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Injustice in the American incarceration system

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Injustice in the American incarceration system

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Bryan Stevenson: Bryan Stevenson: Vi behöver tala om en orättvisa

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I ett engagerande och personligt tal - med berättelser om sin mormor och Rosa Parks - delar människorättsjuristen Bryan Stevenson med sig av hårdsmälta sanningar om Amerikas rättssystem. Det finns bland annat en skevhet runt rastillhörighet: en tredjedel av landets svarta, manliga befolkning har suttit i fängelse under någon del av sitt liv.

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Why are so many citizens not allowed to vote? 

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Why are so many citizens not allowed to vote? 

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Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month. Mr. Holder has made clear he sees criminal justice and civil rights as inescapably joined. Credit... Mark Wilson/Getty Images

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. called Tuesday for the repeal of laws that prohibit millions of felons from voting, underscoring the Obama administration's determination to elevate issues of criminal justice and race in the president's second term and create a lasting civil rights legacy.

In a speech at Georgetown University, Mr. Holder described today's prohibitions - which in some cases bar those convicted from voting for life - as a vestige of the racist policies of the South after the Civil War, when states used the criminal justice system to keep blacks from fully participating in society.

"Those swept up in this system too often had their rights rescinded, their dignity diminished, and the full measure of their citizenship revoked for the rest of their lives," Mr. Holder said. "They could not vote."

Mr. Holder has no authority to enact the changes he called for, given that states establish the rules under which people can vote. And state Republican leaders made clear that Mr. Holder's remarks, made to a receptive audience at a civil rights conference, would not move them.

"Eric Holder's speech from Washington, D.C., has no effect on Florida's Constitution, which prescribes that individuals who commit felonies forfeit their right to vote," said Frank Collins, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican.

The speech by Mr. Holder reflects his role as the president's leading voice on civil rights issues. Mr. Obama has spoken only sporadically about race during his presidency, approaching the subject gingerly.

But Mr. Holder has made racial inequities a consistent theme, and in recent months he has made it clear he sees criminal justice and civil rights as inescapably joined.

He has sued Texas and North Carolina to overturn voter-identification laws that studies show are more likely to keep minorities and the poor from voting. He is pushing Congress to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. And he has encouraged low-level drug criminals sentenced during the crack epidemic to apply for clemency.

"On all the issues that he's framed, he's put these two themes together and he sees them very much as intertwined," said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a research group that favors more liberal sentencing policies. "The criminal justice system is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. He hasn't used those words, but that's what I hear when I listen to him."

Mr. Mauer said Mr. Holder was the first attorney general to advocate repealing voting bans. The Justice Department said it knew of no other attorney general who did so.

Like mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine offenses, laws banning felons from the voting booth disproportionately affect minorities. African-Americans represent more than a third of the estimated 5.8 million people who are prohibited from voting.

Nearly every state prohibits inmates from voting while in prison. Laws vary widely, however, on whether felons can vote once they have been released from prison. Some states allow voting while on parole, others while on probation.

Some states require waiting periods or have complicated processes for felons to reregister to vote. In Mississippi, passing a $100 bad check carries a lifetime ban from voting.

In four states - Florida, Iowa, Kentucky and Virginia - all felons are barred from the polls for life unless they receive clemency from the governor.

"This isn't just about fairness for those who are released from prison," Mr. Holder said. "It's about who we are as a nation. It's about confronting, with clear eyes and in frank terms, disparities and divisions that are unworthy of the greatest justice system the world has ever known."

Mr. Holder's statements carry little political risk. Congress could pass a law guaranteeing felons the right to vote, but similar proposals have failed before and the Obama administration has not advocated similar legislation, despite Mr. Holder's comments.

Studies show that felons who have been denied the right to vote were far more likely to have voted for Democrats than for Republicans. In 2002, scholars at the University of Minnesota and Northwestern University concluded that the 2000 presidential election "would almost certainly have been reversed" had felons been allowed to vote.

In Florida, the state that tipped that election, 10 percent of the population is ineligible to vote because of the ban on felons at the polls, Mr. Holder said.

In 2011, Governor Scott required felons to wait five years after completing their sentence before they can apply to vote again.

"For those who are truly remorseful for how they have wrecked families and want to earn back their right to vote, Florida's Constitution also provides a process to have their rights restored," said Mr. Collins, the governor's spokesman.

In Iowa, felons can apply to the governor to restore their voting rights if they can prove they have paid their fines and court costs.

