The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Inmate Overload

During the 1980s and 1990s tough-on-crime policies, especially drug control laws, overfilled America's prisons. State and federal prisons held only 315,974 inmates in 1980. By 2000 that number had skyrocketed to 1,321,137. When inmates in city and county jails are added, America's total prison population topped two million in 2002.

Prisons, however, are not reserved for violent offenders. In 2002, for example, 1,235,700 simple drug possession arrests were made in the U.S. - about one-half of them for possession of marijuana. While not all of those arrested end up behind bars, the rush to lock up non-violent offenders was, in large part, responsible for setting off America's prison building boom.

Prison Boom

By tracing the 1980-2000 prison expansion, a new study by Sarah Lawrence and Jeremy Travis at the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center in Washington tracks how prisons became a growth industry in Georgia. In, "The New Landscape of Imprisonment: Mapping America's Prison Expansion" they conclude that when it comes to building prisons, "Fulton County saw the largest addition with three prisons opening between 1979-2000."

In 1979, only 18 state and federal prisons operated in Georgia. Between 1979 and 2000, more than one new prison was added every year. By 2000, Georgia had 42 state and federal prisons operating in 18 percent of the counties throughout the state. In addition to Fulton County, at least one new prison was located in Bibb, Chattooga, Habersham, Columbia, Clinch, Baldwin and Lowndes counties.

Aboard the gravytrain

The U.S. Census counts prisoners where they are incarcerated, and both federal and state agencies distribute funds based on this census data. The more prisoners counted in a town or county, the bigger will be its share of tax funded goodies from Washington and Atlanta.

This gravytrain includes a slice of $200 billion a year in formula grants from Washington to all state and local governments for Medicaid, foster care, adoption assistance and 169 other programs. In addition, the same data is used to allocate state funds for community health services, road construction, law enforcement and public libraries.

Regular pay checks roll in for 14,555 prison employees in Georgia. And don't forget the incomes of employees of private firms that directly sell food, fuel, clothing and furniture to prisons. No wonder Georgia towns become addicted to this prison economy.

Prison politics

Spreading prisons across Georgia can actually perpetuate a large prison population. As more towns become economically dependent on state prisons holding more than 55,280 inmates in 2002, the greater is the likelihood grassroots support will grow for politicians who favor putting non-violent people behind bars. After all, it's in the self interest of these towns to keep their prisons full and their local economies booming.

As the number of inmates goes up, so does the number, and political power, of prison guards. In 2000, for example, the 31,000 member California Correctional Peace Officers Association used its $7 million a year political action fund to run TV ads against Proposition 36. Why? Prop. 36 called for sending non-violent drug users to treatment facilities, not to jail, and promised to reduce both the state's prison population and the number of prison guard jobs. Despite the union's ads, Prop. 36 became law with a 61 percent favorable vote.

When prisons boom, everyone wins except the non-violent inmates and the taxpayers. Politicians in Atlanta and Washington can show how tough they are on crime. Private prison operators and their investors make money. Prison guards pay off their mortgage and support local businesses. Even the local tax collector gets his cut.

Think about it. The self-perpetuating prison economy was launched due to an exaggerated fear of non-violent drug users, and a failure to treat people rather than lock them up. But, now that the jailhouse economy is going strong, the political reforms needed to abandon this old drug war mentality will be much harder, if not impossible, to get through the legislatures in Atlanta and Washington.

Chances are taxpayers are stuck with the cost of keeping two million men and women behind bars well into the future - not because justice demands it, but because the economic benefits of the prison business are working to keep it that way.

Ronald Fraser, Ph.D., writes on public policy issues for the DKT Liberty Project, a Washington-based civil liberties organization. Write him at fraserr@erols.com
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/opinion/10701086.htm