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Liberals for Segregated Prisons
Mark Kleiman hops on the bandwagon. Since I was semi-on this bandwagon when the court decision first came down, let me restate my view. As Mark argues, it's very hard to see that whatever sort of racial discrimination could be said to be going on here is really more important to stamp out than is the sort of brutal violence the policy purports to ameliorate. What I continue to not see laid out is the evidence that this policy does, in fact, ameliorate prison violence to a significant degree. But if it does, then that seems worth it. When I was in college, near as anyone could tell, the administration deliberately tried to throw freshmen into mixed-race rooms as a little experiment in horizon-broadening and social engineering. And good for them. It's a reasonable thing for a school to be doing. A prison, however, is a rather different sort of situation. The convicts aren't in there to meet knew people and learn about the world. They also shouldn't be in their to join gangs and rape and kill one another. If this is really a policy that's working, it'd be a terrible thing to end it based on the wildly abstract considerations the justices are bringing to bear.
March 1, 2005 | Permalink
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» Liberal Blogger Advocates For Segregation NOW! from Ace of Spades HQ
Awww, shucks, I just did that for attention. He's not really arguing for segregation per se, and he isn't even making a point I disagree with. What he is doing is questioning whether or not prisions should be segregated, to... [Read More]
Tracked on Mar 2, 2005 11:49:27 PM
Comments
I find the remark about joining gangs perplexing. In the cities where I've lived, gang membership is closely tied to ethnicity -- not a lot of white boys in the Latin Kings, for example. Racial segregation seems like it would promote the formation of racially determined groupings rather than discouraging it.
Posted by: zwichenzug | Mar 1, 2005 12:58:14 AM
Strict scrutiny isn't necessarily fatal after Grutter and Gratz. I would rule that the government has a compelling interest here. I'm just a 3L though.
Posted by: Katherine | Mar 1, 2005 1:27:41 AM
Zwichenzug,
Applying what insights into gang dynamics I gleaned from watching "west side story", I'm guessing that the segregation of races is intended to prevent rival gangs of different races from clashing violently.
Posted by: battlepanda | Mar 1, 2005 2:08:49 AM
zwichenzug, unless one is willing to take the measures needed to atomize the gang structure that already exists in prisons, which would be an extraordinarily labor and capital intensive task, segregating races is likely the best way to reduce violence.
Posted by: Will Allen | Mar 1, 2005 2:37:33 AM
How about voluntary segregation? Isn't that the best of both worlds?
If the prisoners think they benefit from lower violence, they'll benefit. If not, not.
This gets the government off the hook for pursuing a racialist policy and more or less eliminates the need for a bunch of studies.
After all, the prisoners probably understand the dynamics of gang-violence in prisons a hell of a lot better than a bunch of criminologists and sociologists.
Posted by: DeadHorstBeater | Mar 1, 2005 3:52:00 AM
Will, that's an incredibly defeatist position - "It's difficult to end murderous racially based gangs, so let's segregate people instead". It's pretty obvious on even the most cursory examination that the US prison system needs a fundamental overhaul. Even the most conservative of people would surely agree that it's not healthy to have 2m people (that's two million!) being held in conditions that at best allow and at worst encourage hardcore criminal behaviour. If it takes a lot of labour and capital, so be it. Surely that's better than effectively training two million gang members before letting them loose on society.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Mar 1, 2005 6:29:25 AM
battlepanda - that would be my guess too, except that the segregation is supposed to be temporary. So it looks as if it lasts just long enough to harden racial divisions and allow the formation of ethnic groupings. If this reduces violence, it seems to me that it does so by creating a balance of powers on the model of pre-WWI Europe. That system looked stable for awhile, but turned out to have a few serious problems.
Will - I'm not stating a moral objection. The policy just doesn't seem wise to me for the reasons stated above. However, your comment gets at the heart of the matter. Our society has made a decision that we're willing to incarcerate large numbers of individuals in the name of crime prevention. It turns out, however, that maintaining prisons properly costs more than we're willing to pay, with the result that inmates brutalize one another. Arguably, this creates a growing class of hardened criminals. Maybe segregation will reduce these effects on the cheap, though I doubt it. Failing that, we should either decide to pay what the policy costs (i.e., hire more guards and build more prisons), or find another way of dealing with crime.
