LIBERALIZING PENAL CODE COULD INCREASE CRIME THREAT

In the 1960's, America's crime rate soared because we quit sending
criminals to prison. It's taken law enforcement 40 years of putting violent
and repeat offenders back into prison to finally bring the crime rate back
down.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," wrote
George Santayana, the Spanish philosopher.

I fear that we in Kentucky are about to go down the same path and repeat
the same horrible mistake we made in the 1960s, all because we either did
not learn our lesson then, or our present criminal justice policymakers
don't rank the safety and security of the public as our top priority.

The Lieutenant Governor and State Office of Drug Control Policy appear to
be seeking support for incarcerating fewer criminals who commit crimes
because they are drug addicts. Longtime University of Kentucky law
professor Robert Lawson has studied the prison population rates in Kentucky
over the past 30 years and, in his opinion, we are incarcerating too many
convicted criminals. Professor Lawson states that " ... some meaningful
reduction in the prison population ... would begin to sound a necessary
warning that there are limits beyond which the state should not go in its
efforts to protect the public against crime." Should we, as a state, say
that there are limits to our efforts to protect the public against crime? I
hope not. But if so, whose safety is not worth protecting?

Undoubtedly there will be an effort to convince the Governor and
legislature to send even fewer convicted felons to prison. As it is under
our present sentencing laws, very few first-time convicted felons are sent
to prison in Kentucky. Especially first-time drug offenders: They are
typically offered drug treatment rather than incarceration, and I can't
disagree with that. However, 94 percent of the inmates in our nation's
prisons are violent and repeat offenders. These violent and repeat
offenders constitute that small percentage of the criminals who commit the
vast majority of the crimes. Only since we have filled our prisons with
these violent and repeat offenders have we begun to see a return to the
lower crime rates of the early 1960s.

Before any of our elected leaders make the decision to retreat from the
philosophy of "protecting the public from crime," I hope they will closely
examine our criminal justice history. The anti-punishment philosophy was
tried before in the early 1960s, and the results were disastrous. The
law-abiding public was the big loser, and paid a horrible price.

In the 1960s, America was a much safer place to live.

Our criminal justice history since the 1960s is a story of two eras in
American life and the major changes that divide them.

The first era began in 1960 and ended in the mid-to-late 1970s. It was an
era during which the criminal justice policymakers increasingly questioned
the wisdom and morality of punishing criminals by incarceration. Throughout
this period, crime policy was driven by the notion that "society" was
somehow responsible for an individual's criminal conduct, not the
individual. Addressing the root causes of crime was the best strategy, they
thought. Solving the problems of unemployment, poor education and
inadequate diet was seen as the most effective strategy.

During this time, the criminal justice system relied less on punishment and
protecting the public from dangerous felons by incarceration, and more on
social programs designed to alleviate these "causes" of crime and
rehabilitate the "sick"criminal.

In 1960:

Just under 3.4 million crimes were reported in America.

The chance of being a crime victim was 1 in 53.

Just over 290,000 violent crimes were reported in America.

The chance of being a victim of a violent crime was 1 in 622.

By 1970, the world of relative safety had gone.

By 1970, violent crime had increased by more than 250 percent. Throughout
the '70s criminal justice policy continued to be driven by the
anti-punishment philosophy.

In 1970:

The chance of being a crime victim increased to 1 in 25 (A person was more
than twice as likely to be a crime victim than in 1960.)

The chance of being a victim of a violent crime was 1 in 276. (A person was
more than twice as likely to be the victim of a violent crime than in 1960.)

America in 1980 was an even more dangerous place to live. Since 1960,
America had become better educated, better fed and better housed, but a far
more dangerous place to live. In spite of that progress, in every year
since 1960 there had been a steady and dramatic growth in the crime rate in
America. By 1980, based on the crime rates at that time, the National
Institute of Justice projected that five out of every six 12-year-olds
would be victims of a violent crime in their lifetimes.

The fear of crime made people alter their lives. Social order had
practically collapsed, thanks to the increasing crime rate.

In 1980, there were 13.4 million crimes reported (meaning there were almost
four times more crimes than in 1960)

In 1980, there were 1.35 million violent crimes reported (which means there
were more than four times the number of violent crimes than in 1960)

In 1980:

1 out of every 10 crimes was violent.

The chance of being the victim of a violent crime was 1 in 168. (The
chances of being a crime victim were four times greater than in 1960.)

During the 1980s, the public was finally fed up with crime. They began to
speak out about their fears. Crime victims rights groups were formed to
protest the treatment of victims by the criminal justice system. The public
demanded protection from crime and criminals. Public safety was their top
concern. State legislatures not only listened - they responded.

Criminal justice policies began to change in response to the public's anger
over the soft social program approach to violent criminal behavior.
"Get-tough" crime bills that imposed mandatory prison terms for violent and
persistent felony offenders were enacted all over America, and criminals
were being sent to prison.

The change in criminal justice policy from social programs back to
punishment, incarceration and protection of law-abiding citizens from crime
is what the public wanted. And it worked. The crime rate at first slowed,
then finally began going down. By 1990, the public's demand that they be
protected from crime, and that public safety be government's top priority,
had been heard loud and clear by state legislatures across America. The new
get-tough reforms that had been enacted by state legislatures were working.

By 1990, the crime rate was lower than it had been in the 1980s, and it has
continued to drop ever since. From 1994 to 2003, America's violent crime
rate dropped 33.5 percent.

What should today's criminal justice policymakers learn from our history
since 1960s? The lessons are clear:

The public wants to be protected from crime and criminals;

Incarceration works to reduce crime, and that is what the public wants.

The data can lead to no other conclusions than:

When the incarceration rate is up, the crime rate goes down, and when the
incarceration rate is down, the crime rate goes up.

Our history has shown that if we hope to restore our nation and state to
the level of public safety, security and protection from crime that we once
enjoyed, we must continue to emphasize incarceration as punishment for
crime, and violent and repeat criminals should continue to be singled out
for long prison terms.

Of course, we want all criminals - whether they are the violent and repeat
offenders who go to prison, or the first offenders who don't - to be
rehabilitated and become good citizens and contributors to our communities
when they return to society. Moreover, it goes without saying that everyone
hopes they take advantage of the drug treatment and job training offered
both in our institutions and out. But make no mistake: The safety and
security of our law-abiding citizens must always come first.

The lessons of our criminal justice history are unmistakable. The public
wants to live as safely as possible. They expect criminals to be punished
for violating our laws. They expect our government to treat their safety as
its top concern.

Our history has shown that when dealing with those individuals who choose
to violate our laws, leniency has resulted in unrelenting increases in
crime. Punishment has served to lower crime rates.

Those who would eliminate punishment and incarceration as a consequence for
criminal behavior must bear the enormous moral burden of the injuries,
deaths and losses of those who will become the new victims of the criminals
they choose to leave on our streets.

The writer, a Lexington Democrat, has been Commonwealth's Attorney in
Fayette County since 1982.