"Iowa has a good and fair policy on restoration of rights for convicted felons," said Jimmy Centers, a spokesman for Gov. Terry E. Branstad, a Republican. "We don't have any plans to change the process."

Kentucky, however, is considering changing its Constitution to allow some felons the right to vote. The proposal passed the Democratic-led House last month, and Republicans, who control the Senate, have indicated a willingness to consider it.

Gov. Steven L. Beshear of Kentucky, a Democrat, says felons - except for violent offenders and sex criminals - should get to vote again once their sentences are complete. He supports the proposal being considered in the Senate, his spokeswoman said Tuesday.

In general, state laws have become more lenient toward felon voting over the past two decades as crime decreased and voters cared less about tough-on-crime policies. More recently, liberal Democrats have found allies among civil libertarians as the Tea Party movement gained momentum.

Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican and a possible presidential candidate, has endorsed his state's effort to give felons the right to vote. He has also joined Mr. Holder in calling for reducing the prison population and an end to mandatory minimum sentences for low-level drug crimes.

"His vocal support for restoring voting rights for former inmates shows that this issue need not break down along partisan lines," Mr. Holder said of Mr. Paul.

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Holder Urges States to Lift Bans on Felons' Voting (Published 2014)

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WASHINGTON - Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. called Tuesday for the repeal of laws that prohibit millions of felons from voting, underscoring the Obama administration's determination to elevate issues of criminal justice and race in the president's second term and create a lasting civil rights legacy.

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Where the candidates stand on the 2016 Key Issues

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Where the candidates stand on the 2016 Key Issues

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It has been described as the most polarising election in decades, a stark choice between two visions of America. Will Hillary Clinton offer a third term of Barack Obama? Will Donald Trump, as some critics claim, pose a threat to national security? Based on their speeches and websites, here is a rundown of what we know about the candidates' policies on key issues.

Criminal justice

Clinton: End the era of mass incarceration, reform mandatory minimum sentences, and end private prisons. Encourage the use of strategies such as police body cameras and end racial profiling to rebuild trust between law enforcement and communities. Help formerly incarcerated individuals successfully re-enter society. Supports the death penalty for "particularly heinous crimes".

Trump: Has said little during the campaign, but past statements suggest a "tough on crime" approach including longer prison sentences. In the wake of police shootings, he has said: "I have to say that the police are absolutely mistreated and misunderstood." Supports the death penalty for those who kill police officers.

Economy

Clinton: Raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour, with local governments free to set minimums above that level. Tighten the tax code to make sure "millionaires don't pay lower rates than their secretaries". Ask Congress for at least $275bn to invest in infrastructure. Every worker entitled to up to 12 weeks of paid family leave and an additional 12 weeks of paid medical leave.

Trump: Create jobs. Get smart businessmen from Wall Street to run the economy because they have the expertise. Tax relief for middle-class Americans; simplify the tax code to reduce the headaches people face in preparing their taxes. "We've spent $4tn trying to topple various people. If we could've spent that $4tn in the United States to fix our roads, our bridges and all of the other problems, we would've been a lot better off."

Environment

Clinton: Set national goals to have 500m solar panels installed; generate enough renewable energy to power every home in America; cut energy waste in homes, schools and hospitals by a third; and reduce American oil consumption by a third. Launch a $60bn Clean Energy Challenge to partner with states, cities and rural communities and a $30bn plan to revitalise coal communities.

Trump: "Snowing in Texas and Louisiana, record setting freezing temperatures throughout the country and beyond. Global warming is an expensive hoax!" - tweet from 29 January 2014. Aggressively use coal, fracking and oil. Cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Foreign policy

Clinton: Thought to be more hawkish and interventionist than Obama. A leading advocate for the military intervention in Libya and argued for military intervention in Syria, which the president ultimately rejected. Strong support for Israel but endorses Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. Clinton voted in favour of the Iraq war in 2002, which she now says she regrets.

Trump: "America first" and "stay unpredictable" approach. Hold summits with Russia and China soon after election and seek to regain their respect by showing strength. Destroy Isis in Iraq and Syria and tear up Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. Tell US allies in Nato to pay their fair share or risk losing protection. Trump claims he did not support the Iraq war and says: "We are getting out of the nation-building business."

Gun control

Clinton: Strengthen background checks and close dangerous loopholes in the current system; hold irresponsible dealers and manufacturers accountable; keep guns out of the hands of terrorists, domestic abusers, other violent criminals and the severely mentally ill.

