DOES MORE PRISON TIME MEAN LESS CRIME?

WASHINGTON March 26 (States) -- On a cold December night in 1994,
gang members gunned down 18-year-old Maximino "Mino" Galindo in an
alley in east Pueblo, a city torn by gang violence.

Galindo's slaying was the fifth gang-related murder that year. "I
really wish all this gang violence would stop, but I think it would
take a miracle," the boy's mother said at the time. Five years after
Galindo's death, gangs are still active on the streets of Pueblo, but
something like a miracle seems to have taken place.

Last year, there were no gang-related murders.

Even more striking has been the drop in total crime in this city of
100,000: Since the start of 1995, Pueblo's total crime rate has been
cut in half, down 52 percent through the end of last year, according
to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports. In 1998, there were five murders
in Pueblo and Pueblo County, down from 10 in 1995. There were 37
forcible rapes, down from 49.

Robberies plunged from 184 to 77. Aggravated assaults dropped from 1,720 to
460. And 173 vehicles were stolen, down from 551 in 1995. Similar drops
have taken place in
cities nationwide.

"It makes me feel like our community is safer than
it was before," Pueblo Police Chief Jim Billings said. Pueblo's
streets are safer, and the handiest explanation for the change -- and
the one usually cited by tough-on-crime politicians -- is stiffer
prison sentences.

Since the legislature doubled the maximum sentences
judges could give violent offenders in 1985, the state's prison
population has grown almost 400 percent. In June 1998, the latest
date for which statistics are available, one in every 285 Coloradans
was behind bars, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Pueblo Police report that several well-known gang-leaders from the
early 1990s are now locked up. With fewer criminals walking free, is
it any wonder that the streets are safer?

The explanation for the drop in crime is nowhere near that simple, two
Colorado
criminologists said, and the tougher sentencing laws beloved of
politicians are just a tiny part of a big picture.

"There are many factors that are having an effect here," said Kevin Reitz, a
criminologist at the University of Colorado Law School. "Certainly the
growth in the prison population and tougher sentencing is one of
them. But experts would also point to several other important
factors." The number of men aged 15 to 30 -- the group most likely
to break the law -- has shrunk as that generation aged.

The often violent "crack" cocaine market has receded as that drug's dangers
have become better publicized. There are more police on the streets,
and efforts to encourage ordinary citizens to participate in crime-
fighting have paid off. Pueblo's Police Chief touted his own
"community policing" effort as a big contributor to the city's
increased safety. Cops are now responsible for certain neighborhoods,
so they can pursue beat-specific solutions to chronic problems.

The number of neighborhood watch groups has grown from 40 to 80.
Officers now patrol high schools, and the police department is trying
to reach out to the community through "Beyond the Badge," a weekly
crime prevention talk-show on KPPC radio.

"There has been an overall change in philosophy, where the police no longer
think that crime
prevention is solely the responsibility of the police department,"
Billings said. "Now it has changed to the recognition that there
needs to be a partnership where we work hand-in-hand with the
community." The single biggest factor in determining the crime rate
in American cities is not community policing or sentencing laws but
the health of the local economy, University of Southern Colorado
criminologist Bob Keller said.

High-paying jobs keep people off the street and minimize the economic
disparities that are the engine of
most violent crime, he said. Keller downplayed the significance of
tougher prison sentences, pointing out that the prison population started
growing in 1972 with no commensurate drop in the crime rate
until the mid 1990s. He said politicians are squandering tax revenues
by building new prisons to fight crime, when investments in education
and efforts to attract better-paying jobs to the state would have a
bigger long-term impact on public safety.

"I don't understand why legislators cannot get that through their heads,"
Keller said. "It
won't be long before there are two classes of people in this country:
Those who are in prison and those who are guarding them."

By Charles Davant