LAWMAKERS SHOULD HEED TOAL'S CALL FOR SENTENCING REFORM

THE BIGGEST WASTE of money in our state -- not to mention human
potential -- is the hundreds of millions of dollars we spend every
year locking people away.

Of course we have to lock up violent offenders. But nearly half the
22,000 inmates in state prisons have never committed a violent
offense. One reason: A quarter of all inmates are there for drug
crimes, 10 percent for traffic offenses, and nearly as many for
fraud. Some of these crimes were violent; others were not.

But whether they're first-time or repeat offenders, people who pose a
serious threat to society or simply people who need to be watched and
punished in some way, we pay for their food and shelter and medical
care and 24-hour-a-day guards, at a cost of $14,000 a year for each
inmate (among the lowest amounts in the nation). This year, that
comes to $306 million -- more than the state spends on anything
except education and Medicaid.

That doesn't count the cost of thousands who sit in county jails, not
convicted of anything but waiting to have their cases heard in our
overburdened courts, or a couple of thousand kids locked up in our
juvenile prisons. And we're spending far less than we need to keep
that many securely locked away; we are just plain lucky that we
haven't had major riots or rampant escapes.

You might argue that this massive expenditure made sense if it made
South Carolina safe. It doesn't.

Locking up criminals does, indeed, keep those individual criminals
from reoffending while they're behind bars -- but it also teaches
them to be better criminals. South Carolina has one of the highest
incarceration rates in a nation that has one of the highest
incarceration rates in the world. Yet our state still has some of the
nation's highest crime rates.

This isn't news to most people, and it can't possibly be news to
legislators. Yet despite all their tough talk about wasteful
government spending, few lawmakers are willing to suggest that we
should lock up only those people who need to be locked up.

That's why we were so happy to hear Chief Justice Jean Toal issue a
clarion call for sentencing reform during her annual State of the
Judiciary address to the General Assembly.

Mrs. Toal didn't lay out specifics, instead calling on lawmakers and
the governor to join her in a "policy summit" to address the matter.
But she pointed to North Carolina's reforms of a decade ago, which
resulted in violent criminals spending more time in prison,
nonviolent offenders serving alternative sentences and total prison
costs decreasing, even as they climb sharply across the nation.

Frankly, this isn't rocket science. It costs a lot of money to care
for someone 24 hours a day. So you only do it when there's no
legitimate alternative. Except for violent offenders, there are
almost always legitimate alternatives, from punitive fines and
electronic monitoring to real community service work and intensive
probation programs. And in most cases, those alternatives would serve
society better than incarceration, even if they weren't less expensive.

We have avoided doing things the smart way for too long. We simply
cannot afford to do so any longer.