OUR LOCK 'EM UP PATHOLOGY

America recently convened its first national prison commission in 30
years.

Sadly, it failed to tackle head-on our lock 'em up culture and to find
ways to reduce the number of people behind bars in Texas and elsewhere.

The commission's report is little more than a how-to manual to help
wardens cope with overcrowded prisons that breed violence, disease and
recidivism.

What we really need is a road map to drastically shrink Texas' prison
population and, at the same time, save state taxpayers a lot of money.

A report by 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.

It does not, however, 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?

Texas taxpayers shelled out nearly $2.2 billion in 2003 to hire 72,220
state and local corrections employees to watch over 213,800 inmates.
That's about $10,289 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 Texas about 106,900 inmates - are nonviolent, 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.

Even those who want to go straight will have hard times finding
legitimate jobs.

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, Texans spent $301 million, or about $574 per year to
supervise each of 524,200 non-incarcerated convicts.

Five years ago California started sending drug offenders to treatment
programs instead of prison. 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 its 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."

Ronald Fraser, Ph.D., writes on public policy issues for the DKT
Liberty Project, a Washington-based civil liberties organization.