A LOCKED-UP LAND

A new study gives the U.S. the dubious honor of the highest rate of
imprisonment on the globe.

It reflects shortsighted policies Americans are accustomed to being
No. 1 in a host of areas, but it's a dubious achievement indeed that
we hold the top spot for incarceration. A study by the Pew Center on
the States says that the U.S. has more people in jails and prisons
than any other nation -- 2,319,258 at the start of 2008 -- and more
per capita, one of every 99.1 adults.

Part of the strangeness in that is how it compares to conditions in
some blatantly oppressive countries.

China comes to mind, with its lack of patience for free speech and its
inclination to put its people (including dissidents) behind bars.

The reason for the spike in imprisonment in the United States is well
known: Jumps in the crime rate in the 1980s and '90s led state and
federal lawmakers to "get tough on crime." Three-strikes laws and
longer sentences for non-violent drug offenses, for instance, stuffed
existing prisons and required more new cells to be built.

But they provided a vaccine for lawmakers worried about being called
soft by political opponents crusading for law and order.

That still seems to be the mindset. Order and public safety must be
maintained, of course, and a get-tough attitude may have made
constituents feel safer.

But society suffers another type of pain, an economic one, when the
bills for expensive prisons come due. The Pew study reports that on
average, states now spend 6.8 percent of their general fund budgets on
corrections. Four of them -- Connecticut, Michigan, Oregon and Vermont
- -- spend more on corrections than on higher education. North Carolina
does its part to fill prisons and build more of them. A recent state
estimate says that burgeoning incarceration rates and longer state
prison sentences will mean about 6,000 more inmates than spaces to
house them by 2017. And that's taking into account about $32 million
the legislature set aside last year for new prisons.

North Carolina is one of 13 states that spend $1 billion or more per
year on corrections. Fifteen of every 100 state workers in North
Carolina are dedicated to corrections. Only three other states have a
higher rate.

And of course stacking prisons full of inmates now will cause another
societal shock all too soon. That shock will come from more people
being released after learning from their prison neighbors how to be
better criminals. The Pew report was written as part of an effort by
13 states to address crime more intelligently. No one wants to shutter
prisons.

Some crimes obviously are so serious that their perpetrators need to
be locked up. But the expense is tremendous -- $20,000 on average in
this state -- and the money is "invested" in too many cases in
non-violent offenders who would not necessarily be a threat to others
if they were, for example, on house arrest. The Pew Center's Public
Safety Performance Project is working with the 13 states to craft
programs that divert criminals from prison and protect the public at
the same time. North Carolina isn't one of them now, but it should
sign up. In a larger sense, America needs to ask itself how this
attitude that incarceration is the first and best punishment came to
be. And it needs to reckon with the fact that, though it may be the
simplest response, it's seldom the smartest.