Trump: "The second amendment to our constitution is clear. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon. Period." Prosecute more violent criminals in cities such as Baltimore and Chicago and empower law-abiding gun owners to defend themselves. Trump owns a firearm and is endorsed by the National Rifle Association.

Healthcare

Clinton: Retain Obamacare. Crack down on rising prescription drug prices and hold drug companies accountable so they get ahead by investing in research, not jacking up costs. Protect women's access to reproductive healthcare, including contraception and safe, legal abortion.

Trump:Repeal Obamacare on day one. Oppose cuts to Medicaid and Medicare. Trump says he is now pro-life. However his campaign statements differ from policies laid out on his website, making his approach uncertain. It does not appear to include any major expansion of healthcare coverage.

Immigration

Clinton: Comprehensive reform to create a pathway to citizenship, keep families together and enable millions of workers to come out of the shadows. Defend Obama's executive actions to provide deportation relief for Dreamers and parents of Americans and lawful residents. End family detention and close private immigrant detention centers.

Trump: Build a wall along the Mexican border that Mexico will pay for. Deport 11 million undocumented migrants, which opponents say is both callous and physically impossible. End birthright citizenship. "Gangs, drug traffickers and cartels have freely exploited our open borders and committed vast numbers of crimes inside the United States ... We have the moral high ground here, and all the leverage."

Trade

Clinton: After some prevarication, came out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, despite helping negotiate it during her time as secretary of state. She said at a debate in October: "It was just finally negotiated last week, and in looking at it, it didn't meet my standards, my standards for more new, good jobs for Americans, for raising wages for Americans."

Trump: Slams the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Argues that since China joined the World Trade Organisation, Americans have witnessed the closure of more than 50,000 factories and the loss of tens of millions of jobs. Plans to bring China to the bargaining table by declaring it a currency manipulator and revive US manufacturing by putting an end to China's "illegal export subsidies and lax labour and environmental standards".

University education

Clinton: Says students should never have to borrow to pay for tuition, books and fees to attend a four-year public college in their state under the New College Compact. Students will do their part by contributing their earnings from working 10 hours a week. Families will do their part by making an affordable and realistic family contribution.

Trump: Little evidence of a coherent policy, but he has said there is no reason the federal government should profit from student loans. Trump has also been forced to defend his own Trump University, the subject of an ongoing court case.

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Where Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton stand on 2016's key issues

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It has been described as the most polarising election in decades, a stark choice between two visions of America. Will Hillary Clinton offer a third term of Barack Obama? Will Donald Trump, as some critics claim, pose a threat to national security?

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THREE pickup trucks pulled up outside George Norris's home in Spring, Texas. Six armed police in flak jackets jumped out. Thinking they must have come to the wrong place, Mr Norris opened his front door, and was startled to be shoved against a wall and frisked for weapons. He was forced into a chair for four hours while officers ransacked his house. They pulled out drawers, rifled through papers, dumped things on the floor and eventually loaded 37 boxes of Mr Norris's possessions onto their pickups. They refused to tell him what he had done wrong. "It wasn't fun, I can tell you that," he recalls.

Mr Norris was 65 years old at the time, and a collector of orchids. He eventually discovered that he was suspected of smuggling the flowers into America, an offence under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. This came as a shock. He did indeed import flowers and sell them to other orchid-lovers. And it was true that his suppliers in Latin America were sometimes sloppy about their paperwork. In a shipment of many similar-looking plants, it was rare for each permit to match each orchid precisely.

In March 2004, five months after the raid, Mr Norris was indicted, handcuffed and thrown into a cell with a suspected murderer and two suspected drug-dealers. When told why he was there, "they thought it hilarious." One asked: "What do you do with these things? Smoke 'em?"

Prosecutors described Mr Norris as the "kingpin" of an international smuggling ring. He was dumbfounded: his annual profits were never more than about $20,000. When prosecutors suggested that he should inform on other smugglers in return for a lighter sentence, he refused, insisting he knew nothing beyond hearsay.

He pleaded innocent. But an undercover federal agent had ordered some orchids from him, a few of which arrived without the correct papers. For this, he was charged with making a false statement to a government official, a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Since he had communicated with his suppliers, he was charged with conspiracy, which also carries a potential five-year term.

