Liptak is at it. Again, In today’s New York Times, Adam takes another stab at trying to explain our disproportionately high rate of incarceration relative to the rest of the world.

The United States comes in first, too, on a more meaningful list from the prison studies center, the one ranked in order of the incarceration rates. It has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.)

The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. The others have much lower rates. England’s rate is 151; Germany’s is 88; and Japan’s is 63.

The median among all nations is about 125, roughly a sixth of the American rate.

There is little question that the high incarceration rate here has helped drive down crime, though there is debate about how much.

Unlike his Sidebar Columns, Liptak’s piece is longer this time, so he has the opportunity to provide a more balances and substantive piece.  How does he explain this anomaly?

Efforts to combat illegal drugs play a major role in explaining long prison sentences in the United States as well. In 1980, there were about 40,000 people in American jails and prisons for drug crimes. These days, there are almost 500,000.

Now we’re cooking.  And what conclusions can be drawn from this?

Many American prosecutors, on the other hand, say that locking up people involved in the drug trade is imperative, as it helps thwart demand for illegal drugs and drives down other kinds of crime.

That’s it?  Well, yeah.  That’s it.  Don’t bother thinking there will be any analysis of the obvious, such as why this “imperative” should exist in the U.S. alone and whether it means the rest of the world is over run by drug crazed criminals, for either this explanation is correct, and Americans alone are inexplicably bent toward drug induced rampant crime or the rest of the world is subject to massive crime for its failure to jail everyone in sight.  Which is it Adam?  Silence.

But it’s not just how many we imprison, but for how long.

Still, it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy. Indeed, the mere number of sentences imposed here would not place the United States at the top of the incarceration lists. If lists were compiled based on annual admissions to prison per capita, several European countries would outpace the United States. But American prison stays are much longer, so the total incarceration rate is higher.

And what makes Americans believe that longer is better (incarceration lengths, that is)?

Some scholars have found that English-speaking nations have higher prison rates.

“Although it is not at all clear what it is about Anglo-Saxon culture that makes predominantly English-speaking countries especially punitive, they are,” Mr. Tonry wrote last year in “Crime, Punishment and Politics in Comparative Perspective.”

“It could be related to economies that are more capitalistic and political cultures that are less social democratic than those of most European countries,” Mr. Tonry wrote. “Or it could have something to do with the Protestant religions with strong Calvinist overtones that were long influential.”

The American character — self-reliant, independent, judgmental — also plays a role.

That’s the problem.  If we spoke French, everything would be different.  Actually, the Protestant ethic, “with strong Calvinist overtones,” has much anecdotal appeal.  But it also has one significant flaw.  Why, if this is true, isn’t the United Kingdom right up there with us?  After all, we got it from them.

Having failed to provide any meaningful basis to distinguish America from the rest of the world, Liptak jumps to the apologia.  If you’re a fan of consistency, then give Liptak credit, because he goes back to the well of former federal judge, now Utah Lawprof, Paul Cassell.

“As one might expect, a good case can be made that fewer Americans are now being victimized” thanks to the tougher crime policies, Paul G. Cassell, an authority on sentencing and a former federal judge, wrote in The Stanford Law Review.

From 1981 to 1996, according to Justice Department statistics, the risk of punishment rose in the United States and fell in England. The crime rates predictably moved in the opposite directions, falling in the United States and rising in England.

“These figures,” Mr. Cassell wrote, “should give one pause before too quickly concluding that European sentences are appropriate.”

Simple, but short of evidence as to cause and effect, not to mention degree to relationship.  This would be a really good spot to insert a quote from, say, an American criminal defense lawyer, right?  Not for Liptak, who instead writes:

“The simple truth is that imprisonment works,” wrote Kent Scheidegger and Michael Rushford of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in The Stanford Law and Policy Review. “Locking up criminals for longer periods reduces the level of crime. The benefits of doing so far offset the costs.”

Well, if Kent and Paul Cassell say so, then why bother with the other side of the story.

In concluding his article, Liptak finally arrives at a bottom line explanation for why America, unlike anywhere else in the world, put more of its own in prison and for longer than anywhere else:

Several specialists here and abroad pointed to a surprising explanation for the high incarceration rate in the United States: 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.

We do it because the people want it to be done?  But why, Adam?  Why does the public want it this way? 

If it seems that I’m always bashing Liptak, it’s because he disappoints me so often.  Readers here likely know most of the answers to the questions I raise about Liptak’s article, and already understand that decades of tough-on-crime politics and media exploitation of crime stories have created an American paranoia about crime and punishment.  Being fed decades of “common sense” solutions, that more and longer imprisonment must mean lower crimes rates, has created an expectation and acceptance of this “magic bullet” solution. 

But when will our venerable New York Times legal beagle grasp the glaring gaps in his articles?  Why does Liptak refuse to include anyone from the defense side to counter the statistically unproven assertions of Paul Cassell or the bald exclamations of Kent Scheidegger?  No balance.  No depth.  And read by a lot of people who believe that if it’s in the Times, that bastion of liberal ideology, this is the best that can be said.

The entirety of this superficial examination of a uniquely American problem begs one huge question:  Either Americans, and only Americans, are crime-bent at such a pace and degree that we alone in the world require incarceration at rates and lengths that no other nation on earth requires, or the rest of the world is laboring under a crime wave of such significant proportions, which America has avoided by its massive incarceration rates and lengths. 

If neither of these it true, then the entire rationale for imprisonment in America falls apart.  Do you think you can fit this into one of your articles, Adam?