LOCK 'EM UP

West Virginia Upsurge

ASK yourself: Did West Virginians abruptly become more criminal in the past
decade? Of course not. Mountain State people always have had a low crime
rate, indicating innate decency.

Then why did the number of West Virginians locked in state cells more than
double, from 2,392 to 5,032? Why did the state's incarceration growth rate
hit 9.3 percent in 2001, the highest in America?

Why did West Virginia spend more than $100 million on new prisons in the
past decade? Why did the Corrections Division budget soar 140 percent from
1992 to 2002, in inflation-adjusted dollars, while higher education
spending rose only 23 percent?

All these figures -- from a new report by the state Council of Churches and
other humanitarian groups -- imply that the "lock 'em up" mentality has
risen sharply in West Virginia in recent years.

Worsening spread of illegal drugs undoubtedly is a factor in the prison
boom. But something more -- a hardening of the punitive mindset -- probably
is causing the state to pour millions of taxpayer dollars into steel cages.

We've always advocated more probation, more work-release, more home
confinement -- alternative sentences that let defendants work as
self-supporting people, instead of being locked in crime-breeding
stockades, at enormous public cost.

The new church report confirms the wisdom of that approach.