BETTER, CHEAPER WAYS TO FIGHT CRIME

Before North Carolinians spend tens of millions of dollars to build
even more prisons, maybe we should look at how other states deal with
prison overcrowding.

Rather than building cells until the sun burns out, some states have
shortened the sentences for nonviolent crimes and minor drug
offenses. That leaves space for predatory thugs who pose a much
greater threat to the public. And though it would seem logical that
crime should go down as prison populations go up, some statistics
show just the opposite. Then there's New York City. Its murder rate
fell by 70 percent in the past decade - at the same the city was
cutting its inmate population by 34 percent. The man who oversaw that
process was the corrections commissioner for former Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani, who built a national reputation for reducing crime.

Even if North Carolina weren't expecting 6,400 more prisoners than
cells within nine years, lawmakers would be smart and humane to take
an open-minded look at the way we deal with drug offenders. Federal
and state laws often make little distinction between the merchants of
narcotics and their customers. It's one thing if drugs are a
business. It's another if they're a weakness.

Kansas and Nebraska are talking about expanding drug treatment
instead of building more prison cells. Treatment not only costs a lot
less, but it offers a chance to salvage a life and the lives of the
user's loved ones. And saving those lives also saves money that
otherwise would be spent for social programs, welfare, courts and jails.

Every dollar spent to deal with failure is a dollar not spent to help
people avoid failure - not spent for schools, health, recreation or
other positive programs. As Giuliani's corrections commissioner
recently observed, "sure, we can lock up more people, but that's why
your kid's pre-K class has 35 kids - all the money is going to prisons."

Only a fool wants to let dangerous criminals among us. Only a
spendthrift believes we can lock up everybody who does anything that
politicians call wrong.