Overcriminalization A Costly Problem For Nation, West Virginia

While the presidential debate candidates discussed debt from Obamacare, Medicare, and other areas, they ignore a problem of both government spending and liberty.  The rising tide of imprisonment for non-violent offenses both eats up taxpayer dollars and expands a climate of fear usually seen in borderline authoritarian nations.

Norman Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), in an interview with Heritage Foundation, blasted the rising rate of overcriminalization.  According to Reimer, "criminal laws are becoming more pervasive and more difficult to understand."

This stems from several sources.  One is a reaction to rising public demand for actual jail time handed to white collar criminals.

Reimer explains why the problem exists:

The politics of pandering. The allure that harsh penalties and new crimes are the answer to every problem. When there is a new drug or a new environmental crisis, the easy answer is to make a new criminal law. It is easy to propose new crimes because it looks like there is no cost associated with it, but there is a huge societal cost. There are more than an estimated 4,000 criminal statues and an additional estimated 300,000 criminal regulations.
There are 2.3 million people in prison in the United States. Whether you look at the raw number or per capita, that is higher than any other country on earth. We are not a nation of bad people. Politicians need to stop reflexively engaging in this demagoguery.

More people in prison means higher expenses.  A study in 2005 indicated that it cost almost $24,000 per year to incarcerate an individual, although this fluctuates wildly from state to state.

A study by Simon Leffler-Bauer and Stephen Haas for the State of West Virginia forecast that a prison population of just over 3,000 in 2000 will increase to nearly 10,000 in 2020 with no changes in policy.  In a state facing federal government assaults on its major industries and higher spending mandates, the dramatic rise in prison population is a serious fiscal issue.

Even more problematic remains the problem of liberty.  Reimer described  how a federal case emerged against a janitor who committed the horrific crime of rerouting some pipes.  The Environmental Protection Agency pushed to send him to jail.  Reimer and many other across the political divide from Heritage to Cato, to the ACLU have urged politicians to revisit criminal policy.

"The power to prosecute, the power to brand a person a criminal and strip them of their liberty is the most awesome power, short of warfare. It must be used with restraint."