Iowa Department of Corrections Director Walter L. "Kip" Kautzky said it has
"all the making of a good train wreck." A more apt metaphor for what's
happening to Iowa's prisons is a runaway locomotive with a full head of
steam and no one at the throttle.

Iowa courts send an average of 300 convicted offenders to Iowa's nine
secure prisons each and every month, but the numbers coming out at the
other end are nowhere near that high. The result: Iowa prisons are out of
room, and the problem is reaching crisis proportions.

Iowa's prisons have capacity for 6,772 inmates; as of Thursday , the count
was just over 8,000. If nothing changes -- and, judging from history,
nothing will -- the inmate population is projected to grow to nearly twice
the existing capacity in the next decade. Thus, because the federal courts
are not likely to tolerate overcrowding much longer, Iowa taxpayers could
be digging into their pockets to pay for as many as five new prisons over
the next decade.

This is not a new problem. Iowa's prison population has been growing at an
unsustainable clip at least since 1987, the year the Iowa Legislature
removed an arbitrary "cap" on prison population.

In 1991, a Maryland corrections consultant hired to advise the state on
what to do about prison crowding forecast that by 2000 the inmate
population would reach 5,600. In fact, that number was reached just four
years later, and by 2000 it was 7,600.

In the past decade, the state has doubled its prison capacity, yet its
prisons are still bursting at the seams. The latest forecast is that by
2011, Iowa will have more than 12,300 inmates in prison, a three-fold
increase in a span of 20 years.

There are a number of explanations for this, but rising crime and a growing
population are not among them.

Rather, the blame lies almost entirely with public officials -- from
governors and the General Assembly to the Parole Board -- who have made
conscious decisions to ignore the problem or make it worse.

The chief culprits are state lawmakers who stubbornly resist calls for
criminal sentencing reform. Instead, they have made the problem worse by
increasing penalties, adding mandatory minimum sentences and waging a "war
on drugs" that has doubled the number of inmates serving time for
drug-related offenses.

One relief valve -- release on parole -- has become stuck: The number of
inmates completing the full term of their sentences increased a staggering
155 percent in the past five years. As a result, they return to the
community with no supervision, and thus substantially less chance of success.

These trends could be tempered by merely adjusting sentences --
particularly for non-violent offenders who represent 60 percent of the
prison population -- increasing paroles and directing offenders to
community-based facilities rather than highly secure prisons.

Legislative leaders, however, won't hear of it. Sentencing reform has been
on the agenda for several legislative sessions, but nothing of substance
has been done. As long as politicians are terrified at being labeled "soft
on crime," that is not likely to change.

While some might argue that it's better to have criminals behind bars than
on the street, corrections experts say there is no evidence that crime
rates and rising prison populations are linked. In fact, it could be argued
that by spending more on warehousing inmates than on treatment, the
corrections system is failing to help offenders succeed in the real world.

Perhaps politicians would have more backbone if Iowa tax forms had these lines:

"Annual cost of a year in prison:$20,000.

"Annual cost of a year at a state university: $9,000."

Or, maybe legislators would bestir themselves if taxpayers understood what
their money cannot buy because it is being spent in prisons.

Prisons cost $45 million apiece to build and nearly $30 million each per
year to operate. That's nearly $150 million per year in operating costs
alone for five new prisons -- adding up to $1.5 billion over 10 years.

With that same money, the state could make new Vision Iowa grants worth $50
million each to 30 Iowa cities over the next decade.

Or the state could hold down tuition costs at state universities, or hire
more child-protection workers, or build more parks or better enforce the
environmental laws, or pay teachers more.

It is a crime that Iowa leaders choose to throw ever-increasing amounts of
money at a failed prison system when there are so many other vital needs in
this state. What is the penalty for that crime?