[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 2 (Wednesday, January 26, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: January 26, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                           TOUGHER IS DUMBER

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, during our break the New York Times 
published an op-ed piece by Professor Todd Clear, a professor of 
criminal justice at Rutgers University.
  I cast one of four votes against the Crime Bill, which passed in the 
last days of the session, and I did it because I think we are 
approaching the whole problem of crime inaccurately.
  In the United States we now have 510 people per 100,000 in our 
prisons and jails, far more than any other country. South Africa is 
second with 311. Our neighbor to the north, Canada, has 109.
  The folly of our present policy is pointed out in the Todd Clear 
piece. I ask to insert it into the Record at this point, and I urge my 
colleagues to read it.
  The article follows:

                [From the New York Times, Dec. 4, 1993]

                          `Tougher' Is Dumber

                           (By Todd R. Clear)

       Newark.--Polls show that crime is once again the No. 1 
     issue among city dwellers. And elected officials, ears to the 
     ground, are responding with measures like the new Federal 
     crime bill, which will let Congress spend billions of dollars 
     over the next five years to hire more police officers and 
     build more prisons.
       The idea always sounds reasonable enough: tougher law 
     enforcement and punishment should mean more compliance with 
     the law, less crime and eventually a better quality of life 
     in the cities. The trouble with this theory is that we have 
     been following it for 20 years without much success.
       Since 1973, as a result of a vast nationwide increase in 
     criminal sentences, imprisonment has risen more than 
     fourfold; we have added a million citizens to the prison and 
     jail population. More than 1 in 40 males 14 to 34 years old 
     are locked up. No other nation has had so much growth.
       If such toughness had much to do with crime, you'd think 
     we'd have seen some results by now. But surveys of victims 
     show that overall crime has decreased only 6 percent since 
     1973; violent crimes are up 24 percent. The National Research 
     Council of the National Academy of Sciences recently 
     concluded that a tripling of time served by violent offenders 
     since 1975 had ``apparently very little'' impact on violent 
     crime.
       Why do harsh penalties seem to have so little to do with 
     crime? There are two reasons.
       The obvious reason is that the police and prisons have 
     virtually no effect on the sources of criminal behavior. 
     About 70 percent of prisoners in New York State come from 
     eight neighborhoods in New York City. These neighborhoods 
     suffer profound poverty, exclusion, marginalization and 
     despair. All these things nourish crime. Isn't it a bit 
     much to believe that removing some men from their streets 
     will change the factors that promote lawbreaking among the 
     many who remain?
       The less obvious reason is that threats and punishments are 
     not the main reasons people obey the law. Research in Chicago 
     by Tom Tyler, a professor at the University of California at 
     Berkeley, shows clearly that one's motivation to obey the law 
     stems from how one perceives the law. Where legal authority 
     is experienced as evenhanded and legitimate, it is obeyed; 
     where it is seen as biased and corrupt, it is ignored. 
     Saturating neighborhoods with officers who indiscriminately 
     stop citizens and search them for drugs, confiscating their 
     property without due process of law, can result in less 
     motivation to obey the law.
       The prevailing theory is wrong. Crime is a primary result 
     of reductions in quality of life, not a primary cause. 
     ``Toughness,'' because it is irrelevant to the sources of 
     quality of life in our cities and is antagonistic to belief 
     in the law, can do little to affect the amount of crime.
       For two decades we have been ``tough'' on crime, and we've 
     been getting nowhere. It costs at least $100,000 to build a 
     prison cell and $20,000 to staff it each year. A police 
     officer on the street costs at least $60,000 a year. Let's 
     start investing in things that really reduce crime: good 
     schools, jobs and a future for young parents and their 
     children.

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