AMERICA, LAND OF PRISONS

No doubt there is a connection between America's falling crime rates and its
soaring prison populations. It's the nature of that connection that demands
scrutiny. Many think the former was purchased with the latter. Lock up more
criminals for longer periods and it is inevitable the streets will become
safer. And they have.

This is a trade-off most Americans have been willing to make. It's
expensive, but locking up felons is a government activity that taxpayers
always seem willing to fund.

Still, the latest incarceration summary from the Justice Department ought to
give pause to everyone who cherishes this land of the free. It reports that,
as of last June, there were 1.8 million Americans behind bars, or 4.4
percent more than the previous year. If present trends continue, the U.S.
rate of incarceration will surpass Russia's in two or three years, making
this nation the world's busiest jailer.

Oddly enough, last year's increase marked a slowing. The prison population
had been rising at a 7.3 percent annual clip from 1985 to 1998, during which
time our rate of incarceration (inmates per 100,000 population) more than
doubled, to 668. Since 1972, when the prison-building boom began, the number
of inmates held in federal, state and local jails has increased sixfold.

There is considerable evidence, however, that the imprisonment binge does
not explain falling crime rates. For one thing, the growth in the jail
population has been attributable almost exclusively to tougher charges and
longer sentences, not more arrests by police. Most crime still goes
unpunished, but those who are caught are being convicted more often of more
serious offenses carrying longer prison terms.

It can be argued that this is having a deterrent effect on would-be
criminals, and, therefore, depressing the crime rate. Perhaps. But it also
can be argued that jailing almost 2 million people is, in the long run,
neither a cost-effective nor a humane method of maintaining domestic
tranquility. Not when it costs around $30,000 a year to keep someone in a
typical prison. And not when our prisons are as likely to harden criminals
as rehabilitate them.

Violent incorrigibles belong in prison, no question. Yet the fastest-growing
segment of the prison population is non-violent drug offenders. These young
people are more apt to gain bad habits in jail than to shed them.

Education, job opportunities, drug treatment--these are the long-term
solutions to crime. More prisons are not the answer. We have enough.