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08-26-2002, 12:32 PM
The View From Prison
By Jennifer Wynn
Jennifer Wynn is author of "Inside Rikers - Stories from the World's Largest Penal Colony" and director of the Prison Visiting Project at the Correctional Association of New York.
August 25, 2002
One of my favorite books in graduate school was a slim paperback called "The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison." The book presents the staggering costs to society of white-collar crime versus relatively inexpensive street crime and shows that, in terms of prison time and virtually every aspect of the criminal justice system, the odds are stacked heavily against the poor.
I had begun teaching on Rikers Island, and the very thought of white-collar crooks from privileged or even middle-class backgrounds made my blood boil. Nearly all my students came from one of the city's "dead zones" (a police term denoting areas with high rates of homicide). Most had lost a family member to murder, street violence or drugs. Many had a father, brother or uncle in prison. Only a few had studied past the 10th grade. Like 95 percent of inmates on Rikers, almost all were black, Hispanic and poor. Their level of "greed" typically amounted to a $100 drug sale.
When I contemplate whether Enron and other corrupt corporate officials should get hard time in prison, I wonder what my friend Percy West would think. Percy is serving 133 years to life (that was not a typo) for a robbery he committed at age 19, in which no one was murdered or even injured. He is confined in state prison, studying law and praying that the federal habeas appeal he drafted himself (because he can't afford a lawyer) will be considered by a more rational judge than the one who sentenced him.
I wonder what Anthony Papa would think. In 1995, I interviewed Papa in a dank, concrete cell the size of a small bathroom in Sing Sing prison, where he was serving a 15-year-to-life sentence for selling 4 ½ ounces of cocaine to an undercover cop. It was his first offense. Gov. George Pataki granted him clemency after he'd served 13 years.
Today, the public is understandably clamoring for steep prison sentences for Enron officials. While a part of me would love to see them get their just desserts, I also fear that this would take us down the wrong path. We need to be careful not to work ourselves into the same incarceration frenzy of the last 15 years that has turned America into the Free World's No. 1 jailer.
As satisfying as it might feel to hand out the kinds of sentences that gained popularity in the "get tough on crime" years, the question we need to ask is whether those sentences were rational in the first place. Is it rational to send any nonviolent offender to prison for 15 years to life, as the toughest provisions of New York State's Rockefeller drug laws require? Is it rational to send a 19-year-old to prison for 133 years for committing an armed robbery in which no one was hurt?
Americans toss around prison sentences like whiffle balls. We say someone got off easy when he spent "only" 10 years in prison. As a prison researcher in New York State, I know the devastating effects of long-term incarceration, where people live in loud, crowded dormitories, solitary confinement or, worst of all, locked in a cell with another man 24 hours a day. (In New York State, 3,000 men are confined in double-celled disciplinary units).
I have interviewed men weeping in their cells, men who cut themselves in order to feel, men who are so mentally gone that they smear feces on the walls and refuse to leave their cells for showers or their one hour of recreation. I have interviewed scores of prisoners who have attempted suicide and several who have been raped. No time in prison is easy time.
If the choice were mine, I would recommend, depending on individual circumstances, that the courts consider a range of options, including prison terms not exceeding five years, restitution funds for victims, disbarment, and reimbursement of the cost of the government's prosecution. I am far from against having any prisons at all. But I would urge people to pause before jumping on the incarceration bandwagon.
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.
By Jennifer Wynn
Jennifer Wynn is author of "Inside Rikers - Stories from the World's Largest Penal Colony" and director of the Prison Visiting Project at the Correctional Association of New York.
August 25, 2002
One of my favorite books in graduate school was a slim paperback called "The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison." The book presents the staggering costs to society of white-collar crime versus relatively inexpensive street crime and shows that, in terms of prison time and virtually every aspect of the criminal justice system, the odds are stacked heavily against the poor.
I had begun teaching on Rikers Island, and the very thought of white-collar crooks from privileged or even middle-class backgrounds made my blood boil. Nearly all my students came from one of the city's "dead zones" (a police term denoting areas with high rates of homicide). Most had lost a family member to murder, street violence or drugs. Many had a father, brother or uncle in prison. Only a few had studied past the 10th grade. Like 95 percent of inmates on Rikers, almost all were black, Hispanic and poor. Their level of "greed" typically amounted to a $100 drug sale.
When I contemplate whether Enron and other corrupt corporate officials should get hard time in prison, I wonder what my friend Percy West would think. Percy is serving 133 years to life (that was not a typo) for a robbery he committed at age 19, in which no one was murdered or even injured. He is confined in state prison, studying law and praying that the federal habeas appeal he drafted himself (because he can't afford a lawyer) will be considered by a more rational judge than the one who sentenced him.
I wonder what Anthony Papa would think. In 1995, I interviewed Papa in a dank, concrete cell the size of a small bathroom in Sing Sing prison, where he was serving a 15-year-to-life sentence for selling 4 ½ ounces of cocaine to an undercover cop. It was his first offense. Gov. George Pataki granted him clemency after he'd served 13 years.
Today, the public is understandably clamoring for steep prison sentences for Enron officials. While a part of me would love to see them get their just desserts, I also fear that this would take us down the wrong path. We need to be careful not to work ourselves into the same incarceration frenzy of the last 15 years that has turned America into the Free World's No. 1 jailer.
As satisfying as it might feel to hand out the kinds of sentences that gained popularity in the "get tough on crime" years, the question we need to ask is whether those sentences were rational in the first place. Is it rational to send any nonviolent offender to prison for 15 years to life, as the toughest provisions of New York State's Rockefeller drug laws require? Is it rational to send a 19-year-old to prison for 133 years for committing an armed robbery in which no one was hurt?
Americans toss around prison sentences like whiffle balls. We say someone got off easy when he spent "only" 10 years in prison. As a prison researcher in New York State, I know the devastating effects of long-term incarceration, where people live in loud, crowded dormitories, solitary confinement or, worst of all, locked in a cell with another man 24 hours a day. (In New York State, 3,000 men are confined in double-celled disciplinary units).
I have interviewed men weeping in their cells, men who cut themselves in order to feel, men who are so mentally gone that they smear feces on the walls and refuse to leave their cells for showers or their one hour of recreation. I have interviewed scores of prisoners who have attempted suicide and several who have been raped. No time in prison is easy time.
If the choice were mine, I would recommend, depending on individual circumstances, that the courts consider a range of options, including prison terms not exceeding five years, restitution funds for victims, disbarment, and reimbursement of the cost of the government's prosecution. I am far from against having any prisons at all. But I would urge people to pause before jumping on the incarceration bandwagon.
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.