ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some by-products of the twenty-year trend toward greater use of imprisonment. At some point prison expenditures are likely to spur opposition to increased imprisonment from within the criminal justice system—quite apart from any debate about the impact of prison on crime. The justice competition effect suggests that the more prison is used, the less other agencies will have discretion to adopt non-prison policies, eventually limiting police and prosecutors to the mechanical role of processing offenders so that they fill available cells. The policies of Mayor Giuliani in New York City, aimed at aggressive prosecution of "quality of life" offenses, are another recent and highly publicized version of low-end pressure on jail cells. In a political environment reflecting more the dynamic of a poker game than rational debate about important social policy, arguments questioning directly the value of prison as a crime-fighting tool are likely to be lost in the wind.
