are.

Criminologists have long spoken of America's underclass a growing population of the poorest of the poor, hopelessly, disconnected from the rest of us. Now they talk about the permanent prison class. In its annual census, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, tells us there were 1.585 million people incarcerated in 1995, That is 600 people for every 100,000 people in population; one in every 167 U.S. residents. The incarceration rate is up 6.8 percent over 1994; 113 percent over 1985. A million and a half people were housed in facilities that operated between 14 and 25 percent over capacity. The prison class The FBI's annual census tells us now many inmates there are at any one time. Every few years , the Department of Justice conducts a detailed survey of the imprisoned population. The last complete survey, published in 1994, was based on 1993 data. The size of the population was smaller 3 years ago, given an average annual growth of seven to eight percent, but the demographic patterns are the same. The prison class:

* It is African American and, increasingly, Hispanic. African Americans make up 13 percent of the population and they are 54 percent of those behind bars. This figure is up 35 percent over 20 years ago.

* In 1980, 168 of every 100,000 white men were in jail or prison; this was true for 1,111 of every 100,000 black men. In 1993, the corresponding figures were 344/100,000 white men (up 121 and 2678/ 100,000 black men ( up 140 %).

* One quarter of all black males between ages 20 and 29 is in prison, jail, on parole or probation. Between incarceration rates and homicide rates for this population, do we really not understand the incidence of single mother families and do we really not know that declaring war against teen moms won't help?

* The prison class is young; the median age is 30.

* It is 95 percent male.

* Most (80%) are not married; the majority does not have a high school education.

* One third was unemployed at the time of arrest; 10 percent had part-time jobs.

* Eighty-one percent of those serving time in 1993 had at least one prior arrest; half had three or more.

* Six of ten grew up in a one-parent home or were raised by grandparents, other relatives or the state.

* More than one third has a family member in jail or prison, usually a brother.

* One third reports drug or alcohol abuse by parents or guardians.

* Two of three say they are regular drug users themselves.

The incarcerated population is only a fraction of the population committing crime. The Bureau of Justice also conducts an annual victimization survey. If we compare these findings with the FBI's tally of crimes known to the police, we see that most crime is undetected, unreported. I'm thinking about the index crimes - murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson - the crimes we watch most closely to see what kind of problem we have. And if we follow the crimes that do become known through the various stages of the legal process, that is, when we note the proportion of known crimes that result in an arrest, those that are prosecuted, prosecutions that result in convictions, convictions that result in sentences to prison, and prisoners actually received, the incarcerated population is only a small fraction indeed. Overall, it takes 1200 crimes to result in an incarceration. There are a lot of people breaking lots of laws, more than we can possibly handle in a legal system which from start to finish is already at the breaking point. The under class, the prison class. They are disconnected from us. What kind of stake do they have in conformity? What stitches bind them into the moral fabric? How do the choices we have made help? Deterrence theorists have always argued that if punishments were swift, certain, and severe, they would work. Their model, however, assumes (depends upon) in identification with the moral order whose boundaries, in the act of punishment, are being asserted. If this is not my world, if you and your prisons and police are foreign to me, all the celerity, certainty, and severity you can throw at me will not correct; I will not repent. Both words--correct and repent--presume a return to a state that preceded the offensive behavior. How meaningless is this to a growing population of those with whom we have less and less in common, who do not share our lives, whose offenses are not a simple deviation from what is otherwise our common path.

We have placed our bets on targeting the consequences of social, economic, moral fragmentation. It is not working.

Michael Jacobson-Hardy's photographs focus on one end of the socioeconomic pyramid. Things are in no better shape at the other end. If we convert losses from crime into dollars and cents, and there is danger in doing so because it reproduces the problem when moral and ethical issues are given price tags, still we would find that elite crime costs us much more than the crimes we have been thinking about thus far. Some criminologists estimate that cost at $200 billion a year; that is twenty times the cost of conventional street crime (Messner and Rosenfeld, 1997:28). They tell us that nearly 300,000 people died last year from job related diseases, pollution, unsafe or defective merchandise- this figure is ten times the number of deaths from homicide. Several million more were injured or made sick. If only ten percent of these deaths and injuries are the result of criminal violations (and experts' estimates range from 1/3 to 1/2), the violent crime rate is at least as high and probably higher in the suites than on the streets (Messner and Rosenfeld, 1997: 29).

We don't know much about the family histories of these white-collar offenders or what substances they abuse. They are well educated and are among that top 20 percent of the population that receive 40-45 percent of the income. The problem is not lack of opportunity for these folks. The problem is moral disconnection. What's wrong with taking money from your very own till? If I abide by the law, I will fail. Every body's doing it? It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. Dog-eat-dog! There's a view of our lives together. I'm reminded of the kennel-like structures in the prison photo.

We have problems at both ends of the pyramid. To use Anthony Harris' analysis (1991), the absence of red lights for the underclass and a permanent green light for the entitled class have similar consequences: lots of crime, lots of suffering.

How do we mend the moral fabric? What choices must we make? Michael Jacobson-Hardy reminds me that this is the real issue. I see it in this juxtaposition of factories, schools, and prisons. I am connected through Michael's lens, face-to-face, eye-to-eye, soul to soul, with real people. We forget that when we are angry and afraid.

References

Harris, Anthony. 1991."Race, Class, and Crime." In Criminology. Edited by Joseph F. Sheley. Belmont, California: Wadsworth.

Messner, Steven and Richard Rosenfeld. 1997. Crime and the American Dream. Belmont, California: Wadsworth.

The Nation. 1995. "The Prison Boom." February 20, 260.

U.S. Department of Justice. 1995. "Prison and Jail Inmates, 1995." Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

U.S. Department of Justice. 1994. "Prisoners in 1994." Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.