Are Men Guiltier?

In her piece, “For Women, a Second Sentence,” Piper Kerman presents an eloquent argument for the JusticeHome program. Kerman, whose memoir inspired “Orange is the New Black,” appeals effectively to both logos and pathos. She includes the statistic that one in twenty-eight children has a parent in prison today, “and Danbury houses the mothers of at least 700 children.” She explains the hardship faced by children whose mothers are incarcerated and concludes that when a mother is placed in a remote facility away from her children, the Bureau of Prisons “can condemn entire families to the penal system.”

Kerman offers a solution to the problem created by transferring over 1,000 inmates away from their children. The Women’s Prison Association began a program called JusticeHome that allows women guilty of felonies to serve their sentences from their homes. This program helps keep family units intact, and avoids punishing women twice by separating them from their children entirely, in addition to placing them in jail. But what about fathers?

The Federal Bureau of Prisons released data indicating that 93.3% of incarcerated persons in the United States as of 2014 are men, yet no one is proposing JusticeHome for fathers. Kerman received a college education, but masses of fathers in prison had no such luxury, and have no means of publicly defending themselves. No male equivalent to the Women's Prison Association even exists. Kerman brushes over the fact that the reason the Bureau of Justice proposed to transfer 1,000 women from Danbury Prison is to prevent “overcrowding in its men’s prisons.” 

Piper Kerman discusses how JusticeHome interrupts a cycle of crime perpetuated by the removal of mothers from their children. While I wholeheartedly agree that JusticeHome’s objective of keeping mothers home with their children serves that purpose, keeping fathers home with their children would serve the same purpose. A plethora of recent research demonstrates that an active father figure significantly reduces the likelihood of his children committing a crime or displaying behavioral disorders. The fact that Kerman overlooks JusticeHome for fathers is at best ignorant, and at worst discrimination.

The problem of unbalanced male, specifically black male, incarceration rates compared to those of women represents a much deeper phenomenon. This phenomenon can be traced back to a man’s early days in the public educational system. He is more than twice as likely to be suspended than a female peer. Are the androgenic hormones simply responsible for an inability to obey laws? Or do the laws mistakenly define actions motivated by testosterone as criminal? When a boy hits a classmate, is that worse than a girl whispering hurtful things about a classmate, or are the two simply different manifestations of the same intention?

After the suicide of several adolescents, discussions about ‘cyberbullying’ and criminal punishments for bullying among activists and legislators has gained media attention, almost as if verbal bullying is a product of the digital age. I would argue that social media has made verbal bullying more transparent, not created a new type of crime. Perhaps in this way the suspension ratio will be rectified, but I do not predict the inmate sex ratio will adjust any time soon.

A person who accepts the fact that 93 percent of federal inmates are men without concern operates on the assumption that men deserve to be punished at a higher rate than women because of a biological predisposition. I reject that assumption. If the statistics were reversed, if 93 percent of inmates were women, there would be outrage and investigation as to the cause of the inequity. The unequal rate of male incarceration is unacceptable.

Perhaps the public schools are failing men by constraining their masculinity and punishing them for the physical forms of interaction that males have engaged in for millennia. Perhaps the male behavioral patterns are disruptive to the modern idea of civilization. Maybe the modern idea of civilization is flawed. Maybe men are failing to abide by basic laws of decency on an immense scale. Instead of fixing that problem at a young age through programs designed to help channel testosterone into productive outlets, our society has resolved to suspend and arrest men without a second thought.

It is no secret the majority of legislators who created this legal system were and are men, or that men constitute the majority of the judiciary, but these men have made many mistakes before. They have denied women social and political rights, and they have denied African Americans basic human rights. It is time that the unjust penal system be remedied as well.