STATE FINDS WAY TO REDUCE INCARCERATIONS

Sadly, America's first national prison commission in 30 years failed
to tackle head-on, our lock 'em up culture and to find ways to reduce
the number of people behind bars in Oklahoma and elsewhere.

The commission's recent report is little more than a how-to manual to
help wardens cope with overcrowded prisons that breed violence,
disease and recidivism. What America really needs is a road map to
drastically shrink its prison population and, unlike other states,
Oklahoma is already moving in this direction,

In "Confronting Confinement," the Commission on Safety and Abuse in
America's Prisons, admits, "It was beyond the scope of our inquiry to
explore how states and the federal government might sensibly reduce
prisoner populations. Yet all that we studied is touched by, indeed in
the grip of, America's unprecedented reliance on incarceration. We
incarcerate more people at a higher rate than any country in the world."

The study rightly pins responsibility for our overcrowded prisons on
tough-on-crime laws passed by state and federal legislators. But it
does not look for ways to downsize America's booming prison industry
that adds more than 1,000 new inmates per week, costs more than $60
billion a year and employs about 750,000 workers to watch over 2.2
million inmates - almost double the 1990 prison population.

The commission never asked this question: Why pay room and board to
put someone like Martha Stewart, or a pot smoker or a car thief behind
bars when modern electronic tracking devices can easily keep tabs on
these non-violent criminals at a fraction of the cost?

Oklahoma taxpayers shelled out about $216 million in 2003 to hire
7,087 state and local corrections employees to watch over 29,700
inmates. That's about $7,270 per year, per inmate.

Nationally, about one-half of all state prisoners have been convicted
of violent crimes, including murder and assault. The other half - in
the case of Oklahoma about 14,850 inmates - are non-violent, many of
them convicted of possession or sale of small quantities of drugs. For
such offenders - and for low-level burglars and embezzlers -
prison can do more harm than good. Many will leave prison more violent
and possessing better criminal skills than when they arrived. And even
those who want to go straight will have a hard time finding a
legitimate job.

Why not treat these offenders differently? The Council of State
Governments reports that halfway houses and non-residential,
community-based supervision programs, including day reporting centers,
community service and other work assignments, are viable alternatives
to incarceration. These alternatives also allow offenders to build
work and social skills needed to avoid future run-ins with the law.

In 2003, Oklahomans also spent $261 million, or about $8,060 per year
to supervise each of 32,400 non-incarcerated convicts. Sure, for every
non-violent inmate shifted from inside prison to non-prison
punishment, taxpayers will pay a little more. But think of it as an
investment. Taxpayers will save a lot more if many of these men and
women pull their lives together while serving non-prison sentences
thereby avoiding added corrections costs in years to come.

Unique among the 50 states, Oklahoma spends more on non-incarcerated
convicts than it does on convicts behind bars. On average, for every
$1 other states spend on non-incarcerated convicts, another $4 is
spent on those behind bars. Officials in Oklahoma are, in effect,
betting that it is wiser to invest in non-incarcerated convicts than
to simply lock them up.

Five years ago, California started sending drug offenders to treatment
programs instead of prison and, based on a recent UCLA study, the
state has saved about $173 million a year and no longer needs to build
a planned new prison. Total savings: $1.4 billion. Maryland is cutting
their prison population and saving money with a similar program.

Overcrowded, violent and disease-filled prisons and jails are here to
stay as long as the number of inmates sent to prison goes up year
after year. As a society, we are quick to needlessly fill prisons with
non-violent inmates and too slow to find alternative ways to punish
and rehabilitate them.

We now need a second commission to finish the job, and publish a
step-by-step road map for ending America's "unprecedented reliance on
incarceration."