What Are the Lasting Societal Effects of Sending So Many to Prison?

June 9, 2011 at 11:33 am · Filed under News and Developments

By: Steve Grumm

On the libertarian-leaning Reason website, Bruce Western, a professor of sociology and director of the Program in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard University, looks at some of the longer-term, negative effects of imprisonment:

Do prisons make us safer? By taking would-be offenders off the streets, prisons clearly have reduced crime in the short run. In the long run, though, imprisonment erodes the bonds of work, family, and community that help preserve public safety.

[Tip of cap to Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish blog.]

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