Why was George Mitchell invited to flamboyantly attack the motives of
400 men and women who were about to convene outside Madison to examine
the human cost of current spending policies for education and prisons
(Crossroads, Feb. 14)?

The Task Force on Money, Education and Prisons Conference on Restoring
the Balance convened to search for rational justice policies in a time
of irrational spending on incarceration. The menacing powers of the
prison industrial complex grow awesome on the fallow farmland of
virtually every state.

The prison industry's lucrative tentacles embrace architects,
builders, vendors, consultants, policy makers, rural towns and urban
corrections. Prison operations are now measured in billions, not
millions, of dollars.

Still, no one holds prisons accountable for a failure rate over 60%,
based on recidivism. No one holds private profiteers accountable for
dollars spent on salaries or rehabilitative services relative to
dollars banked for profit.

There are safe, effective and affordable alternatives that draw on
community resources to resolve problems in the community, instead of
waiting for offenders to return from prison less able to conform than
when they left. The Benedict Center Women's Program and Milwaukee's
new Community Justice Center for Day Reporting are two examples of
working alternatives.

Community programs for non-violent offenders are typically 60% to 75%
less expensive than prisons, which consume $20,000 to $30,000 annually
for every inmate. Community alternatives forgo multimillion-dollar
construction costs and hire providers and vendors who work in the
community and who understand its problems.

Dollars saved on prisons are dollars available for smaller classrooms,
special education and innovative teaching that will do more to deter
high-risk children from lives of crime than all the prisons on earth
today.

Mitchell blows a golden horn. But those who gathered for the
conference scratched the surface of that golden horn, and the gilt
fell away, exposing the crude metal beneath.

Kit Murphy McNally Executive director The Benedict Center Milwaukee