BOOK REVIEWS
Incarceration rates have dramatically increased without yielding large crime- reduction benefits for the country, and high rates came about not because of an increase in crime but because of policy choices. ~ 2014 National Research Council Report, excerpted from Inside Private Prisons In this well-written and informa- tive history of how we got to where we are today, Lauren-Brooke Eisen points out that “between 1984 and 2005, a new prison opened every eight and a half days” in this country. With that in mind, what are taxpayers getting for the 80 billion dollars our government now spends annually “on the prison industrial complex that has infiltrated corrections in the United States?” The incarceration industry comprises “ap- proximately 1,800 prisons and 3,000 jails.” In addition, “more than 2.1 mil- lion individuals are behind bars in state or federal prisons, and more than 20,000 people are held in local jails.” There are also “more mentally ill peo- ple in the nation’s prisons than in its mental hospitals.” We Are All Immigrants (Except for the Native Americans) Just as disturbing is the plight of the large number of immigrants seek- ing asylum from violence in Central
America, who pose no threats to pub- lic safety and who most likely have family here waiting for them. Yet they, too, end up behind bars in private prison detention centers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has signed contracts with for-profit private prison corporations. Detention centers have become a cash cow for the prison industrial complex, while desperate immigrants who think they are enter- ing a democracy become chattel. As a nation of immigrants, our callous and wasteful billion-dollar war on immi- grants must end. To those Central Americans in this country waiting to welcome their rela- tives, President Obama became more than the “deporter in Chief.” In 2014, “the average number of daily deten- tion beds nearly doubled” in this coun- try to 34,000. “In 2015 alone, almost half a million people were held in im- migrant detention facilities.” At the end of 2016 with President Obama still in office, there were more than “40,000 undocumented immigrants in immi- grant detention facilities on any given day.” Conditions in those facilities are not good, but they are costly. Immigrants should be permitted to join their families already in this coun- try, thus alleviating their distress while saving taxpayers billions of dollars. In addition to a complete lack of fairness and due process, incarcerating already traumatized individuals fleeing horri-
ble conditions probably linked to past horrors our government perpetrated in those countries, the huge sums of taxpayer dollars handed over to the for-profit prisons could be much better spent. Lost opportunities include pro- viding permanent housing, relevant services, job training, and even a job for every homeless and unemployed or underemployed adult (and family) in this country. Rethinking Incarceration As “the world’s biggest jailor, will we rethink how we punish individu- als who break our laws?” Eisen also wants us to ask “whether incarcerating so many for so long benefits society.” In her comprehensive analysis of our criminal justice system, she clearly lays out egregious problems every level of our government has created by over- relying on incarceration to address a wide range of social ills. The cruel use of solitary confinement is part of this national disgrace. To ensure fairness for all, Eisen wants to replace our cur- rent inhumane laws and policies that leave costly and destructive confine- ment as the only option. Another aspect of this dismal Amer- ican dilemma is the deliberate location of prisons in impoverished rural com- munities, as remedies to alleviate high continued on page 46
BOOK REVIEWS BY ALYCE ORTUZAR
Inside Private Prisons: An American Dilemma in the Age of Mass Incarcera- tion By Lauren-Brooke Eisen 2018; New York: Columbia University Press 340pp (PB) ISBN 978-0-231-17971-3 Author website: www.brennancenter.org
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