Is releasing people from prison really that hard? I suppose it is if you cannot shake a carceral mindset.

The question in the title of this post is my response to this recent lengthy Atlantic commentary by Barbara Bradley Hagerty headlined "Releasing People From Prison Is Easier Said Than Done: As the pandemic threatens the lives of those behind bars, the country must confront a system that has never had rehabilitation as its priority."  This piece is reform-minded, and I recommend it, but its headline, much of its prose, and its overall spirit embrace a kind of carceral mentality that serves to reify a mass incarceration message.  These excerpts, as I will explain below, spotlight my concerns:

Some governors, alarmed at the deaths in prisons and jails and worried about the risk to surrounding communities, are listening — sort of, with an ear attuned to the political liability. More than half of the states have agreed to release people convicted of low-level crimes, people who are nearing the end of their sentences, or people who merit compassionate release, such as pregnant people or older, vulnerable inmates.

“It’s been helpful. I know that people have gotten out, and I am moved by their release,” says Nicole Porter, the director of advocacy at the Sentencing Project, a research organization that campaigns for sentencing reform. “But none of it has been substantial.  And what I hope this moment tells us is that our incarceration rate is a function of politics — because there are many questions about who needs to be incarcerated.”

To meaningfully reduce America’s prison population and slow the pandemic will require cutting away not just fat but muscle, releasing not just nonviolent drug offenders but those convicted of violent crimes.  The difficulty of doing so, in both practical and moral terms, is enormous.  Which people convicted of murder or armed robbery do we release? How do we decide?  And how do we guarantee that they won’t offend again, especially as they try to restart their life during the worst economic collapse in nearly a century?...

Advocates say prisons are brimming with candidates who deserve a second chance—men and women who made egregious mistakes when they were young, whose crimes say more about the impulsiveness of youth and the trickiness of navigating inner-city violence than they do about character.  Yet in large part, these are not people whom the system has been preparing for release.

Prison can serve many purposes — to deter people from committing crimes in the first place, to punish them if they do, or to rehabilitate them and usher them back to normal life. America has by and large chosen the punitive path, imposing decades-long sentences intended to reduce crime on the streets.  During that time, inmates usually don’t receive the kind of training or care that would enable them to return to the outside world and build a new, stable life. This presents a giant hurdle for those who would wish to release prisoners now....

Those are the practical challenges.  The moral question — who deserves to be released? — is even more daunting.  Is the inmate truly penitent, or merely saying the right words? Has he matured past his violent tendencies, or is he a tinderbox waiting to ignite once he’s out?  Does the family of the victim agree, or will his release only add to their pain?  Is the crime simply so heinous that even a perfect record cannot overcome it?

The last paragraph I have excerpted here is perhaps the clearest example of a carceral mindset: when asking "who deserves to be released?", the writer is necessarily assuming that everyone incarcerated not only already "deserves" to be incarcerated, but also "deserves" to continue to be incarcerated.  Further, the author then suggests that, to "deserve" release, an "inmate" must be "truly penitent" AND must have "matured past his violent tendencies" AND must have the "family of the victim agree." And, even then it seems, a "perfect record" still should not permit release amidst a global pandemic killing hundreds of prisoners if a person's crime is "simply so heinous."

For anyone eager to see a US criminal justice system operating with a deep commitment to liberty and justice, this thinking should be — must be — completely flipped.  The proper "daunting" moral question  is who deserves to still be incarcerated, especially amidst a global pandemic with inherently and worsening inhumane prison conditions.  If an incarcerated person is "truly penitent" OR likely has "matured past his violent tendencies" OR has the "family of the victim" in support, then that person ought no longer be incarcerated.  And, even without anything close to a "perfect record," an alternative to incarceration should still be the presumption for any and everyone whose crime or criminal record is not truly heinous.

Similar rhetoric earlier in the piece is comparably problematic, such as the query "how do we guarantee that they won’t offend again" when considering who to release from prison.  It is important — and I think this piece means to get us usefully thinking about — the importance of prison programming and outside support that seeks to minimize the risk of recidivism for persons leaving prison.  But we are never going to be able to "guarantee" that any cohort of individuals will never commit any kind of crime.  When we consider building a new highway, nobody expects public officials to "guarantee" there will never be an accident on that highway.  We want a new road to be as safe as possible, but we recognize that the array of benefits that can come from having a new road generally justify the inevitable public safety risks it creates.   Similarly, we must be ever mindful of the array of benefits that can come from having less people in prison and not demand or even suggest that people should be released from prison only if and only when public officials can "guarantee that they won’t offend again."

Finally, for now at least, I must again lament the tendency in so many of these kinds of discussions to start with the framing that meaningful action here "will require cutting away not just fat but muscle, releasing not just nonviolent drug offenders but those convicted of violent crimes."  I agree that cutting away the "fat" may not alone be enough, but let's focus on getting that hard work done before we fixate on the additional challenges of cutting "muscle."  As this great Prison Policy Initiative pie chart reminds us, roughly 50% of our national prison and jail populations are serving time for what are deemed "non-violent" offenses.  When we let out all or most or even some significant portion of this million+ people in cages, then I will be more than ready to wring my hands over which "violent" offenders to release.  But to now get deeply concerned about exactly which "people convicted of murder or armed robbery" should be released risks creating the impression that these types of offenders are the bulk of our prison populations, when they comprise less than 25% of all the people put in cages in the so-called home of the free and land of the brave.  (Also, for the very most serious of offenders, the debate is much less complicated since presumptive release when they are elderly or ill generally makes the most sense.)

I could go on and on, but I hope my point is clear.  Even as we discuss reform and recognize all the challenges surrounding decarceration efforts, we must be ever mindful of how decades of mass incarceration has not only badly hurt our nation and our values, but also badly hurt how we talk and think about doing better.