TEXANS HAVE A PASSION FOR PUNISHMENT

According to the most recent figures from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Texas had more of its citizens imprisoned in 1999 (163,190) than any other state.

That information was made public the same day the state put a mentally retarded man to death -- one of two executions carried out in the Texas death chamber Aug. 9 and the 227th execution since the death penalty was reinstated in Texas.

Texas' lead in this category is so great that the combined number of inmates put to death in the next five highest-ranking states barely equals the Lone Star State's total.

While Gov. George W. Bush and other Texas politicians will no doubt cite these statistics as a source of pride, they should be viewed as a stinging indictment of our collective failure to shape and implement social policies that reduce rather than constantly expand what has become the most massive exercise in state-imposed penal sanctions in the history of the United States. It is a sign of our times that our failures can be trumpeted as successes.

If, as has often been said, prison is a microcosm of society, what do these statistics tell us about Texas? The renowned social theorist Emile Durkheim suggested that strong political regimes have no need to rely upon intensely punitive sanctions, and while punitiveness may pose as a symbol of strength, it should be interpreted as a symptom of weak authority and inadequate social controls.

If one looks at the number of imprisoned Texans in relation to state performance in related areas of government services, Durkheim's theory appears to offer an insight worthy of our attention.

Texas has twice as many African Americans imprisoned as are enrolled in the state's public universities. In contrast, the ratio for Anglos is five university students for every prisoner.

Texas has one of the highest high school dropout rates among the 50 states.

Texas ranks among the top 10 states with the most people living in poverty.

Texas has the highest number of children without health-care insurance in the nation.

Only one state has a higher rate of teen-age births.

State mental health-care agencies spend less than those in all but five states.

Punishment is an act of sovereign might that exemplifies absolute power like no other governmental action.

It gives the appearance that something decisive is being done. Texas citizens more easily relate to executions and prison expansion than the myriad of factors that combine to fuel the criminal justice system.

Texas politicians have long known and acted on this phenomenon, which is craftily disguised under the rubric of "law and order" and "tough on crime" rhetoric.

A show of punitive force is simply a much more visible and politically expedient way to demonstrate government action than expanding prenatal care programs or mental health services.

As a career criminal justice practitioner, I have closely observed those systems in recent years and find too little evidence of any application of "compassionate conservatism" but overwhelming evidence of an unequaled passion for punishment. The most disturbing element of this punitiveness is how easily it is accepted and left unquestioned by Texas citizens, policy-makers, politicians and members of the media.

Such a state of affairs leads to an almost mindless application of public policy that shifts the burden from pre-incarceration caregivers such as educators, health-care professionals and social-service providers to post-incarceration caretakers (prison guards) who are charged with "correcting" men and women, most of whom have long since passed the age at which preventative or corrective measures are most effective.

We in Texas, through the zealous adoption and almost mindless implementation of a punishment model through which caretakers rather than caregivers flourish, have left too little room for compassion (whether it be conservatively applied or not), which is just as necessary for social control as punitive sanctions.

For instance, think what it would mean to all Texans if politicians and public policy makers would define as their goal the reversal of the aforementioned prisoner-student ratio for African American youth.