Yet the use of this penalty is increasing in most countries in the
West. In 1980 there were half a million people incarcerated in the United States. Now
there are 1.6 million. 11 million people a year go to prison there. These are not all
people who have committed crimes of violence. Two-thirds of them are in prison for
offences not involving violence. The rate of imprisonment in the United States is at the
beginning of 1997 600 per 100,000 of the population. In Europe too the growth has been
rapid. The US view that having large numbers of people in prison is not only inevitable
but actually desirable has not yet infected Europe in the same way, but there are signs of
the contagion spreading. Certainly, the growth in prison levels in some West European
countries has been remarkable. The Netherlands is one example. In the Netherlands in 1975
the number of prison cells was 2,356 and the rate of imprisonment was 17 per 100,000, one
of the lowest in the world. In 1994 prison capacity was 8,235 and the rate of imprisonment
was 55 per 100,000. By the end of 1996 there were 12,000 prisoners and an imprisonment
rate of nearly 80 per 100,000 (De Jonge 1996). [12]
In the rest of Western Europe the growth is less spectacular, but also
large. In Spain in 1988 there were fewer than 30,000 people in prison. By 1994 the figure
had risen to over 41,000, an increase of 40%. In Italy over the same six-year period the
increase was 48%. In Greece it was 60% and in Portugal 46% There was an increase in
Austria of 16% and even in the traditionally low-imprisonment countries in Scandinavia
there were increases of 32% in Norway and 23% in Sweden (Council of Europe 1996) [11]. In France the "programme 13,000" brought 25 new
prisons containing 12,850 places into use between 1989 and 1992 (Direction de
l'administration penitentiaire 1996) [13]
The UK is the country in Europe where the US influence has been
strongest. In England and Wales in the 1990s prison numbers grew rapidly. At the end of
January 1993 the number in prison was 41,500. At the beginning of 1997 it had risen to
58,000 and another crisis of prison capacity was in full swing. After a substantial prison
expansion - 12,500 new places were provided between 1981 and 1996, an increase of
one-third - the search was on again for residential institutions that could be turned into
prisons. Large boats were being assessed for their security potential. Disused military
bases, even an abandoned Holiday Camp, were being vetted for their suitability for
incarceration.
This growth in imprisonment in Western countries could have serious
consequences for Western societies. It is very expensive. It consumes more and more
resources negatively and reduces the amount of money available for constructive
expenditure. In the United States between 1976 and 1989 spending on what is called
corrections, that is prisons and other punishments, rose by 95 per cent. During the same
period spending on elementary and secondary education fell by 2 per cent and on higher
education by 6 per cent. The effect on the economic progress of an industrialised country
of these distorted spending priorities could be very serious.
Also, it is what Professor Norval Morris of the University of Chicago [19] has called "a sin against
the future." (Morris and Rothman 1995). By this he seems to suggest that when a large
proportion of young men spend their formative years in prison there is created a
sub-society within society, of people schooled in anti-social values. Their connections,
relationships, and networks are based on criminality. Their loyalties are not to
mainstream society but to illicit forms of organisation. This is a potent source of
destabilisation and conflict.
The use of prison to deal with petty property crime, minor assaults, possession of
small amounts of illegal drugs for personal use is expensive and socially deeply damaging.
Reducing the use of prison and finding other ways of dealing with crime and conflicts
between citizens is therefore a vital question for public policy in all countries.
