WE NEED A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO FIX MISSISSIPPI'S PRISON WOES

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 Mississippi 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 we really need is a road map to drastically shrink

Mississippi's prison population and, at the same time, save state
taxpayers a lot of money.

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?

Mississippi taxpayers shelled out about $144 million in 2003 to hire
6,103 state and local corrections employees to watch over 26,600
inmates. That's about $5,413 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 Mississippi about 13,300 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 that 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, Mississippians also spent $25 million, or about $1,196 per
year to supervise each of 20,900 non-incarcerated convicts. That means
for every non-violent inmate shifted from inside prison to non-prison
punishment, taxpayers could save upwards of $4,217 per year. If all
13,300 non-violent inmates were released to alternative punishments,
the state could potentially save $56 million annually.

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 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."