`PRISON PRESIDENT'S' FOXHOLE CONVERSION TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

Vincent Schiraldi is president of the Justice Policy Institute, a
nonprofit, nonpartisan research and public policy organization in
Washington, D.C.

In the last days of his presidency, Bill Clinton told a reporter from
Rolling Stone magazine that mandatory minimum sentences are
"unconscionable" and that "we really need a re-examination of our entire
prison policy."

Thus, with one masterful, final act of triangulation, Clinton attempted to
put himself on the humanitarian side of the prison issue.

But the numbers belie Clinton's foxhole conversion. Indeed, while he has
repeatedly positioned himself as the "education president," a fair analysis
of his tenure more readily evokes the title "prison president."

During Clinton's stay in the White House, more Americans were added to our
prisons and jails than under the term of any other U.S. president, and more
federal inmates were added than under presidents Reagan and Bush combined.
In the 116 years of American history prior to Clinton's presidency, America
amassed 1.3 million prisoners. During Clinton's tenure alone, 673,000
inmates were added to our prisons and jails.

In 1994, Clinton signed the Crime Control Act of 1994 into law, the largest
crime bill in the nation's history. The result? The following year, state
spending for prison construction increased by $954 million while state
spending for university construction fell by an equivalent $926 million In
the ensuing years, there were large increases in the number of Americans
imprisoned for drug and other non-violent offenses.

Clinton created a national commission to help America have a "conversation
on race." Yet given the opportunity to equalize federal punishments for
crack cocaine, which primarily affects black defendants, and powder
cocaine, which primarily affects white defendants, Clinton balked.

Despite a doubling of the incarceration rate for African Americans prior to
his taking office, the African-American incarceration rate continued to
climb sharply under Clinton. After political setbacks on gays in the
military and health care, perhaps Clinton felt he needed to shore up his
conservative credentials with a tough-on-crime approach.

Having imprisoned and executed more people than any other man in America,
President Bush has no such need. Under the stewardship of Bush and Gov.
Anne Richards, Texas led the national charge in prison population expansion
during the 1990s. Yet while Texas added five times as many inmates to its
prisons during the 1990s as New York, crime in New York declined 26 percent
more than crime in Texas did.

Like President Nixon's going to China after a lifetime of attacking
communism, George W. Bush can now spend some compassionate capital, having
proved his conservative mettle on this issue.

Republican governors in New York and New Mexico have called for a diversion
of nonviolent drug offenders from prison into treatment, and vote s in
California and Arizona have approved initiatives to divert thousands of
drug offenders out of prison and into treatment. President Bush can now
fulfill his campaign promise of an additional $1 billion in drug treatment
funding, helping states create treatment in lieu of imprisonment for less
serious offenders. He can also make it a priority to eliminate the
indefensible and unfair disparities in sentencing between crack and powder
cocaine.

With the prison population topping 2 million under his watch, Clinton was
right to call for a re-examination of our prison policies and an abolition
of harsh mandatory sentences. He was wrong to do so little toward those
ends when he had the power to do so.

This January, we witnessed one of the most unusual transitions of power in
our nation's history. The day after the departing Clinton struck a plea
bargain averting criminal contempt charges, George W. Bush was sworn in as
the first president with a criminal conviction for drunken driving. Both
men have asked for our forgiveness for their indiscretions and, to my mind,
both men deserve it.

Having spoken of his own redemption and recovery, Bush's challenge is now
to help others entangled in the criminal justice system achieve the same
kind of redemption. And having proved he can be tough on crime, he can now
prove he is able to be smart on crime as well.