Forum: Crime, People, and Prisons |
Note. Due to a death in the Professor Palumbo's family, the Forum topic scheduled for November has been rescheduled for December. America has more prisoners than any other country in the world. Almost 2 million people are behind bars in federal, state, and local jails. No other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens for the purpose of crime control. It is estimated by some, that America has about half a million more prisoners than does Communist China.
Such was not always the case. For most of this century, the incarceration rate held fairly constant with about one prisoner for every 900 citizens. Today the rate is about 1 prisoner for every 225 citizens (or about 1 male prisoner for every 90 adult men). Every year the U.S. prison population grows by about 50,000 prisoners.
Despite the higher incarceration rate, America is not a safer and more peaceful place to live today than it was 25 years ago. Perhaps one factor is that prisoner rehabilitation is no longer a high priority in our grossly over-crowded prisons. And as a result, we should not expect that released ex-cons will be more loving, peaceful, and law-abiding citizens as a result of their involuntary stay in the slammer.
The purpose of November's Forum will be to explore the causes of anti-social behavior and crime, and consider various different ways of dealing with it. Building more prisons and jails are one way to discourage crime, but there may be other more creative ways worth trying. Our speaker is Dennis Palumbo Ph.D. a Regents' Professor at ASU's School of Justice Studies. There will be time to address your questions and concerns. Please join us for an interesting and thought provoking evening.
To get to AutoNation, take the Ray Road exit off I-10 East, turn left over the freeway on Ray, then turn left at the first road (54th Street), go one block and turn left on Orchard. The Post-Forum discussion will be at Keegans only a few blocks away.
Questions?: Call Jerry Corbin at 602-438-0958