As his legal bills exploded, Mr Norris reluctantly changed his plea to guilty, though he still protests his innocence. He was sentenced to 17 months in prison. After some time, he was released while his appeal was heard, but then put back inside. His health suffered: he has Parkinson's disease, which was not helped by the strain of imprisonment. For bringing some prescription sleeping pills into prison, he was put in solitary confinement for 71 days. The prison was so crowded, however, that even in solitary he had two room-mates.
A long love affair with lock and key
Justice is harsher in America than in any other rich country. Between 2.3m and 2.4m Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. If those on parole or probation are included, one adult in 31 is under "correctional" supervision. As a proportion of its total population, America incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany and 12 times more than Japan. Overcrowding is the norm. Federal prisons house 60% more inmates than they were designed for. State lock-ups are only slightly less stuffed.

The system has three big flaws, say criminologists. First, it puts too many people away for too long. Second, it criminalises acts that need not be criminalised. Third, it is unpredictable. Many laws, especially federal ones, are so vaguely written that people cannot easily tell whether they have broken them.

In 1970 the proportion of Americans behind bars was below one in 400, compared with today's one in 100. Since then, the voters, alarmed at a surge in violent crime, have demanded fiercer sentences. Politicians have obliged. New laws have removed from judges much of their discretion to set a sentence that takes full account of the circumstances of the offence. Since no politician wants to be tarred as soft on crime, such laws, mandating minimum sentences, are seldom softened. On the contrary, they tend to get harder.

Some criminals belong behind bars. When a habitual rapist is locked up, the streets are safer. But the same is not necessarily true of petty drug-dealers, whose incarceration creates a vacancy for someone else to fill, argues Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University. The number of drug offenders in federal and state lock-ups has increased 13-fold since 1980. Some are scary thugs; many are not.

Michelle Collette of Hanover, Massachusetts, sold Percocet, a prescription painkiller. "I was planning to do it just once," she says, "but the money was so easy. And I thought: it's not heroin." Then she became addicted to her own wares. She was unhappy with her boyfriend, she explains, but did not want to split up with him, because she did not want their child to grow up fatherless, as she had. So she popped pills to numb the misery. Before long, she was taking 20-30 a day.

When Ms Collette and her boyfriend, who also sold drugs, were arrested in a dawn raid, the police found 607 pills and $901 in cash. The boyfriend fought the charges and got 15 years in prison. In a plea bargain Ms Collette was sentenced to seven years, of which she served six.

"I don't think this is fair," said the judge. "I don't think this is what our laws are meant to do. It's going to cost upwards of $50,000 a year to have you in state prison. Had I the authority, I would send you to jail for no more than one year...and a [treatment] programme after that." But mandatory sentencing laws gave him no choice.

Massachusetts is a liberal state, but its drug laws are anything but. It treats opium-derived painkillers such as Percocet like hard drugs, if illicitly sold. Possession of a tiny amount (14-28 grams, or ½-1 ounce) yields a minimum sentence of three years. For 200 grams, it is 15 years, more than the minimum for armed rape. And the weight of the other substances with which a dealer mixes his drugs is included in the total, so 10 grams of opiates mixed with 190 grams of flour gets you 15 years.

Ms Collette underwent drug treatment before being locked up, and is now clean. But in prison she found she was pregnant. After going through labour shackled to a hospital bed, she was allowed only 48 hours to bond with her newborn son. She was released in March, found a job in a shop, and is hoping that her son will get used to having her around.

Rigid sentencing laws shift power from judges to prosecutors, complains Barbara Dougan of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a pressure-group. Even the smallest dealer often has enough to trigger a colossal sentence. Prosecutors may charge him with selling a smaller amount if he agrees to "reel some other poor slob in", as Ms Dougan puts it. He is told to persuade another dealer to sell him just enough drugs to trigger a 15-year sentence, and perhaps to do the deal near a school, which adds another two years.

Severe drug laws have unintended consequences. Less than half of American cancer patients receive adequate painkillers, according to the American Pain Foundation, another pressure-group. One reason is that doctors are terrified of being accused of drug-trafficking if they over-prescribe. In 2004 William Hurwitz, a doctor specialising in the control of pain, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for prescribing pills that a few patients then resold on the black market. Virginia's board of medicine ruled that he had acted in good faith, but he still served nearly four years.

Half the states have laws that lock up habitual offenders for life. In some states this applies only to violent criminals, but in others it applies even to petty ones. Some 3,700 people who committed neither violent nor serious crimes are serving life sentences under California's "three strikes and you're out" law. In Alabama a petty thief called Jerald Sanders was given a life term for pinching a bicycle. Alabama's judges are elected, as are those in 32 other states. This makes them mindful of public opinion: some appear in campaign advertisements waving guns and bragging about how tough they are.

