WHY SOME POLITICIANS NEED THEIR PRISONS TO STAY FULL

The mandatory sentencing fad that swept the United States beginning in the
1970's has had dramatic consequences - most of them bad. The prison
population was driven up tenfold, creating a large and growing felon class
- now 13 million strong - that remains locked out of the mainstream and
prone to recidivism. Trailing behind the legions of felons are children who
grow up visiting their parents behind bars and thinking prison life is
perfectly normal. Meanwhile, the cost of building and running prisons has
pushed many states near bankruptcy - and forced them to choose between
building jails and schools.

Seldom has a public policy done so much damage so quickly. But changes in
the draconian sentencing laws have come very slowly. That is partly because
the public thinks keeping a large chunk of the population behind bars is
responsible for the reduced crime rates of recent years. Studies cast doubt
on that theory, since they show drops in crime almost everywhere - even in
states that did not embrace mandatory minimum sentences or mass
imprisonment. In addition, these damaging policies have done nothing to
curb the drug trade.

Changing prison policy, however, is no longer a simple matter. The business
of building and running the jailhouse has become a mammoth industry with
powerful constituencies that favor the status quo. Prison-based money and
political power have distorted the legislative landscape in ways that will
be difficult to undo.

These problems are on vivid display in New York, which started mass
imprisonment when Gov. Nelson Rockefeller persuaded the Legislature to pass
the toughest drug laws in the nation at the start of an ill-starred "war on
drugs" 30 years ago. The Rockefeller laws introduced the country to
mandatory sentencing policies that barred judges from deciding who goes to
jail and for how long. Instead, the laws required lengthy sentences - 15
years to life - for nonviolent, first-time offenders, many of whom would
have received brief sentences, drug treatment or community service under
previous laws.

Nearly all of the prisoners ended up in upstate New York, where failing
farms and hollowed-out cities offered a lot of room for building.
Politicians in these sparsely populated districts caught on quickly and
began to lobby to have the new prisons located in their communities. As a
result, nearly 30 percent of the people who were counted as moving into
upstate New York during the 1990's were prison inmates.

The influx of inmates has brought desperately needed jobs to the region and
resulted in districts whose economies revolve around prison payrolls and
whose politics are dominated by the union that represents corrections
officers. The inmates also helped to save political careers in areas where
legislative districts were in danger of having to be merged because of
shrinking populations. Inmates, as it turned out, were magically
transformed into "residents," thanks to a quirk in the census rules that
counts them as living at their prisons. Although people sentenced under the
drug laws frequently serve long sentences, many prisoners remain behind
bars only briefly before returning to homes that are often hundreds of
miles away.

Felons are barred from voting in 48 of 50 states - including New York. Yet
in New York, as in the rest of the country, disenfranchised prisoners are
included in the population counts that become the basis for drawing
legislative districts.

An eye-opening analysis by Prison Policy Initiative's Peter Wagner found
seven upstate New York Senate districts that meet minimal population
requirements only because prison inmates are included in the count. New
York is not alone. The group's researchers have found 21 counties
nationally where at least 21 percent of the "residents' were inmates.

The New York Republican Party uses its majority in the State Senate to
maintain political power through fat years and lean. The Senate
Republicans, in turn, rely on their large upstate delegation to keep that
majority. Whether those legislators have consciously made the connection or
not, it's hard to escape the fact that bulging prisons are good for their
districts. The advantages extend beyond jobs and political gerrymandering.
By counting unemployed inmates as residents, the prison counties lower
their per capita incomes - and increase the portion they get of federal
funds for the poor. This results in a transfer of federal cash from places
that can't afford to lose it to places that don't deserve it.

Lately, polls have shown growing support for drug law reform. In November,
prominent New York Republicans ran into trouble when they faced candidates
who made Rockefeller reform an issue. In response, the State Senate
endorsed a plan that cut sentences for drug possession crimes, which was
the easy part. But it stonewalled on the crucial change, which would have
returned to judges the discretion to sentence at least some offenders to
drug treatment instead of prison.

While other political forces support the mandatory sentences - most notably
the powerful local prosecutors - prison rights advocates have recently
begun to argue that prison district politicians are more concerned about
keeping the prisons full than about crime. The idea of counting inmates as
voters in the counties that imprison them is particularly repulsive given
that inmates are nearly always stripped of the right to vote. The practice
recalls the early United States under slavery, when slaves were barred from
voting but counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of apportioning
representation in Congress.