LOCK 'EM UP

World's Biggest Stockade

ALTHOUGH the number of Americans in cells declined slightly last year - the
first drop since 1972 - the United States still is tainted by locking up
more of its citizens than any other prosperous, modern country.

Some 668 of every 100,000 Americans were in jail in 1999, compared to 55
per 100,000 in Norway, 85 in Germany and Italy, 95 in France and 125 in
Portugal.

Are Americans 10 times more violent and dishonest than Europeans? Of course
not. The explanation for the disparity is that the United States has become
a harsh, punitive society.

America's "current rate of incarceration would have been inconceivable to
Americans a generation ago," The Washington Post declared in an editorial
last week. It noted that the number of U.S. inmates behind bars crept up
from 333,000 in 1960 to 474,000 in 1980 - then exploded to more than 2 million.

Blacks are far more likely to end up in cells. "Fully 9.7 percent of black
males in their 20s are imprisoned, compared with 2.9 percent of Hispanic
men and 1.1 percent of white men in the same age group," the Post pointed out.

Several studies have found that the U.S. justice system is far more harsh
on blacks than whites, even when their offenses and past records are
identical. For example, more whites than blacks are arrested for assault,
burglary and drug crimes - yet, more blacks are behind bars for each of
these offenses.

Turning America into a stockade is a heavy burden on taxpayers. During the
1990s, states spent more than $25 billion to build prisons. Operating costs
for state and federal prisons are about $30 billion a year. That's $300
billion over 10 years.

Packed and overcrowded, few prisons have time to rehabilitate inmates. More
than 95 percent eventually will get out. When they do, and when they cannot
find job opportunities, many return to crime.

What can be done? Nobody is proposing leniency for serial murderers or
violent rapists. But America should halt mandatory federal sentences in
nonviolent drug cases.

For every drug offender California jailed in 1980, it jails 25 today. Last
year, California voters rebelled, passing a law to rehabilitate drug
offenders rather than jail them.

Voters in West Virginia and every other state should join this backlash
against the stockade mentality.

Next time a legislator or economic developer proposes a new prison for
Logan or Pocahontas county, West Virginia taxpayers should cast a dubious
eye on the project.

Legislators and developers don't pay the bills. Taxpayers do.