WAKE-UP CALL NEEDED ON STATE PRISON SITUATION

Jim Campbell's lullaby was so sweet (Sunday, 4/2/05): Oklahoma's "Prison
Growth Rate Showing." Wake up! We are #3! At this rate, we'll pass Arkansas
and Texas, and be #1 in the world. We already lead the world in the rate we
lock up women. If the incarceration rate is society's failure rate, we need
a wake up call, or do we feel safer when we have more folk in prison.
Eventually, most of them will be released, and be back on our streets with
few, if any, restrictions. Sure hope that prison life turns them into
better citizens.

Campbell also said our prison budget will go up: in "2005 ... by $488,867."
(To cover an extra 702 inmates). That's $696.39 per new inmate per year.
The (DOC) published daily cost per inmate is $47.50 or $17,337 per year,
or, for those 702 new fellows, $12,170,925. Is this guy a reporter?

Disregarding the numbers, the bottom line is Oklahomans like these numbers.
If we didn't, we'd ask our representatives to change them. We haven't.
Being "soft on crime" is every legislator's nightmare. More money for
prisons, sure! Just raise taxes! Or, since that would upset us, they'll
hire private corporations at an even higher cost. Prisons make great
industries: they're real pretty.

When we wake up to these accelerating costs, we'll stumble onto Campbell's
other little reminder: we are supposed to build new, bigger county jails to
house parole violators. Then the state (that's us) will pay the counties
(that's us) half that daily cost to house prison inmates. Aren't we smart?
We'll pay ourselves half what it really costs to house inmates. Yep, we
need a bigger jail. Or should our legislators seek better, cheaper ways to
house criminals! They won't until we demand it.

William B. Maxwell

Enid