“During the 1990s, Texas added more prisoners to its prison system (+98,081) than New York’s entire prison population (73,233) by some 24,848 prisoners. This means that the number of prisoners that Texas added during the 1990s was 34% higher than New York’s entire prison population. While Texas had the fastest growing prison system in the country during the 1990s, New York had the third slowest growing prison population in the US. Over all, during the 1990s, Texas added five times as many prisoners as New York did (18,001). Yet since 1995, the study found that the percentage decline in New York’s crime index was four times greater than Texas’ percentage decline in crime and New York’s crime rate dropped at twice the rate of the Lone Star State. Texas’ current incarceration rate (1,035 per 100,000) is 80% higher than New York’s (574 per 100,000), yet Texas’ crime rate (5,111 per 100,000) is 30% higher than New York’s (3,588 per 100,000). In 1998, Texas’ murder rate was 25% higher than New York State’s rate.”

The problem is that you don’t have anything near a consensus about what the “purpose and goals of incarceration” are.

As for “failing to connect with the reality of the US prison system”, I refer you to Kieran’s comment (#15) and the links contained therein.

Well we do bring into play an informed understanding of addition . When you add those numbers up—as the US Department of Justice (and not us crazed pinkos at CT) did— you get another number, and it is a very large one.

“the idea of eight days of riots in a Mexican American neighborhood in America is pretty inconceivable”

Nor can I. But it is clear that the stocks of social capital in inner-city neighborhoods have improved even while incarceration rates have risen. Inner-city neighborhoods were not only generators of crime and associated disorder but principal victims. The changes in the New York crime rate that have occured since the early 90’s have made inner-city neighborhoods far more livable than they were.

So, yes, incarceration rates are a big problem, but they haven’t not resulted in a vicious cycle that has made inner-city neighborhoods worse off—in most American cities they are better off.

Personally, I see America’s incarceration explosion as a major social problem in itself. It has tremendous human costs, not only for the individuals incarcerated, but also for those connected to them (e.g. children who suffer the incarceration of a parent) and the communities in which they live in. I cannot see how rising incarceration has a positive effect on social capital in inner-city neighborhoods.

Joshua Burton’s comment about prison time becoming a badge of honor in certain subcultures is very interesting. I can think of other unintended consequences of incarceration. For example, it is likely that the more friends and family you have in prison, the less frightening of a place prison becomes, and the less of a stigma is associated with going to jail. Thus, the increase in incarceration may, in the long run, reduce the deterrent effect of incarceration.