USA HAS GONE PRISON CRAZY

TWO million Americans will be locked up behind bars by the end of 2001: the
biggest civilian incarceration in history.

This means that America, with 5 percent of the world's population, will
have 25 percent of its prisoners; its rate of incarceration will exceed
that of every other country that keeps statistics, with the possible
exception of miserable Russia.

The question is whether the 2 million milestone will prompt the rethink
that America's penal policy deserves, or whether it will slip by unnoticed.

The American incarceration rate not only exceeds that of other
industrialized countries by between five and eight times; a generation ago,
it would have been unthinkable even in the United States.

In 1960, America's inmate population (counting those locked up in long-term
prisons plus short-term jails, but not counting illegal immigrants and
minors) stood at 333,000 and over the next two decades it rose at a
comparatively modest pace to 474,000.

The quadrupling that ensued in the two decades after 1980 has no precedent
in American history. The chief explanation for this crazy leap lies in
America's failed drugs policy.

Nearly one in four inmates is serving time for some kind of drug offense,
meaning that the number of incarcerated drug offenders in 2001 will be
roughly equivalent to the entire inmate population of 1980.

There will be 100,000 more people imprisoned in America for drug offenses
than all the prisoners in the European Union, even though the EU has 100
million more people.

In California the number of drug offenders behind bars has increased a
staggering 25-fold since 1980.

The direct cost of locking up drug offenders in 2001 will come to nearly
$10 billion, but the indirect costs are just as frightening.

Surveys show similar drug usage rates for young blacks and whites, but
black drug offenders are far more likely to go to jail. The discrimination,
coupled with higher black incarceration rates for nondrug crimes, causes
more than one in ten black males in their 20s and early 30s to be locked up.

- -This rate of penalization tears at the social fabric of inner cities. One
in ten black children has a parent in prison, and is in turn more likely to
experience neglect, poverty and later on, delinquency.

But high penalization rates have political consequences too. In all but
four states, prisoners who have been convicted of felonies lose the right
to vote; in 12 states, a felony can result in lifelong disenfranchisement.

As a result of these rules, there are states, particularly in the South,
where a quarter of the black male population is permanently
disenfranchised. As older, pre-prison-boom blacks die, the share of the
disenfranchised will go up.

Year 2001 will see further progress towards the time when a third of the
nation's black males are voteless.

But the scariest cost of all is one that America has only just begun to
reckon with.

Since less than a tenth of prisoners are serving life sentences, the
dramatic spike in incarceration is going to be followed inexorably by a
similar spike in release rates.

Admittedly, the people coming out will be older than the people going in,
and older people are generally less likely to be criminal. But the
prisoners being released are unlikely to slip back easily into society.

Half a century ago, rehabilitation was a primary goal of America's penal
system. During the past couple of decades, however, the aim has simply been
to get bad guys off the streets.

The fading of the rehabilitation effort means that, if those guys were
indeed bad when they went in they are likely to be worse when they get out
again. More prisoners are spending more time in crowded and degrading
conditions, and often in various forms of high security detention.

So one sad prediction for 2001 is that the newspapers will carry stories of
ex-inmates emerging from years of semi-isolation to commit blood-curdling
murders.

These horror stories could be the trigger for a rethink of incarceration
policies. Already, several states have begun to question the use of
imprisonment in dealing with the drug problem.

Michigan has modified its mandatory sentencing system by shying away from
mandatory life sentences. The chief judge in New York state has announced a
reform effort to get 10,000 offenders out of jail and into drug treatment.

Even if the passing of the 2 million mark does cause the penal system to
break the surface of public debate in 2001, don't expect much change.
America has committed itself to a strange policy from which it will be hard
pressed to back down, however grim the consequences of its continuation.

Sebastian Mallaby is on the editorial page staff of The Washington Post.
This piece is from The Economist magazine.