Posted by: zwichenzug | Mar 1, 2005 9:06:46 AM
I'm not sure. We seem to be telling ourselves the story that, "racial tensions lead to the formation of ethnic prison gangs. Prison authorities are either too understaffed or neglectful to effectively supress them." Perhaps, but I'm not sure that's right. By some accounts I've read, prison authorities play a far more active roll, deliberately encouraging prison violence and gang activity. If this is true, perhaps racial divisions are simply the most convenient tool, but with racially segregated prisons, they'd find a slightly less convenient but still workable tool for encouraging polarization and violence in prisons.
Posted by: Julian Elson | Mar 1, 2005 9:22:45 AM
unless one is willing to take the measures needed to atomize the gang structure that already exists in prisons, which would be an extraordinarily labor and capital intensive task, segregating races is likely the best way to reduce violence.
Well, that's precisely what "narrow tailoring" requires. And when you use race as a proxy for something you're trying to ameliorate--in this case, societal violence--you have to be able to show that you haven't done it just because it's easy. Sorry, pragmatists.
Posted by: bobo brooks | Mar 1, 2005 9:29:41 AM
I like your point bobo, but I wouldn't bet the house on the supreme court overruling the hardened practices of the prison officials involved in this case. Ultimately, however, the prison violence issue is much bigger than this one case. If there were enough serious minded people interested in public service it would be getting much more mainstream attention than it currently does. Toqueville, soul of the nation and all that good stuff.
Posted by: fnook | Mar 1, 2005 10:27:58 AM
Well, if we want to discuss the entire reformation of the penal system, I'm all for it, and we can begin by largely ending the War on Drugs. Next, we can segregate prisoners according to the violence of their felonies. Violent felons should not be housed with non-violent felons. After that, we can incarcerate violent felons in such a manner that they have practically zero opportunity to engage in violence against others.
This step will inevitably provoke cries of outrage, for incarcerating people in a fashion which reduces their opportunity to engage in violence against others to practically zero results in the near total isolation for the violent felon. Now, I have no objection to this, because I have little concern for the well-being violent felons, and although I oppose the death penalty, I do favor such long sentences for first time violent offenders that their eventual realease, when they are quite elderly, is of little concern from a public safety standpoint. However, to those who are willing to sacrifice some element of public safety, out of concern for the well-being of violent felons, such a policy would be unduly harsh.
However, If I am warden of a prison with a budget set by others, and not an omnipotent being who can decree what will be invested in penal reform, segregating by race may be the surest way for me to do my job of mimimizing the violence that occurs within the walls I am charged with managing.
Posted by: Will Allen | Mar 1, 2005 10:39:44 AM
Well, count me as a liberal who could support it given evidence. But, I think it's important to recognize that such a system could undoubtedly be justified for numerous individual cases, that doesn't mean that overall the system isn't a "net bad" - and not just for squishy liberal reasons.
Posted by: Atrios | Mar 1, 2005 10:44:22 AM
a big part of the reality of prisonkeeping these days seems to be profit-driven. if segregation could help the bottom line, we'd already be seeing it.
Posted by: who | Mar 1, 2005 10:49:28 AM
Will, that's an incredibly defeatist position - "It's difficult to end murderous racially based gangs, so let's segregate people instead". It's pretty obvious on even the most cursory examination that the US prison system needs a fundamental overhaul. Even the most conservative of people would surely agree that it's not healthy to have 2m people (that's two million!) being held in conditions that at best allow and at worst encourage hardcore criminal behaviour. If it takes a lot of labour and capital, so be it.
Sure we could end the drug war, which apparently is even more of a third rail than Social Security. I'd be all for that. But what else? I suspect that it isn't just labour and capital intensive--it would probably involve things that liberals aren't thrilled about, like the more widespread use of solitary confinement and other punitive measures.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw | Mar 1, 2005 11:37:38 AM
Slipperly slope.
As I said before, if this opens the door for segregation elesewhere. Suppose a violence plagued school with gangs suggested the same thing?
I don't see how this action is narrowly taylored enough to withstand scrutiny. Putting a black man or a white man with only those in his own race is a serious issue. Remember, the prison isn't protected by the 14 amendment, each individual prisoner is. To segregate a man is a terrible thing, both by way of policy and by way of the damage it does to the person, as we have learned from history.
