Since the US is the wealthiest nation on earth the usual factors which cause crime should be less common. These factors are usually taken to be associated with poverty, lack of employment opportunity, and poor or corrupt government administration. While these conditions certainly exist in certain sectors of the US society they are not nearly as severe as elsewhere. Yet our crime rate is higher. Why?

One obvious cause is that we have made the penalties for drug-related crimes more severe than elsewhere. This means that more people are charged and convicted and then serve longer prison terms. The number of people imprisoned for drug law violations has increased from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000+ now, an eight-fold growth.

Over the same period the unemployment rate and poverty rate have not trended upward so there must be some other factors. Some seem to be a higher proportion of people sentenced to jail and longer sentences, but this still doesn't seem to account for all the increases. Why,then, has the prison populaton been rising?

What is the purpose of imprisonment?

Along with longer sentences there has been a trend to harsher treatment of prisoners. We now have "super max" prisons where prisoners are kept isolated for 23 hours per day. In many cases the prisoners seem to be assigned to these prisons because of the nature of the crime they committed rather than because of actions they did as prisoners. So prisoners who have committed a "distasteful" crime are punished more severely. Isn't the length of the sentence supposed to represent the way the seriousness of the crime is treated? Why are those convicted of "terrorism" put in super max facilities. Do they present more of a prison population control issue than others?

During the prison reform movement of the 19th Century we had the rise of the Penitentiary Movement. Prisons were supposed to be places where prisoners would repent and leave as better people. A similar effort was the Reformatory Movement which led to the rise institutions designed to alter people's behavior and provide training in trades to be used later in life. Much of this effort has now died out. Imprisonment has tended towards punishment and confinement rather than rehabilitation. Why?

Final Question

The US has a long tradition of social attitudes reflecting the Puritan/Calvinist origins of the country. This shows up in many areas. We regard work and striving to get ahead as virtues. We tend to have strict public attitudes towards sex (although there is a lot of hypocritical behavior in private). This shows itself in attitudes towards unmarried sexual activity, unwed mothers, pornography, abortion and birth control. We regard individualism and the ability to go it alone as a positive trait while relying on others and communal efforts tend to be frowned on. So self made men are looked up to while separatist communities are regarded as strange.

The attitude to crime and punishment would seem to be part of the pattern. Crime is a failure of the individual and must be punished. Offering rehabilitation or other assistance would be "rewarding" the criminal. The parts of the Judeo-Christian tradition which emphasize compassion and charity seem to be down played. Why?