ADVICE ON HOW TO BETTER RUN STATE PRISONS

Letter Spotlight: J. Steven Smith

What to do with our prisons is a question that has been begging for an
answer for the last 100 years. Now, with serious budget shortfalls and
overcrowded prisons, we may be willing to tackle the question.

Depending on the person, place or time you ask an elected official, he will
say that Indiana uses the state prisons to incapacitate the dangerous,
educate the ignorant, punish the evil, motivate the lazy or scare the
potential criminals among us.

As of January 2001, there were over 21,000 adult and juvenile inmates in
Indiana's 34 correctional facilities.

When we think of prison inmates, most of us think of serious offenders:
murderers, rapists, robbers and others who pose a real threat to the safety
of the community. In Indiana, they comprise only about 40 percent of the
inmate population. The state legislature could cut the corrections budget
substantially if the department had only to deal with the dangerous,
predatory offenders. This would please prison staff, because those
dangerous offenders are the ones they are trained to manage.

The No. 1 reason a person gets sent to prison is for non-violent property
crime. This includes about 23 percent of the inmate population; they are
convicted of such offenses as larceny, passing a bad check, credit card
fraud and loan/bank fraud.

The second most common crime is a controlled substance offense. Drug
offenders are swelling the inmate ranks across the country and comprise
about 20 percent of the Indiana prison population.

The numbers for juveniles are even more interesting. The most serious
offenses (24 percent) include violent crimes such as rape and serious
assault. Only 8 percent of the incarcerated juveniles have committed
serious crimes such as major thefts and burglaries.

Fifty percent of incarcerated juveniles have committed even less serious
offenses, including theft and vandalism. Low-risk offenses (about 14
percent) are usually the crimes of repeated runaway or truancy in violation
of a judicial order.

As with the adult inmate population, we find that only a fraction of the
juvenile offenders have committed the most serious offenses.

When we see that 60 percent of the adult inmate population is in prison for
less serious crimes and nearly two-thirds of the juvenile inmates are
serving sentences for relatively minor crimes, it seems clear that
correctional programming is needed since all of these offenders will return
to our communities. A tough prison sentence served among violent offenders,
which makes these juveniles more criminal, is clearly foolish.

Keep the violent, predatory offenders behind bars for long periods, but
continue to provide programming and services because most inmates will
return to society at some point.

As long as our prisons house non-violent offenders and substance abusers,
we dare not stop treatment, education and counseling programs. To reduce
funding for correctional treatment services will certainly make these
inmates more predatory when they are released.

Stop punishing the victims of crimes by imprisoning property offenders
where they cannot work to make restitution to the victims of their crimes.
Restorative justice is the only way to repay the victim for their losses
and give the offender the opportunity to "make it right" with the victim.
Every non-violent property offender should be removed from correctional
supervision as soon as that offender has restored the victim to his
pre-crime condition.

Drug offenders are seeking to escape from some combination of their life
conditions, inner demons and poor self-images. These are manageable with
the proper treatment and support. Most modern industrialized nations have
chosen to treat drug addiction as a public health problem, not a crime
problem. There have been reports of waiting lists of over a year to receive
treatment services, but there is never a waiting list for a prison cell.

Today, only a couple of Indiana's 92 counties are responsible for a very
high percentage of Indiana inmates. Local communities should have the
freedom to send any offender to the Department of Correction, but they
should also send the check for the period of incarceration to the state
treasury.