I don't think that it is wise to jump on this bandwagon because we begin to feel bad about the terrible state of our prisions.
Posted by: eric | Mar 1, 2005 11:54:39 AM
Sure we could end the drug war...But what else? ...it would probably involve things that liberals aren't thrilled about, like the more widespread use of solitary confinement and other punitive measures.
Well, here's one liberal who would have a lot less discomfort with widespread use of solitary confinement if we stopped imprisoning people for victimless crimes. So sign me up.
Posted by: bobo brooks | Mar 1, 2005 12:42:52 PM
Will, that's an incredibly defeatist position - "It's difficult to end murderous racially based gangs, so let's segregate people instead".
The racially based gangs exist. Whether or not they should be ended, until they are ended failure to take reasonable actions that protect people from them when in custody is itself murderous.
Short-term transitional segregation of new prisoners -- who are often themselves part of such gangs from the outside -- until they can be evaluated and appropriate long-term housing decisions made, hardly seems to be some kind of outrageous step.
Posted by: cmdicely | Mar 1, 2005 1:37:42 PM
As I said before, if this opens the door for segregation elesewhere. Suppose a violence plagued school with gangs suggested the same thing?
If schools had the level of student-on-student violence that prisons have, the district would be driven into bankruptcy by lawsuits in about 37 minutes, so it wouldn't be an issue.
Further, schools don't confine students in small spaces, with one to three other students who are known criminals, for most of the day, with intermittent direct observation, as a general rule.
Posted by: cmdicely | Mar 1, 2005 1:42:30 PM
cmdicely,
You forgot to mention that schools (at least when I was growing up) usually expel its murderers and rapists.
Posted by: beowulf | Mar 1, 2005 7:27:27 PM
I suspect that it isn't just labour and capital intensive--it would probably involve things that liberals aren't thrilled about, like the more widespread use of solitary confinement and other punitive measures.
Not really. It just requires a good deal of money and a bit of an effort. The last is mostly lacking in the US of A.
Do a comparison with e.g. Canada, Switserland, and a bunch of other countries with less prison related abuse and crime.
But then I have little hope for a country that needs judges to tell them not to kill juvenile and mentally retarded criminals.
Posted by: Dude | Mar 1, 2005 9:32:38 PM
Dear Matt & Co.:
Did anyone actually read the Supreme Court's opinions?
The reason California lost before the Court should be painfully obvious if you take the time to read the opinions. The State had virtually no evidence that segregation was necessary or effective. State prison officials simply assume as a matter of policy that any and all prisoners of different races cannot be housed together (during the first months of incarceration at a particular prison facility) without racial violence. The State didn't even bother to screen for violent background or suspected gang involvement. So, for example, two car thieves of different races with no history of violent crime and no history of any gang involvement will be segregated.
California relied on the testimony of a couple correctional officials, one of whom testified that you have to be careful with "the Asian population" because they'll kill each other. Why? "It's very culturally heavy." That's why. You see the sophisticated justifications that California presented in this litigation?
Oh, and it seems clear from the record before the Supreme Court that no other state in the union uses the extensive, blanket segregation policy used by California.
So there's no need to wring your hands about whether it's philosophically a problem to segregate prisoners by race if segregation curbs gang violence. That's not this case. This is a case in which a bunch of lazy state officials relied on race simply because of half-baked racial theories and administrative convenience.
QED, if you ask me.
And, by the way, Justice O'Connor's opinion for the Court doesn't invalidate California's policy outright. The opinion simply decides that "strict scrutiny" applies--that is, the State has to show that the policy is narrowly tailored to meet a compelling state interest. So, the Court actually gives the State a second bite at the apple to come up with a coherent justification for its blanket segregation policy (that is actually supported by the record). The State probably won't be able to do so, of course.
Posted by: Dinky | Mar 2, 2005 12:21:54 AM
Thanks, Dinky. Well put.
Posted by: eric | Mar 2, 2005 10:33:48 AM
Drugs "victimless"? Pick up some of the Palm Beach FL newspapers for the past 3-4 months. Got maybe 10 corpses chilling down there due to some drug dealer "cleaning house" recently.
Dude was caught recently, so that's good, BUT some of that blood has to be on the users hands too.
Posted by: Spineless Coward | Mar 3, 2005 12:00:10 AM
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