Liana Recoder had grown weary of her addiction. For several weeks, she went in search of treatment, aggressively seeking access to a substance abuse program. All she found was a stagnant spot on a waiting list, alongside 1,500 other people in San Francisco. But addictions don’t wait to be addressed; they don’t simply stand by until overburdened agencies get to them. So as her entrance date slowly approached, Liana continued to use, and was ultimately arrested because of it. She went to jail, where she quickly enrolled in a substance abuse program for prisoners. Liana had finally come across a path to recovery, but she had to go to jail to find it.
Liana’s story illustrates the inverted relationship formed between the criminal justice system and social programs in recent years. Prison development has surged, while social programs have receded dramatically. Each year, incarceration rates elevate to unprecedented levels, while social programs retreat towards insignificance.
Prisons Displace Social Programs
As recently as 1993, the States collectively spent more on Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) than they did on corrections. By 1996, these priorities were reversed. Government expenditures on corrections grew by nearly $8 billion nationwide while AFDC outlays were cut by almost $2 billion. As a result, States began channeling 42 percent more of their resources toward imprisonment than income support of poor families. Recent federal welfare reform has led to even further cuts.
When funds are siphoned away from social programs to prisons, communities are drawn inexorably toward incarceration. Since the enactment of the 1996 welfare law, more than one million families, 60 percent being families of color, have been deleted from the national caseload. This plunge constitutes the largest reduction in welfare history. Meanwhile, since 1990, the prison population has expanded at an average annual rate of 6.5 percent. By mid-1997, the nation had a record 1.7 million inmates. Should these two trends continue, there will be more people in prison than families on welfare by the year 2002.
One Strike & You’re Out
As prisons outpace social programs, they pervade public policy discourse. In fact, the logic of the criminal justice system has been incorporated into the very language of some social programs, such as public housing. In 1996, for example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) formally adopted a “One Strike and You’re Out” policy to be practiced by Housing Authorities across the country.
Inspired by the “Three Strikes” criminal laws, HUD’s “One Strike” directive injects the spirit of corrections into the realm of public housing, where 71 percent of the residents are people of color. Under “One Strike,” tenants accused of criminal activity can be summarily evicted, even if they are never arrested, let alone convicted. The scope of what “One Strike” considers “criminal conduct” is also quite broad. Prospective tenants can be barred for almost any reason, including bad credit histories. “One Strike” transforms public housing from an institution that helps people through their difficulties into one that penalizes people for having them -- mimicking the criminal justice system. In short, the antithesis of public housing becomes its inspiration.
Up Against the Prison Wall
The ascendence of the criminal justice system threatens to fully displace the cornerstones of the national safety net. In just a few years, it will surpass many social programs both in funding and in the number of people it affects. Unless major interventions occur, there will be more people living in prison than in the nation’s housing projects by 2005.
If this trajectory is allowed to continue, the criminal justice system will become the government’s primary institutional interface with poor communities, particularly those of color. Prisons will replace public entitlements, subsidized housing, and perhaps even the schools as the principal place where poor people and the public sector converge. The criminal justice system will, in effect, become the gatekeeper of poor communities, closing the door of opportunity on all those who remain inside.