Watching hairs go white, and lifetimes ebb away

Many Americans assume that white-collar criminals get off lightly, but many do not. Granted, they may be hard to catch and can often afford good lawyers. But federal prosecutors can file many charges for what is essentially one offence. For example, they can count each e-mail sent by a white-collar criminal in the course of his criminal activity as a separate case of wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. The decades soon add up. Sentences depend partly on the size of the loss and the number of people affected, so if you work for a big, publicly traded company, you break a rule and the share-price drops, watch out.
Eternal punishment
Jim Felman, a defence lawyer in Tampa, Florida, says America is conducting "an experiment in imprisoning first-time non-violent offenders for periods of time previously reserved only for those who had killed someone". One of Mr Felman's clients, a fraudster called Sholam Weiss, was sentenced to 845 years. "I got it reduced to 835," sighs Mr Felman. Faced with such penalties, he says, the incentive to co-operate, which means to say things that are helpful to the prosecution, is overwhelming. And this, he believes, "warps the truth-seeking function" of justice.

Innocent defendants may plead guilty in return for a shorter sentence to avoid the risk of a much longer one. A prosecutor can credibly threaten a middle-aged man that he will die in a cell unless he gives evidence against his boss. This is unfair, complains Harvey Silverglate, the author of "Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent". If a defence lawyer offers a witness money to testify that his client is innocent, that is bribery. But a prosecutor can legally offer something of far greater value-his freedom-to a witness who says the opposite. The potential for wrongful convictions is obvious.

Badly drafted laws create traps for the unwary. In 2006 Georgia Thompson, a civil servant in Wisconsin, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for depriving the public of "the intangible right of honest services". Her crime was to award a contract (for travel services) to the best bidder. A firm called Adelman Travel scored the most points (on an official scale) for price and quality, so Ms Thompson picked it. She ignored a rule that required her to penalise Adelman for a slapdash presentation when bidding. For this act of common sense, she served four months. (An appeals court freed her.)

The "honest services" statute, if taken seriously, "would seemingly cover a salaried employee's phoning in sick to go to a ball game," fumes Antonin Scalia, a Supreme Court justice. The Supreme Court ruled recently that the statute was so vague as to be unconstitutional. It did not strike it down completely, but said it should be applied only in cases involving bribery or kickbacks. The challenge was brought by Enron's former boss, Jeff Skilling, who will not go free despite his victory, and Conrad Black, a media magnate released this week on bail pending an appeal, who may.

There are over 4,000 federal crimes, and many times that number of regulations that carry criminal penalties. When analysts at the Congressional Research Service tried to count the number of separate offences on the books, they were forced to give up, exhausted. Rules concerning corporate governance or the environment are often impossible to understand, yet breaking them can land you in prison. In many criminal cases, the common-law requirement that a defendant must have a mens rea (ie, he must or should know that he is doing wrong) has been weakened or erased.

"The founders viewed the criminal sanction as a last resort, reserved for serious offences, clearly defined, so ordinary citizens would know whether they were violating the law. Yet over the last 40 years, an unholy alliance of big-business-hating liberals and tough-on-crime conservatives has made criminalisation the first line of attack-a way to demonstrate seriousness about the social problem of the month, whether it's corporate scandals or e-mail spam," writes Gene Healy, a libertarian scholar. "You can serve federal time for interstate transport of water hyacinths, trafficking in unlicensed dentures, or misappropriating the likeness of Woodsy Owl."

"You're (probably) a federal criminal," declares Alex Kozinski, an appeals-court judge, in a provocative essay of that title. Making a false statement to a federal official is an offence. So is lying to someone who then repeats your lie to a federal official. Failing to prevent your employees from breaking regulations you have never heard of can be a crime. A boss got six months in prison because one of his workers accidentally broke a pipe, causing oil to spill into a river. "It didn't matter that he had no reason to learn about the [Clean Water Act's] labyrinth of regulations, since he was merely a railroad-construction supervisor," laments Judge Kozinski.

Society wants retribution

Such cases account for only a tiny share of the Americans behind bars, but they still matter. When so many people are technically breaking the law, it is up to prosecutors to decide whom to pursue. No doubt most prosecutors choose wisely. But members of unpopular groups may not find that reassuring. Ms Thompson, for example, was prosecuted just before an election, at a time when allegations of public corruption in Wisconsin were in the news. Some prosecutors, such as Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced ex-governor of New York, have built political careers by nailing people whom voters don't like, such as financiers.
Prison deters? Not much, not the worst
Some people argue that the system works: that crime has fallen in the past two decades because the bad guys are either in prison or scared of being sent there. Caged thugs cannot break into your home. Bernie Madoff's 150-year sentence for running a Ponzi scam should deter imitators. And indeed the crime rate continues to drop, despite the recession, as Michael Rushford of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, an advocacy group, points out. This, he says, is because habitual criminals face serious consequences. Some research supports him: after raking through decades of historical data, John Donohue of Yale Law School estimates that a 10% increase in imprisonment brings a 2% reduction in crime.

