LOVING THOSE STATE PRISONS

Ronald Fraser Here is how prison policies made
in Oklahoma City and Washington take on a life of their own. Once
prison operators, prison employees and community tax collectors
learned they could profit from harsh, lock-'em-up drug control laws, a
powerful political force was born to keep prisons full. Inmate
overload. During the 1980s and 1990s, tough-on-crime policies,
especially drug control laws, overfilled America's prisons. State and
federal prisons held only 315,974 inmates in 1980. By 2000, that
number had skyrocketed to 1,321,137. When inmates in city and county
jails are added, America's total prison population topped 2 million in
2002.

Prisons, however, are not reserved for violent offenders. In 2002, for
example, 1,235,700 simple drug-possession arrests were made in the
United States -- about half of them for possession of marijuana. While
not all of those arrested end up behind bars, the rush to lock up
nonviolent offenders was, in large part, responsible for setting off
America's prison-building boom.

Prison boom. A new study by Sarah Lawrence and Jeremy Travis at the Urban
Institute's Justice Policy Center in Washington tracks how prisons became a
growth industry in America. In "The New Landscape of Imprisonment: Mapping
America's Prison Expansion," they found nationally that "during the last
quarter of the 20th century, state prison systems grew from 592 prisons to
1,023 prisons -- an increase of 73 percent."

In 1979, 20 state correctional facilities, including prisons, operated
in Oklahoma. By 2000, that number grew to 52, with 14 being privately
run. Seven facilities in Oklahoma County and two in Cleveland County
are located near the capital city. Two more are in each of Tulsa,
Hughes, Atoka, Pittsburg, Muskogee, Kay and Greer counties.

Aboard the gravy train. The U.S. Census counts prisoners where they
are incarcerated, and federal and state agencies distribute funds
based on this census data. The more prisoners counted in a town or
county, the bigger will be its share of tax-funded goodies from
Washington and Oklahoma City. This gravy train includes a slice of
$200 billion a year in formula grants from Washington to all state and
local governments for Medicaid, foster care, adoption assistance and
169 other programs. In addition, the same data are used to allocate
state funds for community health services, road construction, law
enforcement and public libraries.

Regular paychecks roll in for 4,983 prison employees in Oklahoma. And
don't forget the incomes of employees of private firms that directly
sell food, fuel, clothing and furniture to prisons. No wonder Oklahoma
towns become addicted to this prison economy.

Prison politics. Spreading prisons across Oklahoma can actually
perpetuate a large prison population. As more towns become
economically dependent on state prisons holding more than 22,429
inmates in 2002, the greater is the likelihood grass-roots support
will grow for politicians who favor putting nonviolent people behind
bars. After all, it's in the self-interest of these towns to keep
their prisons full and their local economies booming.

When prisons boom, everyone wins except the nonviolent inmates and the
taxpayers. Politicians in Oklahoma City can show how tough they are on
crime. Private prison operators and their investors make money. Prison
guards pay off their mortgage and support local businesses. Even the
tax collector gets his cut.

Now that the jailhouse economy is going strong, the political reforms
needed to abandon this old drug war mentality will be much harder, if
not impossible, to get through the Legislature in Oklahoma City and
Congress in Washington.

Chances are taxpayers are stuck with the cost of keeping 2 million men
and women behind bars well into the future -- not because justice
demands it, but because the economic benefits of the prison business
are working to keep it that way.

Fraser writes on public policy issues for the DKT Liberty Project, a
Washington-based civil liberties organization.