We Expect More, and When We don't get it, We Toss Them in Jail

   We lament finding out we have more people incarcerated than any place on earth. One in four prisoners on earth, it is said, have their confinement in the prisons of America.

   In our embarrassment, we rush to open the gates and let the prisoners out. Drug addicts and others we quickly set free.

   I mentioned yesterday that guns might be a factor in why we have so many prisoners. Is this a coincidence: (A.) We have more guns per capita than any nation on earth. (B.) We have more incarcerations that any nation on earth. These two facts travel in tandem. We should at least wonder if there isn't a relationship between them.. 

   But, surely, there might be factors other than our abundance of guns that have brought us to being the most incarcerating nation on earth. High expectation might be one. If you expect more of your citizens than other countries do of theirs, you might punish your people more. That means you send more people to prison. A parent that doesn't train a child never sends him to the corner to sit. So, our sending so many people to prison might, in part, reflect that we are more into correcting the faults of our people.
   And, it also reflects a highness of expectation.

   In some countries, beating your wife is of no concern. Women are property, and beating them is a property right. How much this attitude exists in some countries, and whether it is diminishing, I do not know. I only know that there can be places where women have all the citizenship rights of cattle.

   If you don't punish the crime, you don't fill your jails. Those countries that see no wrong in domestic violence do not incarcerate the offenders. The wrongs being committed in those countries are much greater than in America. But, they are not reflected in the imprisonments.

   But, to those who would throw wide open the doors of our prisons and let the prisoners out, I will concede that another factor in overloading our jails might be our intolerance of each other. This includes intolerance of the drug user. Our intolerance of them is reflected in such things as efforts to exclude them from welfare. Sometimes, we have no tolerance for the drug user, and are quick to punish them. 

   To some extent, and in some circles of our American society, we have no patience with sin. This can be good, and it can be bad. It is good to recognize domestic violence is wrong, and should be punished. But, as wrong as the crime is, the offenders remain humans. We should love them, still. Mercy should have its balance with justice. Our courts and laws should be such that we know when to jail them and we know when to free them.

   I think of the Me Too Movement: Such a rush to judgment. Such a condemnation of others. There is good in the movement, and there is bad.

   Such things as the Me Too Movement reflect what we are, what we have become, as a society. We are judgmental. We can be intolerant of some sins. You can say it reflects a moral nation. But, it also reflects one of pride.

   The point I mean to make in this post, is that perhaps a leading reason for our prisons being full and flowing over is that we are such a judgmental nation. As I said, this can be good, and it can be bad. Our challenge is to figure it out, and learn when justice should have its rule, and when mercy should be allowed to step in and free those who have done wrong,