LOCK 'EM UP

America's Singleminded Response To Crime

Every 11 minutes, prison doors slam shut behind another American. The
combined population of state and federal prisons and local jails reached
2.1 million last year, a number that keeps growing.

Florida accounts for a sizeable portion of that growth, incarcerating
nearly 85,000. Here, as in the rest of the country, the inmate population
is mostly young, mostly male, disproportionately minority. Corrections will
claim more than $2 billion of the state's budget for the coming fiscal
year. That doesn't include the money the state pays to support the court
system, or the substantial sums each county spends on jails. And the
inmates keep coming -- the growth of Florida's prison population far
outpaces the increase in the general population.

Experts attribute the growth nationwide to the harshness of drug laws, a
trend to give prison time for other convictions and the fact that inmates
are more likely to serve longer sentences. Nearly half the inmates in this
country are doing time for drug offenses.

Are we safer for it? Proponents of incarceration would argue that we are.
The violent crime rate has been steadily dropping. But there are compelling
reasons to doubt that the American lock 'em up mantra actually improves the
safety of our cities and neighborhoods. The U.S. incarceration rate has
been growing steadily for the past 30 years, but the crime rate began to
decline only 10 years ago.

That lends credence to statisticians who say the most single reliable
indicator of the crime rate is the proportion of young males in the
population. As the baby boom generation ages, that ratio has dropped -- and
along with it, the number of crimes committed.

Yet it's hard to get around the fact that an increasing percentage of those
young males are spending their 20s and 30s behind bars. That statistic hits
some communities harder than others. In Baltimore, nearly one in five black
men between the ages of 20 and 30 is in custody. Yet the violent crime rate
in some parts of the city actually increased, according to a Justice Policy
Institute study of crime and recidivism in Maryland.

With so many people in prison, neighborhoods are losing the cohesion that
provides an effective barrier against crime. The problem is fueled by the
dead-end fate awaiting recently released convicts, who struggle to find
jobs and re-establish family connections. Frustrated, many turn to crime again.

States, staggering under the burden of imprisoning more people, are
beginning to look for alternatives. In Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush advocates
drug treatment that diverts users away from prison. In California, Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing for a new emphasis on rehabilitation -- a
move that is long overdue in the nation's largest prison system.
Congressional leaders have proposed legislation that would offer housing
and employment assistance to inmates released from federal prison.

But a smarter approach would look at the policies that have put so many
behind bars. Mandatory sentencing laws that strip discretion from judges
are a dismal failure, sending people to prison for relatively minor crimes
at massive public expense. The nation's drug laws are a shambles, assessing
arbitrary penalties that hit hardest at low-income criminals who use
inexpensive, highly addictive street drugs like crack cocaine. Most prison
programs aimed at rehabilitation have fallen victim to budget cuts or
political posturing.

The growing prison numbers -- and public expense -- show that this is a
course the United States can no longer afford to follow.