Lock'em up, say the masses...

I had previously posted an "Economic Data Tidbit" on the topic of incarceration rates, so I thought it appropriate to link to Liptak's article in the NYT today, which is part of his American Exception series on the distinctness of the American judicial arena.

Perhaps the most interesting portion of the article is one of the possible causes for the extreme disparity, democracy!

Most state court judges and prosecutors in the United States are elected and are therefore sensitive to a public that is, according to opinion polls, generally in favor of tough crime policies. In the rest of the world, criminal justice professionals tend to be civil servants who are insulated from popular demands for tough sentencing.

Mr. Whitman, who has studied Tocqueville’s work on American penitentiaries, was asked what accounted for America’s booming prison population.

“Unfortunately, a lot of the answer is democracy — just what Tocqueville was talking about,” he said. “We have a highly politicized criminal justice system.”

This is a fine example of one of those conundrums that any viable democracy must face -- how do we balance the majority's collective will with the rights of the minority? Well, we may be taking the route of just locking up the minority --- and taking away their right to vote when they return to "normal" society as well. Woot! Go Democracy!