America has a prison problem. There are far too many people locked up in jails and prisons in our country.  The cost of this mass incarceration to our country on economic and social levels is staggering. However, the reason so many people are incarcerated, and the response to the problem, is not what the media would have you believe.

A day doesn’t go by when our media isn’t flooded with stories and editorials screaming how America is locking away far too many of its citizens. Of course, the first response that many law abiding citizens have is to say “if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime”.  Many people feel that perhaps the problem is not that we are locking up too many people, but very simply that too many people are committing crimes worthy of being imprisoned for.  And they’re being caught committing these crimes! Usually these articles and reports compare American incarceration rates and totals to that of other countries. But one very important fact usually goes ignored by those trying to sell their position that we have too many people in jail: America actually has a functioning criminal justice system that actually investigates crime, pursues criminals, exposes them to our legal justice system, and if found guilty of breaking democratically approved  laws imposes  prison sentences on the perpetrators! The thing is, most other countries don’t actually follow those steps, so comparing our excellent criminal justice system to other countries is essentially a false equivalency.

There is no other country on the planet with a comprehensive criminal justice system such as ours. We spend untold sums of money on the most highly trained police forces in the world. From the smallest towns to the NYPD, from State Troopers to federal agencies such as the FBI, the training and professionalism of those in law enforcement is unlike that found anywhere else in the world. That’s not to say there aren’t many problems. Police corruption and abuse, politicization of the FBI and other agencies, even judicial corruption is far too prevalent in our country, and society can never be too vigilant in its role as watchdog of every layer of the system. But by and large, the first step in our criminal justice system, law enforcement, is conducted in this country in a manner of thoroughness that is essentially unknown in the rest of the world. A citizen of this country can basically pick up a phone and dial 911 anywhere in the country and get a quick response from local law enforcement. If you are out in public and need assistance from a police officer or if you witness a crime or suspicious activity and you inform a nearby officer, that officer will respond. We take that response for granted in this country, but it is not something that necessarily happens the world over. And if a crime is reported and no arrest is immediately made, an investigation begins. We actually have highly trained detectives and inspectors in this country, and they actually pursue criminals. What a novel idea! Joking aside, how many countries do you think actually operate in this manner? How many countries can you just call the police on the phone, or summon police on the street, and get a response the way we citizens do in this country? And how many countries do you think would assign a detective to a case, or a federal agency investigator to a case, who will work diligently to solve the alleged crime? Do you think that’s how the criminal justice system works in Honduras? In Yemen? In Uruguay? In Laos? In Namibia? Just as importantly, do you think that in countries around the world, their criminal justice system’s work for all of their citizens equally? Or just for the most wealthy ruling class?

After an alleged crime is investigated, the process moves from the law enforcement stage to the courts. Prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys (usually appointed to the defendant for free) comprise a robust apparatus to dispense justice. Our country has invested immense assets into building the most fair and comprehensive court system the world has ever seen. We have put resources into this system that the rest of the world can only dream of employing. Again, is the system perfect? Of course not. Is there corruption, waste, mistakes? Absolutely. But there is no better system anywhere else. And there is a constant effort to monitor the system, and to attempt to improve it.

Now, some people might say that America is not the only country that operates in this manner. Sure, there are others that come close. There are some Western European nations with similar systems, but comparisons can be difficult when comparing a sprawling, ethnically diverse country of almost 325 million people to, say, Sweden, a homogenous country of under ten million people. Yet still, our system surpasses theirs. And when compared to almost all but a few, the comparison is not even close. In so many lands, justice is doled out right there on the spot. What do you think happens in most places in the world when a shopkeeper catches a shoplifter? First of all, if there are no police around or if none are expected because it’s a country where police just don’t respond to a crime on that level, the shopkeeper themselves is likely to extract their own level of justice. But if police do respond, they are likely to do two things: force the alleged criminal to return the stolen goods, and treat the thief to some level of physical abuse. Fact is, there are very few countries where low-level criminals will be shown the benefits of our justice system in terms of being arrested, investigated, prosecuted, judged and then ultimately incarcerated if proven guilty. Few countries have the means or desire to invest in such a system, and few have the prison facilities that would be needed to hold their criminals even if these countries had the police and judicial systems in place to catch and prosecute the criminals in the first place. But that doesn’t mean there is less crime, in fact there is often more. And in many parts of the world, tribal towns will deal with criminals in their own way which almost never results in incarceration (but very may well result in physical harm).

So yes, we do have too many people in jail in our country. But the response should be that that is unfortunate and we as a society need to be working towards reducing crime. The response should not be that we should reduce the prison population by not enforcing laws or by lowering the bar of what criminal actions can result in an individual going to jail just because too many people are committing crimes and getting caught. The root cause of the problem needs to be better addressed, (why are so many people committing crimes?) and not just the result (there are too many people in jail so we should just let some go free). We have the best criminal justice system in the world, and the fact that we actually pursue justice and hold those who violate the law responsible for their actions is not the problem, it is proof of the success of our system.