LOCK 'EM UP STRATEGY FAILING

Mandatory Minimum Sentences Have Crowded Nation's Prisons. Cost Is High And
Safety Claims Aren't Proven.

The experiment with mandatory minimum sentencing has been a failure,
according to a yearlong study by the American Bar Association.

The report echoes familiar themes, pointing out how popular laws adopted
over the past two decades calling for tough mandatory sentencing have done
little more than fuel dangerous and expensive crowding in prison systems
across the nation. Meanwhile, the report questions whether this shift
toward longer sentences has actually made us any safer or been an effective
deterrent.

Two things are beyond dispute. First, the cost to incarcerate the 2.1
million Americans now behind bars is escalating and so is the prison
population. Mandatory minimums and the policies that have either
discouraged or abolished parole means offenders spend more time behind
bars. Secondly, the sentences have had the largest impact on petty drug
offenders.

South Carolina knows well the impact of get-tough policies that take
discretion of the hands of judges and mete out one-size-fits-all justice.
Our state's prison population has boomed because of so-called
truth-in-sentencing laws.

The Department of Corrections projects South Carolina's prison population
will increase by more than one-third over the next four years. Corrections
is already virtually out of bed space. So this state is faced with either
adopting sentencing reform or shelling out the money now to build more
prisons. Building more prisons is unlikely, as state revenues have
stagnated. This is why Corrections has run an operational deficit for three
years, shut down facilities and fired more than 500 workers, mostly prison
guards.

There is no question about the ABA's liberal credentials. But this
commission was inspired by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's remarks
last year about the fundamental unfairness of sentencing laws that disallow
flexibility. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan's final Supreme Court appointee, is a
solid centrist. He's surely no liberal.

This problem will persist if it is viewed solely through an ideological
lens. Conservatives and liberals alike should be able to agree that money
spent simply warehousing nonviolent offenders is money misspent. Both state
governments and the federal government should begin making greater use of
noncustodial programs that have proven effective for nonviolent offenders
at a fraction of the tens of thousands of dollars spent annually to
imprison, feed and care for an inmate.

Though popular among voters, some prosecutors and politicians, the laws
have never been popular among most judges who have seen their power and
discretion severely limited or with prison administrators who are forced to
deal daily with the effects of rising incarceration rates that have yet to
find a ceiling.

The public deserves protection. But misguided laws that burn billions of
dollars and aren't proven effective shouldn't be part of the equation.