Others disagree. Using more recent data, Bert Useem of Purdue University and Anne Piehl of Rutgers University estimate that a 10% increase in the number of people behind bars would reduce crime by only 0.5%. In the states that currently lock up the most people, imprisoning more would actually increase crime, they believe. Some inmates emerge from prison as more accomplished criminals. And raising the incarceration rate means locking up people who are, on average, less dangerous than the ones already behind bars. A recent study found that, over the past 13 years, the proportion of new prisoners in Florida who had committed violent crimes fell by 28%, whereas those inside for "other" crimes shot up by 189%. These "other" crimes were non-violent ones involving neither drugs nor theft, such as driving with a suspended licence.
And now the reckoning, in dollars
Crime is a young man's game. Muggers over 30 are rare. Ex-cons who go straight for a few years generally stay that way: a study of 88,000 criminals by Mr Blumstein found that if someone was arrested for aggravated assault at the age of 18 but then managed to stay out of trouble until the age of 22, the risk of his offending was no greater than that for the general population. Yet America's prisons are crammed with old folk. Nearly 200,000 prisoners are over 50. Most would pose little threat if released. And since people age faster in prison than outside, their medical costs are vast. Human Rights Watch, a lobby-group, talks of "nursing homes with razor wire".

Jail is expensive. Spending per prisoner ranges from $18,000 a year in Mississippi to about $50,000 in California, where the cost per pupil is but a seventh of that. "[W]e are well past the point of diminishing returns," says a report by the Pew Center on the States. In Washington state, for example, each dollar invested in new prison places in 1980 averted more than nine dollars of criminal harm (using a somewhat arbitrary scale to assign a value to not being beaten up). By 2001, as the emphasis shifted from violent criminals to drug-dealers and thieves, the cost-benefit ratio reversed. Each new dollar spent on prisons averted only 37 cents' worth of harm.

Since the recession threw their budgets into turmoil, many states have decided to imprison fewer people, largely to save money. Mississippi has reduced the proportion of their sentences that non-violent offenders are required to serve from 85% to 25%. Texas is making greater use of non-custodial penalties. New York has repealed most mandatory minimum terms for drug offences. In all, the number of prisoners in state lock-ups fell by 0.3% in 2009, the first fall since 1972. But the total number of Americans behind bars still rose slightly, because the number of federal prisoners climbed by 3.4%.

A less punitive system could work better, argues Mark Kleiman of the University of California, Los Angeles. Swift and certain penalties deter more than harsh ones. Money spent on prisons cannot be spent on more cost-effective methods of crime-prevention, such as better policing, drug treatment or probation. The pain that punishment inflicts on criminals themselves, on their families and on their communities should also be taken into account.

"Just by making effective use of things we already know how to do, we could reasonably expect to have half as much crime and half as many people behind bars ten years from now," says Mr Kleiman. "There are a thousand excuses for failing to make that effort, but not one good reason."

This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "Too many laws, too many prisoners"

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THREE pickup trucks pulled up outside George Norris's home in Spring, Texas. Six armed police in flak jackets jumped out. Thinking they must have come to the wrong place, Mr Norris opened his front door, and was startled to be shoved against a wall and frisked for weapons.

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Political Advertising bombards TV-viewers during the American Election. Negative campaigning has become the norm. Here's a playlist of campaign ads: 

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Political Advertising bombards TV-viewers during the American Election. Negative campaigning has become the norm. Here's a playlist of campaign ads: 

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Hillary Clinton: 'Never said that' | Campaign 2016

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Hillary Clinton's campaign released this ad Sept. 28, targeting Donald Trump's claims at the first presidential debate.

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Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention 

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Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention 

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What is the speech all about?
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/28/politics/hillary-clinton-dem-convention-speech/

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Watch Hillary Clinton's full speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention

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Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton closed out the final night of the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

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The Election Process - how does it all work? 

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The Election Process - how does it all work? 

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The most powerful nation on earth is electing a new leader, with the impact felt across the globe. So how does the election work and how did we end up with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as the main candidates?

