TWO MILLION PRISONERS

THE U.S. prison population now tops 2 million inmates.

Fiscal restraints, however, are causing many states to abandon some costly
tough-on-crime initiatives.

Even Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, which have the highest incarceration
rates, are trying to save money. Louisiana, for example, has eliminated
mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent crimes.

''Every act does not necessarily require putting people in the
penitentiary,'' an Oklahoma legislator said.

Such words are music to the ears of prison reformers, who have long argued
for less costly -- and more effective -- alternatives to prison.

Yet states shouldn't act too hastily in response to their budget shortfalls.

Gov. Paul Patton, for example, tried to force an end to Kentucky's budget
impasse by ordering early releases for 833 inmates in December and January.
But it backfired when several were quickly re-arrested, including one for
rape and another for bank robbery.

Nonetheless, at a time when budget shortfalls are requiring different
strategies for fighting crime, state and federal legislators must also be
more attentive to the ways that harsh, mandatory sentencing for drug
offenses has come down hardest on African Americans.

Twelve percent of AfricanAmerican men between the ages of 20 and 34 are now
in jail, and convictions on drug offenses have accounted for 27 percent of
the recent increase in black inmates' numbers.

Such a high level of imprisonment is tragic enough. But it's more tragic
if, in fact, a substantial number of these men could be in alternative
programs, where they could get treatment for their addictions and the
education and training that might make them employable, marriageable and
better positioned to support families that desperately need a good man in
the house.

Such programs aren't free, but they're far less costly than prison, which
too often accomplishes little other than to turn out better criminals.