U.S. NUMBER ONE IN PRISON POPULATION

A recent report on U.S. prisons is attention-grabbing, and it should
be.

The report, by the Pew Center on the States, says that more than one
of every 100 adults in the country is in jail or prison.

That's bad enough, but consider that when the subject group is black
men, ages 20 to 34, one of every nine is behind bars.

We were also shocked to learn that, whether you look at percentages or
raw numbers, the United States has more people in the slammer than any
other nation. We often criticize China for its human rights record,
but the U.S. has more people in jail -- 2.3 million -- although China
has more than four times the population.

And consider the cost in dollars, which was nearly $50 billion spent
by the states on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion
20 years ago. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times
higher than was spent on higher education, the report said.

Something is clearly wrong with this picture. The problem is figuring
out what it is and what to do about it.

One of the reasons for the high prison population is obvious --
stricter sentencing guidelines have been effective in a way, putting
more people in prison serving longer terms. The stricter guidelines
were a natural reaction to rising crime rates, rampant drug abuse and
evidence that criminals were being released after serving a fraction
of their sentences.

There is also evidence that because more people are behind bars, the
violent crime rate has actually fallen nationwide by about 25 percent
in the last two decades.

But that isn't the whole story. In Durham, for example, some are
projecting that rising inmate population will require the county jail
to add 650 beds by 2020, doubling existing capacity at a cost of $85.5
million.

We need to do everything we can to avoid that, while still ensuring
that people who commit serious crimes receive appropriate punishment.
However, we think there's good evidence to show that some of Durham's
increasing prison population is caused by long delays before trial and
space being taken by those who committed less serious crimes.

Those factors need to be studied, along with programs that will help
released offenders get jobs and stay out of jail. And of course we
need to do everything we can to reach children before they become criminals.

There's no question that crime must be punished. And from this study,
it looks like we're getting pretty good at that. Now we need to do
more to prevent crime before it happens so we can stop building new
prisons.