When the US picks its president, it is not only choosing a head of state but a head of government and a commander-in-chief of the largest military on the planet.

It's a big responsibility. So how does the process work?

The parties hold a series of primary elections in every state and overseas territory, starting in February, which determine who becomes the official presidential candidate.

The winner of each collects a number of "delegates" - party members with the power to vote for that candidate at the party conventions held in July, where candidates are formally confirmed.

The more state contests a candidate wins, the more delegates will be pledged to support them at the convention.

Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump were the clear winners in 2016 and were officially nominated at their party's conventions in July.

They are two of the most unpopular candidates in modern American history.

At the conventions, the parties also officially unveiled their vice-presidential picks - Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia for Mrs Clinton, and Indiana Governor Mike Pence for the Republicans.

What about the US Congress?

The Senate election results will also have a big impact. Republicans currently hold the majority in the 100-seat chamber. But 34 seats are up for grabs on 8 November. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to win control of the chamber if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, as the US vice-president is automatically a member of the Senate, and five seats if Donald Trump is victorious.

In the House of Representatives, all 435 seats will be contested. Republicans have controlled it since the 2010 mid-terms, and currently hold 247 seats, compared to the Democrats' 188. This means the Democrats would need to win 30 to regain control. A swing of this size is widely considered unlikely, though they may narrow the Republican majority.

There has been a slew of controversies generated by Donald Trump, from the moment the New York businessman launched his campaign with the description of Mexican immigrants as "rapists and criminals". His candidacy has rarely gone a few weeks without sparking some uproar. He's waged wars of words with a judge, a Miss Universe, a Fox News anchor and the Muslim family of a fallen soldier. He's had to defend his refusal not to release his tax returns and the suggestion he has paid no federal income tax for 18 years, plus field questions surrounding his charitable foundation.

And Hillary Clinton has had her share of anxious moments too. The damage wrought by her private email arrangement to her reputation is thought to be significant, despite the FBI effectively closing the investigation in July and clearing Mrs Clinton of wrongdoing. Questions have been raised about the foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation. Mr Trump has also put the spotlight on the part she played in pushing back at the women who claimed to have affairs with her husband Bill. And Wikileaks has been revealing hacked emails that have laid bare some embarrassing conversations between members of her campaign team.

The biggest bombshell to jolt the Trump campaign came on 7 October with the publication of a video from 2005. Mr Trump is heard referring to women in sexually offensive terms when he was caught on a live microphone during the filming of a soap. The furore forced him to issue an apology and try to convince voters that the words in the video "do not reflect who I am". But it wasn't enough to stop dozens of Republicans from deserting him, sparking civil war within the party. Now more half a dozen women have accused him of sexual assault, and he has hit back forcefully, accusing them of being liars and not attractive enough to warrant his attention.

Then, just 11 days before election day, the FBI announced it had found more emails "pertinent" to the Clinton email investigation, but could not yet say how significant they were. They were found on a laptop belonging to the estranged husband of one of Clinton's closest advisers, Huma Abedin, as police investigated whether he sent explicit text messages to a 15-year-old girl. On 6 November, the FBI Director James Comey said it had found no evidence of criminality in the emails.

What do the polls say?

And what about policies?

The campaign has been consumed by controversy and the vote on Tuesday feels more like a referendum on the two candidates's personalities.

But there are substantive differences on issues too.

Most votes are being cast on Tuesday, 8 November, although more than 40 million people took part in early or absentee voting.

The candidate with the most votes in each state becomes the candidate which that state supports for president.

It's all down to a system called the electoral college, a group of people who choose the winner - 538 of them, in fact. Just half of them - 270 - are needed to make a president.

But not all states are equal - California, for example, has more than 10 times the population of Connecticut, so they don't get an equal say.

Each state has certain number of these "electors" based on their population in the most recent census (it so happens that it's the same number of districts in a state, plus two senators).

When citizens vote for their preferred candidate, they're actually voting for the electors, some of which are pledged to one candidate, some for another.

But here's where it gets interesting. In almost every state (except Nebraska and Maine), the winner takes all - so the person who wins the most electors in New York, for example, will get all 29 of New York's electoral votes.

In the race to get to the magic number - 270 - it's the swing states that often matter most.

What are swing states?

So, we've got two candidates, both in a race to get to 270 electors by winning whole states at a time.

Both parties think they can bank on certain states, big and small. Republicans will count on Texas, and not waste their money campaigning to a great extent there. Similarly, California is likely to sit in the Democrats' column.

