CUT THE PRISON RATE SAFELY

Kansas And Texas Find Ways To Get Smart -- Not Go Soft -- On
Crime

Washington Post The news that more than 1 in 100 adults in our country
are behind bars shocked many Americans, but it shouldn't have come as
a surprise. The U.S. incarceration rate has been marching toward this
milestone for three decades, a result of policy choices that put more
offenders in prison and keep them there longer.

Harsher sentencing laws, more restrictive parole policies and the
practice of locking up people who violate the rules of their probation
or parole have driven up the inmate population since the early 1980s.

What is remarkable, and has been highlighted alongside the
incarceration figures in a recent report from the Pew Center on the
States, is that our states, Kansas and Texas, and others are finding
effective ways to fight crime and punish criminals without breaking
the bank on prisons. Tough on taxpayers Locking up 2.3 million people
has undoubtedly helped reduce the nation's crime rate. And we
certainly believe that violent and chronic criminals deserve a good,
long term behind bars.Yet high numbers of nonviolent, lower-risk
criminals have been swept up in the prison boom. Getting tough on them
has gotten tough on taxpayers, without an adequate public safety
benefit. A prison cell costs about $65,000 to build and $24,000 a year
to operate. States spend nearly $50 billion a year on corrections,
more than four times the amount from 20 years ago, and they are
projected to spend an additional $25 billion over the next five years
to accommodate more inmates. For this much money the public expects
lower recidivism rates and safer communities. Yet crime rates are
still too high. Recidivism rates are still too high. And corrections
spending is crowding out dollars for other pressing priorities such as
health care and education. Like many of our performance-minded
colleagues across the country, we have wondered whether we are getting
our money's worth out of prisons.

For violent offenders and sex offenders, the answer is yes. For many
nonviolent offenders and probation violators, the answer is no. We've
got to find a better way.

States find alternatives Many states are doing just that. In
law-and-order Texas, we expanded a network of residential treatment
centers for low-risk, substance-abusing offenders in prison and under
community supervision, as well as intermediate-sanction facilities for
probation and parole violators.

Texas might avoid increased incarceration costs for the next five
years, saving taxpayers millions of dollars, according to the latest
projections. After Kansas found that nearly two-thirds of its prison
admissions were probation and parole violators, the legislature set up
an incentive program for community corrections programs.

Counties that cut their revocation rates by 20 percent will get a
share of new state funding -- money available because of averted
prison construction -- to help them hold violators accountable without
using up prison cells.

Other states are taking similar steps.

We aren't going soft on crime; we're getting smart on
crime.

Our country has a million more prison beds today than it did just 20
years ago, yet the average time served behind bars has increased by
only six months, to about three years.

Holding inmates an extra six months costs a bundle, but greater
reductions in recidivism may be achieved by the alternative treatment
and sanctioning programs that have begun to be funded. Cut repeat
offenses For the same price, we can put four offenders through a drug
court or re-entry program and actually alter the course of their
criminal careers. Research has shown that by using new technologies
and treatment strategies, community corrections programs can cut rates
of repeat offenses by 25 percent. Rather than claiming new victims,
these offenders have a decent shot at rejoining society, paying taxes
and supporting their children. Public safety spending, like other
areas of government responsibility, is not exempt from the test of
cost-benefit analysis.

Taxpayers want the job done as effectively as possible.

It's up to us as policy-makers to consider all of the options and
create an array of punishments and programs that deliver the biggest
public safety bang for the buck.

John Vratil, a Republican from Kansas, is vice president of the state
Senate and chairs its Judiciary Committee. John Whitmire, a Democrat
from Texas, is the senior member of the state Senate and chairs its
Criminal Justice Committee.