"Fellows, Jeffrey" wrote:
> .... so states with the biggest problems appear to be moving
> into intermediate sanctions for nonviolent offenders (between imprisonment
> and probation). This certainly says nothing about the problems of what acts
> are or are not criminalized,
I would suggest that the figure that counts most is not the number of people incarcerated but the number of people (including most crucially, juveniles) "involved in the criminal justice system": incarcerated, probation, parole, court supervision, juvenile detention, on bail awaiting trial, in jail awaiting trial, etc. Are aggregate numbers available on these? The ways in which this system can control and disrupt the lives of individuals are endless.
Several times while I have been observing court procedures it seemed that the most serious offense the poor sap standing before the judge had committed was that he/she had missed a court date. And in each of these cases that I personally observed it seemed fairly certain that the immediate cause of non-compliance was some form of sheer bewilderment -- certainly not a deliberately irresponsible effort to beat the system. In each case the judge merely delivered a moral lecture and remanded the prisoner to jail for failing to meet a court date.
Note that in case of those on probation or parole, no trial is necessary for their immediate imprisonment but merely the motion of the parole/ probation officer. This offers the courts/police immense power over all those in these positions.
As to growth in imprisonment, the growth of "private prisons" might do / is doing much to alleviate the "problem" of where to put prisoners. And in any case, as noted in the preceding paragraph, for purposes of control and state terror, imprisonment is merely part of a complex net of controls, needed for backup as it were but not the only or the most important agent of terror.
Carrol