THE 'EDIFICE COMPLEX'

Push to Build More Jail Cells Indicative of Larger Problem

I remember as if it was yesterday, all the arguments claiming how
desperately we needed an expansion of the Clark County Detention
Center. Recall that Clark County voters approved a bond issue a few
years ago, after being told by local authorities that they were
running out of space at the present jail. I recall hearing the dire
warnings, as the man with the deep voice (part of the big ad firm, R &
R Advertising) told us that there were too many dangerous criminals on
the loose in Las Vegas.

The "obvious" solution was too simply build another 500-bed
facility.

(The existing facility was built around 20 years ago or so for the
exact same purpose -- to relieve overcrowding at the old facility --
which was built to relieve overcrowding at the previous facility. And
guess why that was built?)

The brand new extension was opened in the fall of 2002 and now it is
. are you ready for this shocker? ... overcrowded. So says a recent
story in the Review-Journal ("Overcrowding is overstated at county
jail," May 28). Actually the story line was about a recent report from
the Department of Justice, stating that the detention center was the
most overcrowded among the 50 largest jails, but that whoever filled
out the questionnaire sent to the Justice Department forgot to mention
the additional bed space. Unfortunately, the real story is the mere
fact that despite all the hoopla surrounding the bond issues a few
years ago, adding more beds did not relieve overcrowding.

Actually, this is not news to me or anyone who has bothered to study
the history of prisons and jails. It is part of what I have called the
"field of dreams syndrome" -- if you build it, they will come -- and
its counterpart, the "edifice complex," the tendency to think that we
can solve complex human problems by building "edifices" -- large
buildings like courthouses, police stations, prisons, jails, mental
institutions, "assisted living" for those elderly one step away from
the grave, etc.

We love these edifices. Well, at least politicians do. After all, when
they come up for re-election or long after they retire, they can
always point to some edifice to indicate their accomplishments while
in office. It doesn't matter that the problems these edifices were
suppose to solve never went away (they usually get no better, and
often get worse).

As of May 27, there were a total of 2,876 prisoners housed in the
detention center, which translated to 101 percent capacity.
Additionally, there were 145 housed at the Las Vegas Detention Center
and another 29 prisoners in "rented beds" at the North Las Vegas
Detention Center. That comes to 3,050 prisoners. It is not as if the
jail is filled with "dangerous" offenders, for the vast majority are
rather petty offenders charged with petty crimes.

For instance, three years ago I reviewed the charges against prisoners
housed at the main detention center (before the new annex was built)
and I found that those charged with crimes against the person
constituted only 7 percent of all cases. These included those charged
with simple assault (no one seriously injured, no weapons used, etc.)
and these constituted about 60 percent of the all the "violent"
crimes. Only 3 percent of all of those detained were charged with
murder, rape and robbery.

I doubt very seriously if the citizens of Clark County feel any safer
than they did before the new jail annex was added. Yet we are now
collectively in debt to the tune of more than $100 million for the new
beds, plus we are still paying for the old jail (this does not include
yearly operating costs of several million). Not a very good bargain, I
would conclude.

When the bond issue that made possible this new jail annex was passed
back in 1996, I wrote a commentary for the Review-Journal ("The bond
passed ---so what now?," Sept. 29, 1996). I have commented on this
issue on many occasions in both major newspapers, plus alternative
weeklies such as the Mercury and City Life. Some of my predictions
have come true and some have not. I am not alone in my assessments and
conclusions, for there are experts all over the world who concur with
what I have said. And what I have said was perhaps best summarized in
that article I wrote in September of 1996. I will end this essay by
reproducing what I said back then, which was, with a couple of minor
changes, as follows:

We have reached the time where our crime-control policies have run
into a brick wall. There is nowhere for us to go, or so we are led to
believe. We have constructed more prisons and more jails than any
other nation in the history of the world. And we have also
incarcerated more offenders than any nation in the world; we have
executed more offenders than anyone else in the world; we have passed
more laws than anyone else in the world, and with the harshest
sentences. Yet crime continues and our fear of crime is higher than
ever.

Such policies may tell us more about ourselves than anything else.
Have we become just as wicked as the offenders we fear the most? Have
we become so desperate that we will think nothing of giving into our
most horrible instincts? Have we given up asking, "Why?" Why do we
have so much crime? Why are so many of our young people using
dangerous substances and why are so many of them killing themselves
and each other? And why are growing numbers of these young people
feeling little hope, with many believing they will not live past the
age of 25?

Do we fail to seriously ask such questions because if we search where
we need to search for the answers we may find something is terribly
wrong with us, with our most basic institutions, our values and our
way of life? Do we therefore try to isolate those who break our laws,
to place them "out of sight and out of mind"?

Our problems here in Clark County are not much different than
elsewhere. Politicians and those in charge of the criminal justice
system might be compared to an army in the old West that is holed up
in a fort awaiting another Indian attack. Its soldiers sit passively
waiting for reinforcements -- more men to man the barricades, more
ammunition, more supplies and a stronger fort -- or better yet,
another, even larger fort. It is as if those in charge have simply
given up and are waiting for the next onslaught of crime to come.

Preliminary FBI figures tell us that the crime rate in America is
starting to increase a bit and that, moreover, crime rates in Las
Vegas are greater than the national average. People are just as
fearful today as they were back in 1996. I have little doubt that in a
few years local law enforcement officials and politicians will claim
that we need another "edifice" and history will repeat itself.