PRISON SPENDING OUTPACES EDUCATION

There were no surprises. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
announced that in 2001 the United States spent a record $167 billion
on law enforcement and criminal justice.

The growth was no surprise because every year the United States locks
up more people, setting a new record for high incarceration since the
previous year. The United States now holds 2.1 million people in
prison and jail. All that incarceration cost money, and it all comes
from someplace else.

Some money comes from hospitals. The new data reveal that law
enforcement expenditures have risen to match health care at 7 percent
of state budgets. In 1995, states spent 9.7 percent of their budgets
on health care, so spending on health care has been declining even as
the population has been aging. Since 1977, correction expenditures
have increased more than twice as fast as spending on health care.

Other money comes from higher education. Research by the Justice
Policy Institute reveals that California built 21 prisons and just one
state university between 1984 and 1994. Nationwide, between 1985 and
2000, state spending on correction grew by 166 percent compared to a
24 percent increase in higher education.

States have tried to increase university revenues by doubling tuitions
and fees, but the gap is too large. If budgets are a mathematical
statement of priorities, then prisons are ahead of health and education.

These expenditures do not correlate with increased safety.
California's prison population increased by 32,000 people between the
passage of its three-strikes law in 1994 and 2002.

New York's prison population increased by just 315 individuals over
the same period. However, New York's violent crime rate dropped by 20
percent more than California's during that time. Nationally, states
with higher increases in incarceration had lower drops in crime in the
1990s.

A careful look at who goes to prison indicates why increased
incarceration does not correlate with public safety. The vast majority
of new prison admissions during the 1980s and 1990s were people
convicted of non-violent crimes. Two thirds of people imprisoned under
California's three-strikes committed nonviolent offences, at annual
costs of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Research by the Open Society Institute in New York City identified
single blocks where more than $1 million is spent every year to lock
up residents. Over half of these individuals are incarcerated for
nonviolent drug crimes. They return after an average of less than
three years, alienated and untrained, to the same unchanged block.

Some states are exploring alternative uses for their money. In the
past three years, more than half of the states have passed legislation
or taken administrative action to control ballooning prison
populations.

Michigan, Texas, Ohio and others are closing prisons, repealing
mandatory minimum sentences and increasing the use of parole. Voters
in Arizona and California passed ballot initiatives diverting people
convicted of drug crimes from incarceration into treatment.
Connecticut just passed legislation that redirect funds out of the
prison system and into troubled urban communities.

This is the kind of investment that will keep our neighborhoods safe,
our nation strong, and our schools on top of the curve. A million
dollars every year would go a long way toward solving the problems of
those blocks in New York City, and similar blocks throughout America.

Eric Lotke is research and policy director of the Justice Policy
Institute.

Knight Ridder Newspapers