FULL-EMPLOYMENT PRISONS

A recent Times article about the economic woes of upstate New York towns
dependent on prisons raises a nagging little fear about the future of
criminal justice reform. As crime has been falling and jailhouse
populations stabilizing, towns that believed a prison was a recession-proof
industry are beginning to worry about layoffs. Advocates who found it
difficult enough to convince state legislators that drug treatment is
better than incarceration for low-level offenders are wondering if they
will also have to fight the perception that a vote for reform is a vote for
unemployment.

New York State's Rockefeller drug laws, which mandate long prison terms for
nonviolent drug offenders, have persisted since 1973 despite an
overwhelming consensus that they are inhumane and expensive, clogging the
prison system with people who should be in drug treatment. They have been
hard to overturn mainly because state legislators fear making changes that
could tag them as soft on crime. In addition, prosecutors, who in effect
determine a defendant's sentence when they file charges, do not want to
turn this influence over to judges, who would have more sentencing
discretion if the Rockefeller laws were rescinded.

But economic issues may start looming large, too, particularly for
influential upstate Republicans. Nearly one-third of the people in New
York's prisons are serving time for Rockefeller drug offenses. A new prison
brings a depressed community hundreds of jobs in the facility and around
it. Prisons, in fact, are the chief employer in many parts of upstate New
York, and a position as a guard pays better than many other jobs.

New York's prisons are built almost exclusively upstate in part because
land and labor are significantly cheaper than in the New York City area.
But they are also welcomed by upstate areas desperate for jobs. State
Senator Dale Volker, who calls himself "the keeper of the keys" for his
control of the process that allocates new prisons, said in an interview
that legislators competed to get prisons. "No one thought it was a panacea,
but they know prisons are helpful," he said.

Mr. Volker heads the Senate's Codes Committee, and Michael Nozzolio,
another senator with a prison-heavy upstate district, leads the Crime
Committee. Both men have been influential in quashing challenges to the
Rockefeller drug laws. While senators and their aides deny that fear of
losing prison population affects their support for the mandatory sentences,
it is appropriate to wonder whether economics plays an indirect role.

The connection between prisons and local economies crops up in other ways.
The government counts inmates as residents of their prison's town, adding
clout to upstate communities and taking it away from cities competing for
government services. This is especially important during a redistricting year.

New York's drug-driven prison expansion, while providing jobs to largely
white upstate communities, has devastated black and Hispanic neighborhoods
in the cities. Though most drug users are white, 94 percent of the people
jailed for drug offenses are black or Hispanic. These inmates, their
families and communities suffer when the state chooses long prison terms
for these offenders rather than drug treatment. In addition, inmates serve
their sentences in prisons far from their families, weakening ties that
help prisoners stay clean after their release. New York's drug policies are
costly, ineffective and unfair. It would be tragic if reform was postponed
further because these policies benefit a few influential communities.