Regarding the alleged fact that murderers serve an average of only 6 years in prison: I can only tell you I’ve heard some variant of this–usually 8 years, I think–repeated several times in the last few years. I do not recall mention of the source other than possibly vague talk like “studies of DOJ statistics show…”. This is suspicious.

You wrote of the 1997 Atlantic article that “there are no footnotes in the article; it’s just an assertion that doesn’t appear to be otherwise sourced.”

Here’s the entire paragraph from the article:

A convicted murderer in the United States is released after spending, on average, just six years in prison. A study by the Justice Department found that a fifth of all convicted murderers released from prison were arrested within three years for another violent crime. About a third of that group were arrested for another killing. A convicted murderer who has been released from prison is hundreds of times as likely to kill as an ordinary citizen. At the moment there are about 100,000 convicted murderers locked up in America’s prisons — and perhaps 800,000 murderers living free in American society. The United States has more murderers than doctors, more murderers than college professors. It has more murderers than police officers.

The citing of sources is about as ambiguous as can be. A Justice Dept study is cited in the sentence after the one that mentions the six-year average stat. The way it is written, it sounds like the study is the source of facts other than the six-year average. It is unclear to me if the study supports the several statistics given in the remainder of the paragraph.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume for the moment that The Atlantic writer did not just pull the above paragraph from his rear end (and I’m pretty sure this magazine is not known to be a bastion of conservative, hard-on-crime types). Not exactly reassuring, is it?

I believe that part of the explanation why convicted murderers might serve surprisingly little prison time on average is simply the vagueness of the term “murderer,” only a fraction of whom fit into the first-degree homicide category. The term includes a whole spectrum of others, including second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter (“…when someone dies as a result of the defendant’s non-felonious illegal act or as a consequence of the defendant’s irresponsibility or recklessness.” according to findlaw.com). So when you dump all these disparate crimes into a blender and average them out, the sentence will be something far less than what a Ted Bundy deserves. But that still doesn’t get us all the way down to an average of 6 or 8 years. No way. I’ll do some poking around the internet to see if I can find some solid facts that confirm or refute this thing.

The big block quote in your comment mostly had to do with “truth-in-sentencing” and began as follows:

By the end of 1998, 27 states and the District of Columbia required violent offenders to serve at least 85 percent of their prison sentences, up from 5 states in 1993. Another 13 states have adopted truth-in-sentencing laws requiring violent offenders to serve a substantial portion of their sentence before being eligible for release.”

Three reasons why I do not find this particularly reassuring:
1) The elastic phrase “substantial portion of their sentence” required by 13 states sounds like something begging to be abused–and probably is.

2) What about the remaining states, especially if they’re big ones like California, New York and Illinois? That could mean that a large fraction of cases occur in places that don’t even try to reach the arbitrary 85% goal.

3) Most importantly, what if the actual sentence is extremely mild? I’m not impressed by truth-in-sentencing if all it means is that a state adamantly refuses to release a horrific murderer before he has served at least 85% of his 12-year sentence. I admit this is an extreme example, but that’s what I was writing about in my initial comment, appalling murders that result in remarkably gentle sentences–and the fact that one needn’t go all the way to Peru to find such cases.

I don’t want to give the impression that such things are typical on those true-crime TV shows, but they’re not terribly unusual either. I’d estimate that 10% – 20% of the cases result in a sentence that falls somewhere between noticeably lenient and spectacularly indulgent.

About that quote about convicted murderers in the US serving on average six years in prison–

I’d love to see the sources that confirm that statistic. It appeared in that Atlantic article in 1997, but there are no footnotes in the article; it’s just an assertion that doesn’t appear to be otherwise sourced.

When I tried to independently corroborate it, I found nothing. There are many articles about Great Britain and its commonplace early release of muderers, and a couple about Canada, but nothing about the US (except ones that are close to twenty years old or more), although I imagine such statistics exist somewhere. The most I could find in a fairly short amount of time was this from 1999, which seems to be describing efforts to make sure that murderers and other violent criminals serve the bulk of their time.

It may be that when that Atlantic article was written, murderers were commonly released quite early (although 6 years seems really short even back then). But by 1999, when the other article was written, this was the situation:

By the end of 1998, 27 states and the
District of Columbia required violent offenders to
serve at least 85 percent of their prison
sentences, up from 5 states in 1993. Another 13
states have adopted truth-in-sentencing laws
requiring violent offenders to serve a substantial
portion of their sentence before being eligible
for release. As a result, about 70 percent of
prison admissions for a violent offense in 1997
were in states requiring offenders to serve at
least 85 percent of their sentence and more than
90 percent were in states requiring at least 50
percent of the sentence to be served.

In 1994, a new law (amended in 1996)
authorized the federal government to provide
financial assistance to the 50 states, the
District of Columbia and the U.S. territories to
construct or renovate prisons to incarcerate
additional violent offenders. Those states and
territories that adopt the 85 percent standard
became eligible for an increased portion of
federal funding. Since fiscal year 1996, the
Justice Department has provided more than $1.3
billion through the Violent Offender
Incarceration/Truth-in-Sentencing (VOI/TIS)
incentive grants program.

Unfortunately, the article doesn’t break down the statistics and separate out murderers from other violent offenders such as those convicted of robbery or aggravated assault. But the key seems to be truth in sentencing laws, which have mostly been passed during the 90s and after. This Wiki article indicates that as of the last update, 35 states and DC had laws that required serving 85% of the sentence for violent offenders.

rickl,

Really. Multiple sources confirmed that quote as accurate. Other Vidal quotes reveal a deeply disturbed individual. As those of us ‘of a certain age’ know, Vidal was William F. Buckley’s intellectual foil, his articulateness somewhat concealed the outrageous nature of his premises and assertions.

Keeping with the meme… Democrats!

“It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.”

Gore Vidal said that? Really?

That would make a good epitaph for socialism.

Or maybe “slogan” is a better word.

You think so?

I watch lots of those American true-life crime shows, stuff like the Investigation Discovery (ID) channel serves up all day. After detailing some horrific murder(s) followed by the investigation and capture of the killer, the story climaxes when the prosecution wins its guilty verdict. Great! Justice has been served. But as the credits roll, they blandly mention that the triple-murderer has been sentenced to 18 or 24 years, and I’m thinking WTF!?? What’s a guy gotta do to get life or the death penalty, open up a concentration camp and kill thousands?

I understand that sometimes it’s necessary to go for a lesser charge like second-degree murder, manslaughter, etc. But I’ve seen too many cases that go something like I described above. I hope it’s a rare phenomenom, but it doesn’t seem to be.