LOCK-UP FOLLY

North Carolina Can't Afford to Address Crime by Building
More and More Prisons Cells. Prevention Is Cheaper and Smarter

Glance through the state budget passed last month by the General
Assembly and a striking aspect is the shortage of programs intended to
keep people out of prison. That lack stands in ironic contrast to the
decision made this month by the Department of Correction to begin
turning away many inmates who were supposed to have gone to state
prison units and to leave them in county jails. Prisons, it seems, are
full, despite the fact that the state has opened three, 1,000-bed
maximum security units since 2003, at a cost of about $400 million.
Two other 1,000-bed prisons are supposed to open by mid-2006.

Something is wrong here. Prison populations are rising across the
nation, not just in North Carolina, thanks to a get-tough-on-crime
philosophy that often, in the heat of debate, fails to account for the
steep price of keeping inmates locked up. As it stands, the cost of
incarcerating an inmate for a year rivals the cost of providing a
student with a year at some of the nation's better private colleges.

Now the state is paying counties an additional $40 a day for each
inmate that should be transferred to a state prison but can't be,
because there is no room. Local jails, of course, aren't designed or
staffed for longer-term lockup.

North Carolina joined the law-and-order "movement" in the 1980s, and
to be sure, the state needs prisons, and appropriately severe prison
terms, for violent, hard-core criminals. The need to protect the
public is not in dispute -- but the fact that some observers outside
the political arena have proposed lesser sentences for non-violent
offenders, in part to relieve prison crowding, doesn't make them
bleeding hearts who want to swing open jail cells everywhere.

Despite falling crime rates in the state and the building of new
prisons year after year, the legislature stubbornly resisted passing a
sensible bill that would cut sentences for certain low-level felonies
and non-victim drug crimes. It was proposed two years ago in part to
help the state control its crowded prisons and the need for more of
them.

And consider lawmakers' contradictory short-shortsightedness: state
Rep. Mickey Michaux of Durham successfully pushed a bill this year to
stiffen penalties for gang-related crime. It passed and that's fine.
But a provision to spend $20 million on measures to discourage gangs
was chopped to $2 million. Most metro areas and many small towns are
experiencing an exploding gang problem. An adequate amount of money to
stem that trend would have helped those communities, and in the long
term perhaps kept some youngsters from taking a path toward prison.

In fact, the legislature approved precious little money for prevention
programs generally. It added, for instance, just $250,000 -- making a
total of $1 million -- to a program that provides community-based
activities for young people. Lawmakers expanded by just $750,000 the
budget for adult substance abuse. Drugs and alcohol, obviously, fuel
much of the crime that fills prisons.

Dangerous criminals should be locked up. But society can't cure crime
just by scooping up more and more people. In addition to programs that
divert would-be criminals to other choices, the legislature needs to
review sentencing laws to ensure that prison space isn't being
occupied for inordinate periods of time by people who are no threat to
others.

Without some changes, there will be no end to the prison construction
boom.