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March 02, 2008
KY: Leads the nation in prisoner growth rate
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Louisville Courier Journal
Nation of prisons
The study of America's prison population by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States should shock citizens and provoke fresh thinking at every level of government.
The statistics are breath-taking. For the first time in history, more than 1 percent of the nation's adults are in prison or jail. For some demographic groups, the figures are far higher. Among black men between the ages of 20 and 34, to pick the most distressing example, one in nine is behind bars.
The nation leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it imprisons. And Kentucky leads the country with a prisoner growth rate of 12 percent.
The roots of the problem are deep. They lie not in dramatic increases in actual crime but in 30 years of policy decisions to get tough through longer and often mandatory sentences.
Remedies won't be obvious. Racial imbalance among prison inmates, for example, reflects genuine differences in how black and non-black criminal defendants often are treated by the courts. But they also result from disparities in crime rates.
Any discussion must ultimately rest on what Americans expect imprisonment to accomplish. Clearly, locking up violent and chronic offenders for long terms enhances public safety, reduces repeat violations and provides punishment that is deserved.
On the other hand, many prisoners, especially the non-violent drug offenders who swell prison populations, could be handled just as effectively, perhaps more efficiently, and at less expense through drug treatment programs, mental health care, family counseling, community supervision and electronic monitoring.
Since that is also the class of criminals likely to be released after serving a sentence, they may be significantly less likely to commit new offenses if underlying drug, alcohol, emotional and family problems have been addressed; if they continued to be engaged with society, and if they have remained able to earn a livelihood or receive job training.
Meanwhile, the price tag of the expanding prison populations -- $50 billion a year for state governments and $5 billion for the federal budget -- is a double-edged sword.
Taxpayers foot the bill, of course, but political pressure to provide relief will run into a strong countervailing force: The nation's prison network obviously has become a massive "industry," one with tens of thousands of employees and economic stakeholders.
That will be hard to undo, just as it will be difficult to sell alternatives to lock-'em-up approaches. But we must try. Surely, throwing people in prison is not an area in which the United States wants to surpass China, North Korea and Iran.
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20080302&Category=OPINION01&ArtNo=803020392&SectionCat=&Template=printart
Posted by lois at March 2, 2008 05:57 PM