EDITORIAL: CRIME: PUNISHMENT

A recent poll says that 74 percent of state residents support reinstituting
chain gangs.

Some inmates may prefer the fresh air to a cell, but it is likely that the
most abiding effect of being chained in a row with other prisoners and
forced to perform menial labor is not rehabilitative but embittering.

It is clear that many will mouth support for rehabilitation - 55 percent in
this poll did - but this support will quickly crumble once any strictly
punitive measure surfaces, no matter how regressive or demeaning. And it is
this attitude that we must rise above.

For many years now our debate about the penal system has drifted from one
Draconian nostrum to the next, until finally what has emerged is a
metastasizing and merciless system that draws its main inspiration from
cages and shackles and executions.

The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with
the exception of Russia. In 1998, 1 our of every 149 people in this country
was in prison. The prison population has not declined since 1972.

These numbers bespeak a grievous problem with our society. It is a gross
counterpoint to the theater of violence that now characterizes our national
life. And yet our best response continues to pivot around fostering a penal
system increasingly enamoured with endless punishment and drained of hope.

Mandatory minimum sentences and longer sentences in general, sometimes with
no possibility of parole, have caused the growth in the prison population.
But these tough measures, while exacting some revenge, exacerbate a
criminal's maladjustment and crush any hope of reform.

This harshness also allows us to escape confrontation with the complex
social problems that spawn our dilemma.

For example, we continue to lock young black men up at an unconscionable
rate. Unconscionable because we are seemingly unwilling to extend our
thinking to examine the implication of the numbers. In 1997, the rate of
incarceration for black males in their 20s was 8,630 per 100,000. For
Hispanics males it was 2,703, for whites 868.

Numbers like these, not poll results, are what we need to consider.

If we wish, we can take the 1.9 million men and women behind bars in the
United States and have our way with them. We can reinstitute chain gangs, or
stocks, or dunking stools. Perhaps we can chain some prisoners to the wall.

But the line of prisoners waiting for their punishment at our hands will
stretch far and forever unless we begin to reorder our thinking and make
rehabilitation, not punishment, our final destination. And rehabilitation is
not just a prison program but a social movement.