Why Jamaica Needs More Prisons

Murders in America fell by a half between 1990 and 2000. Some attribute this to a strong economy, changing demographics, zero tolerance, ‘broken window’ policies, New York style ‘innovative’ policing strategies, gun control laws, and increased capital punishment.

But in the “Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s” chapter of the best selling Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt found that none of these had much effect. He says the biggest reason the US murder rate fell was increased incarceration.

Which was brought about mainly by tougher legislation including plea bargaining, mandatory sentencing, and ‘three strikes and you’re out’ – a third conviction meaning a life sentence - laws. If this approach worked in America, why can’t a modified form work in Jamaica? We don’t want life sentences for shoplifting. But repeat violent offenders should be put away.

Other studies show that, up to a point, prison works to cut crime. As a May 12, 2004 London Times article put it, http://www.civitas.org.uk/pubs/prisonValue.php

“If we take into account the full social and economic cost of allowing persistent offenders to roam free, prison is a bargain… One [US] study by Professor John Dilulio estimated that the annual cost of keeping a criminal in jail is $25,000 and the total social and economic cost to society (including policing, insurance, injuries, replacing stolen property, and household expenditure on security measures) of allowing the median offender to remain at large is $70,098, a resulting cost-benefit ratio of 2.80.”

A 1981-1996 comparative study of UK and US crime rates also showed that the US crime rate fell as the risk of imprisonment rose. Conversely, the UK crime rate rose as the risk of prison receded. As one writer said, “The conclusive evidence may not impress the modern ideological social reformer. But the facts do seem, shall we say, inescapable.” http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=090506A

Jamaica imprisons far less people than its situation warrants. Here is a comparison to some other English speaking countries. (Sources : UNODC Seventh Survey on Crime, International Centre for Prison Studies) NB. Jamaica’s murder rate has almost doubled since 2000.

In 1989 we had roughly 400 murders and about 4,000 prison spaces. In 2007 we had almost 1,600 murders and the same 4,000 prison spaces.

Not having enough prisons means even when we catch criminals, there is nowhere to put them. Look at this September 4, 2006 Star story : ‘Crime as a career - Repeat offenders are 80% of arrests, cops say’
http://www.jamaica-star.com/thestar/20060904/news/news1.html

This squares with what you hear regularly from policemen and security guards. It’s the old 20/80 rule really.

An April 17th 2008 Economist article “Inner-city crime: Back from the brink” showed how this worked in Baltimore, US.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11057088

“… the murder rate has fallen because the police are paying more attention to the most violent offenders. One helpful new tool is a registry for gun offenders… Like sex criminals, anyone who commits a crime using a gun must register his whereabouts with the police as soon as he is convicted or once released from jail. Failure to do so can get him imprisoned again for up to a year. The logic is simple. Of the 135 people arrested for murder in Baltimore last year, nearly half had a prior conviction for a gun offence. So it makes sense for police and parole officers to keep close tabs on former gun criminals. "

Serious social intervention is definitely needed in our inner cities. But social welfare programmes can’t work if vicious criminals are numerically strong enough to destroy them, as the Grants Pen experiment showed.

‘How can we afford it?‘. Well the proper question is ‘How can we not afford to do it?’. A March 2007 World Bank study - “Crime, Violence, and Development: Trends,
Costs, and Policy Options in the Caribbean” http://www.unodc.org/pdf/world%20bank%20C&V%20Report.pdf
– estimated that if Jamaica reduced its homicide rate to Costa Rican levels, our annual GDP growth rate would increase by 5.4 percent.