MIDWEEK PERSPECTIVE: FIXING THE PRISONS

Pennsylvania And Other States Incarcerate Too Many Low-Level Offenders

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 Pennsylvania 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
Pennsylvania'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,
which 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?

The good news: Pennsylvania is one of 13 states headed in the right
direction. From 2003 to 2004, the number of state inmates dropped by
198.

The bad news: Pennsylvania taxpayers still shelled out about $1.1
billion in 2003 to hire 29,301 state and local corrections employees
to watch over 75,600 inmates. That's about $14,550 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 Pennsylvania about 37,800 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, Pennsylvanians also spent $77 million, or about $321 per year
to supervise each of 239,500 nonincarcerated convicts. That means for
every nonviolent inmate shifted from inside prison to nonprison
punishment, taxpayers could save upward of $14,229 per year. If all
37,800 nonviolent inmates were released to alternative punishments,
the state could potentially save $537 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
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, Ph.D., writes on public policy issues for the DKT
Liberty Project, a Washington-based civil liberties organization
(fraserr@erols.com).