VIRGINIA NEEDS ALTERNATIVES TO LOCK-'EM-UP, TOSS-THE-KEY APPROACH

A Fix For Virgina's Prison Woes

WASHINGTON--Sadly, America's first blue-rib-bon prison panel in 30
years failed to tackle, head-on, the root causes of our lock-'em-up
culture and to find ways to reduce the number of people behind bars in
Virginia and elsewhere.

Formed last year, the privately sponsored Commission on Safety and
Abuse in America's Prisons brought together 20 civic leaders,
scholars, prison officials, and a former prisoner.

Based on many public hearings, interviews and research, the panel's
recent report, "Confronting Confinement," is a how-to manual to help
wardens cope with overcrowded prisons that breed violence, disease,
and recidivism.

What is really needed, however, is a road map to drastically shrink
Virginia's prison population--and, at the same time, save state
taxpayers a lot of money.

The commission frankly admits, "It was beyond the scope of our inquiry
to explore how states and the federal government might sensibly reduce
prisoner populations," but then added, "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."

While the study rightly pins responsibility for our overcrowded
prisons on tough-on-crime laws passed by state and federal
legislators, 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 nonviolent criminals at a fraction of the cost?

Virginians are not immune to these concerns. Virginia taxpayers
shelled out about $696 million in 2003 to hire 21,284 state and local
corrections employees to watch over 56,000 inmates. That's about
$12,430 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 Virginia, about 28,000 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. And even
those who 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 nonresidential,
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, Virginians also spent $272 million, or about $5,850 per year
to supervise each of 46,500 nonincarcerated convicts. That means for
every nonviolent inmate shifted from inside prison to nonprison
punishment, taxpayers could save upwards of $6,580 per year. If all
28,000 nonviolent inmates were released to alternative punishments,
the state could potentially save $184 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 their 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
nonviolent 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 writes on public policy issues for the DKT Liberty
Project.