The others are known as "swing states" - where it could go either way. Florida in particular, with its 29 votes, famously decided the 2000 election in favour of George W Bush, who lost the popular vote nationally but, after a Supreme Court case, won the electoral college.

Other swing states include: Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina, Nevada.

In the days and weeks after the election - if the vote is decisive - the victor will assemble a cabinet and begin crafting a more thorough policy agenda.

Meanwhile, the departing "lame duck" president works to shape his legacy and begins packing up his belongings.

Under the US constitution, the president is inaugurated on 20 January of the year following the election.

More on the US election

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The most powerful nation on earth is electing a new leader, with the impact felt across the globe. So how does the election work and how did we end up with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as the main candidates?

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[Darrell] For me, the American Dream is

equality of opportunity.

[Helen] To be able to live a safe

and healthy life,

good education, good income.

[Darrell] As the demographics of the

country begin to change,

it's as if we are questioning,

or we are changing our commitment to that concept.

We are seeing a reset,

and we're not going back,

we have to continue to go forward.

And as African-Americans it is our obligation

to make this equality work for us.

[Marshall] I think that we're in a very critical time.

The country's very polarized.

I think that people are being treated unfairly,

some people are being murdered for who they are.

And I also think that maybe

it's time to have the American Dream disappear.

Because maybe it's not serving anybody,

and if it did disappear,

we could do something better for all.

[Ann] I think I agree with that.

I agree with that,

because I think we have certain expectations...

You know in the fifties they said

Bring Back America,

in the fifties, which was a very different time.

And I think times have changed.

The way of life is changed,

and I agree that the American Dream should be something new.

I think it should be more personal.

[Kwaku] American dream is about

finding or identifying your purpose.

How you can make yourself better as a person,

and how it can influence the country as a whole.

I'm an aspiring physician,

and as a physician, my goal in life,

or my purpose is to show compassion.

We all have dreams.

We just have to put in the work

to bring it into reality.

[Steven] It's always kind of fun to start out with kids

and ask, What is the American dream?

And I'd say the recurring theme

of the American dream is really opportunity.

I work at a school where many of the kids

are very fortunate to have many opportunities,

and I think they haven't really always

thought as eighth-graders

that there might be something blocking opportunities.

When we look at these stories about

what's going on in the country right now,

and I see people really being

prevented from doing something

because of who they are,

I think that I really gives them a sense

that the American dream isn't

necessarily real for everybody.

[Mary] Amistad, myth,

erection, republic,

Indian killing, Christian, Atheist, narrow.

Dirt, rape, erase,

antithesis, murder.

I don't know what the American Dream is,

because nothing I've ever heard about it

connects to anything I've lived,

connects to anybody I love,

connects to anything that I believe

this country should be about.

I'm beyond angry,

and I don't think there's a word for

what I feel right about now,

but it's complex,

and not good.

[Brandon] It's so easy for us to look at all the bad

and all the negative things

that are going on in our lives,

and just seeing the American Dream wilting away.

But I think when you focus on the reflection,

when you focus on that,

and you focus on yourself,

and what you can do to achieve your American Dream,

what can I do to help someone else

achieve their American Dream,

it really can be beautiful,

and I feel like the reflection's more important

than the melting that's happening.

[Mary] The American Dream has never existed,

so an ice sculpture that melts

is nice, symbolically,

but tomorrow morning when I wake up,

the position of Black people,

and poor people of color,

and poor Whites in this country

will be unchanged.

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Watch The American Dream in 2016 | The New Yorker Video | CNE | Newyorker.com

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Darrell] For me, the American Dream is equality of opportunity. [Helen] To be able to live a safe and healthy life, good education, good income. [Darrell] As the demographics of the country begin to change, it's as if we are questioning, or we are changing our commitment to that concept.

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What is the speech all about?
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/obamas-powerful-message-donald-trump-is-un-american?intcid=mod-latest

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Watch President Barack Obama's full speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention

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Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention

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Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention

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What is the speech all about?  http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/donald-trumps-dark-dark-convention-speech

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FULL SPEECH: Donald Trump at RNC. July 21, 2016. Republican National Convention. Cleveland, Ohio.

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Donald Trump RNC full Speech. July 21, 2016. Republican National Convention. Cleveland, Ohio. Full Speech Donald Trump at RNC 2016. Day 4. DONALD TRUMP RNC Speech Republican National Convention. Donald Trump speak at RNC. Donald Trump Speech in RNC 2016 (7-21-16). Donald Trump Republican National Convention FULL Speech.July 21, 2016.