TWO SEPARATE SOCIETIES: ONE IN PRISON, ONE NOT

Forty years ago, the Kerner Commission concluded in its landmark
study of the causes of racial disturbances in the United States in
the 1960s: "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one
white -- separate and unequal." Today we are still moving toward two
societies: one incarcerated and one not. The Pew Center on the States
released a study in February showing that for the first time in this
country's history, more than one in every 100 adults is in jail or
prison. According to the Justice Department, 7 million people -- or
one in every 32 adults -- are either incarcerated, on parole or
probation or under some other form of state or local supervision.

These figures understate the disproportionate impact that this bold
and unprecedented social experiment has had on certain groups in U.S.
society. Today one in nine young black men is behind bars. African
Americans now comprise more than half of all prisoners, up from a
third three decades ago.

Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) held a remarkable set of hearings last
October on mass incarceration in the United States. In his opening
statement, Webb noted that "the United States has embarked on one of
the largest public policy experiments in our history, yet this
experiment remains shockingly absent from public debate."

The leading presidential candidates have not identified mass
imprisonment as a central issue, even though it is arguably the
country's top civil rights concern. Many of today's crime control
policies fundamentally impede the economic, political and social
advancement of the most disadvantaged blacks and members of other
minority groups. Prison leaves them less likely to find gainful
employment, vote, participate in other civic activities and maintain
ties with their families and communities.

Congress recognized some of these barriers recently when, after years
of delay, it approved and sent to the White House the Second Chance
Act, which President Bush signed into law last week. This legislation
seeks to ease the reentry of prisoners into society by providing
modest increases in support for mentoring programs, drug treatment,
job training and education.

Bruce Western of Harvard soberly concludes in his landmark book
"Punishment and Inequality in America" that mass imprisonment has
erased many of the "gains to African American citizenship hard won by
the civil rights movement." Sen. Barack Obama glancingly made some
similar points in an address at Howard University last September. But
he generally has not focused on the perils of mass incarceration.
Neither has Sen. Hillary Clinton, though the $4 billion anti-crime
package she unveiled last week did call for elimination of the
federal mandatory five-year sentence for minor crack cocaine
violations. As for Sen. John McCain, civil rights and criminal
justice policy are not among the 15 issues the Republican nominee
highlights on his Web site. But America's space program did make the top 15.

At the hearings last fall, Webb underscored a basic truth sidelined
in most discussions of crime and punishment: The explosion of the
prison population wasn't driven so much by an increase in crime as by
the way we chose to respond to crime. Even former president Bill
Clinton, whose administration was an accomplice in the largest prison
buildup in U.S. history, conceded in a keynote address at a
University of Pennsylvania symposium in February commemorating the
Kerner anniversary: "Most of the people who went to prison should
have been let out a long time ago."

A change of heart by Bill Clinton and other public figures will not
be enough to reverse the prison boom. In rare instances, public
officials have been moved by strong personal beliefs to empty their
prisons. During his brief tenure as Britain's home secretary early in
the 20th century, Winston Churchill expressed deep skepticism about
what could be achieved through incarceration, and he began releasing
prisoners. Political leadership has been critical for major
reductions in incarceration in other countries. But in many cases,
the public and experts on criminal justice had to push politicians to
begin emptying their prisons and jails.

It is a national disgrace that the U.S. incarceration rate is five to
12 times that of other industrialized countries as well as being the
highest in the world. As Churchill once said, "The mood and temper of
the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one
of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country."