Smoking and Crime

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by David Boyd, Aug 27, 2003.

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  1. David Boyd

    David Boyd New Member

    Today’s Wall Street Journal had an interesting story on tobacco sales in prisons. (Many prisons no longer allow smoking and the economic impact to the prison stores is significant.)

    I found the following statistics to be interesting:
    “Across the nation, restrictions on smoking in prisons are writing a new chapter in the long, lucrative history of the cigarette industry and one of its most devoted markets. About two million people are now incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails, and an estimated 70% to 80% of them are smokers, according to studies by health officials of inmates in Illinois, Texas and New Mexico. That compares with 23% of the adult U.S. population at large.”

    Any theories on why the smoking percentages are so different?
     
  2. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I've worked in one prison that allowed smoking and one that did not, supervising hundreds of inmates in each situation.

    Certain behaviors (like drug use) correlate well to others (like prison or dropping out of school). But one doesn't necessarily cause the other.

    Smoking also correlates well with gambling and drinking alcohol.

    In prison, cigarettes function as currency and recreation. It would seem natural to smoke them, too.
     
  3. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Re: Re: Smoking and Crime

    Alcatraz had a unique solution to that. Each inmate was given a generous amount of cigarettes per week (I forget the number of packs), and loose tobacco & rolling papers were available in unlimited amounts. Under that system, cigarettes had no currency value.
     
  4. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Re: Re: Re: Smoking and Crime

    Interesting. My experience was that it was better to ban smoking rather than accommodate it. Not only did that make the prison safer (fire hazards), it also eliminated them as barter. Finally, there is the contraband factor. Inmates will concentrate mightily on getting cigarettes smuggled in when they're not otherwise allowed. When they're permitted, however, the smuggling emphasis turned to drugs. I'd rather inmates concentrated on tobacco rather than heroin, crack, and PCP.
     
  5. Re: Re: Re: Re: Smoking and Crime

    At one of the local Federal institutions (we're gifted with three of 'em in a 50-mile radius) an inmate told me that the biggest privation in the Disciplinary Segregation unit was the loss of access to smokes. Forget the loss of a good UNICOR job, reading materials or visiting privileges-- losing your cigarettes was the REAL punishment.

    Better tobacco than drugs? I'll go one better. I'd rather have them concentrating on tobacco than on designing a perfect stabbing weapon made entirely of soap shavings or some such thing.
     
  6. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Smoking and Crime

    Well, this was a different time we're talking about. If Alcatraz were still open, I think they would ban smoking altogether.
     
  7. gkillion

    gkillion New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Smoking and Crime

    Yeah. In California, smoking is a crime.
     

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