FUNDING BASED ON INMATE NUMBERS

Here is how prison policies made in Montgomery and Washington take on a
life of their own. Once prison operators, prison employees and community
tax collectors learned they could profit from harsh, lock'em up drug
control laws, a powerful political force was born to keep prisons full.

During the 1980s and 1990s tough-on-crime policies (especially drug control
laws) overfilled America's prisons.

State and federal prisons held only 315,974 inmates in 1980. By 2000 that
number had skyrocketed to 1,321,137. When inmates in city and county jails
are added, America's total prison population topped 2 million in 2002.

Prisons, however, are not reserved for violent offenders. In 2002, for
example, 1,235,700 simple drug possession ar rests were made in the United
States -- about one-half of them for possession of marijuana. While not all
of those arrested end up behind bars, the rush to lock up non-violent
offenders was, in large part, responsible for setting off America's prison
building boom.

A new study by Sarah Lawrence and Jeremy Travis at the Urban Institute's
Justice Policy Center in Washington tracks how prisons became a growth
industry in America. In "The New Landscape of Imprisonment: Mapping
America's Prison Expansion," they found nationally that "During the last
quarter of the 20th century, state prison systems grew from 592 prisons to
1,023 prisons U an increase of 73 percent."

In 1979, 24 state correctional facilities -- including prisons -- operated
in Alabama. By 2000, that number grew to 33, with six facilities operating
in Elmore County and four in Montgomery County near the state capital.
Three facilities are in Jefferson County and two in Bibb County, with the
rest scattered throughout the state, including one in Mobile County.

The U.S. Census counts prisoners where they are incarcerated, and both
federal and state agencies distribute funds based on this census data. The
more prisoners counted in a town or county, the bigger will be its share of
tax-funded goodies from Washington and Montgomery.

This gravy train includes a slice of $200 billion a year in formula grants
from Washington to all state and local governments for Medicaid, foster
care, adoption assistance and 169 other programs. In addition, the same
data are used to allocate state funds for community health services, road
construction, law enforcement and public libraries.

Regular paychecks roll in for 3,460 prison employees in Alabama. And don't
forget the incomes of employees of private firms that directly sell food,
fuel, clothing and furniture to prisons.

No wonder Alabama towns become addicted to this prison economy.

Spreading prisons across Alabama can actually perpetuate a large prison
population. As more towns become economically dependent on state prisons
holding more than 29,553 inmates in 2002, the greater is the likelihood
that grass-roots support will grow for politicians who favor putting
non-violent people behind bars.

After all, it's in the self-interest of these towns to keep their prisons
full and their local economies booming.

When prisons boom, everyone wins except the non-violent inmates and the
taxpayers. Politicians in Montgomery can show how tough they are on crime.
Private prison operators and their investors make money.

Prison guards pay off their mortgage and support local businesses. Even the
local tax collector gets his cut.

Now that the jailhouse economy is going strong, the political reforms that
are needed to abandon this old drug war mentality will be much harder, if
not impossible, to get through the legislatures in Montgomery and
Washington. Chances are taxpayers are stuck with the cost of keeping 2
million men and women behind bars well into the future -- not because
justice demands it, but because the economic benefits of the prison
business are working to keep it that way.