that ten-year period. 7 Furthermore, four million Americans were on 5. A short catalogue of some of the more notable punishment measures adopted during this time is illustrative: "Harsher sentencing and the increased use of imprisonment; 'Three Strikes' and mandatory minimum sentencing laws, 'truth in sentencing' and parole release restrictions; no frills prisons laws and 'austere prisons'; retribution in juvenile court and the imprisonment of children; the revival of chain gangs and corporal punishment; boot camps and supermax-prisons; the multiplication of capital offenses and executions; community notification laws and pedophile registers; zero tolerance policies and AntiSocial Behavior Orders-there is now a long list of measures that appear to signify a punitive turn in contemporary penality."
Decarceration should be justified not on instrumental grounds such as cost saving but on the basis of constitutive moral arguments. While instrumental justifications are less controversial, the path of least resistance in the short run will be the path of least progress in the long run. Punishment is in a fundamental sense constitutive. We are how we punish. We define ourselves in part by the risks that we take and by the things that we forgive. And punishment inevitably involves decisions about both risk and about forgiveness. We lost our faith in our journey toward a freer, more equal and more humane society. We are not going to restore that faith with instrumental arguments about cost or efficiency.
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