AMERICA'S PRISON HABIT

After 25 years of explosive growth in the U.S. prison system, is this
country finally ending its love affair with incarceration? Perhaps, but as
in any abusive relationship, breaking up will be hard to do.

Since 1980 the U.S. prison and jail population has quadrupled in size
to more than 2 million.

In the process, prisons have embedded themselves into the nation's
economic and social fabric.

A powerful lobby has grown up around the prison system that will fight
hard to protect the status quo. There are some positive signs, as set
forth in Vincent Schiraldi's Nov. 30 article in the Outlook section.

Fiscal pressures may indeed slow the growth of the vast U.S. prison
system.

But reversing the trend of the past quarter-century is another matter.

Major companies such as Wackenhut Corrections Corp. and Corrections
Corp. of America employ sophisticated lobbyists to protect and expand
their market share.

The law enforcement technology industry, which produces high-tech
items such as the latest stab-proof vests, helmets, stun guns,
shields, batons and chemical agents, does more than a billion dollars
a year in business.

With 2.2 million people engaged in catching criminals and putting and
keeping them behind bars, "corrections" has become one of the largest
sectors of the U.S. economy, employing more people than the combined
workforces of General Motors, Ford and Wal-Mart, the three biggest
corporate employers in the country.

Correctional officers have developed powerful labor unions.

And most politicians, whether at the local, state or national level,
remain acutely aware that allowing themselves to be portrayed as "soft
on crime" is the quickest route to electoral defeat.

In the past two decades, hundreds of "prison towns" have multiplied --
places that are dependent on prisons for their economic vitality.

Take Fremont County, Colo., where the No. 1 employer is the Colorado
Department of Corrections, with nine prisons, and No. 2 is the Federal
Bureau of Prisons with four. Towns that once might have hesitated
about bringing a prison to town now rush to put together incentive
packages.

Abilene, Tex., offered the state incentives worth more than $4 million
to get a prison. The package included a 316-acre site and 1,100 acres
of farmland adjacent to the facility.

Buckeye, 35 miles west of Phoenix, was a sleepy little desert outpost
with a population of about 5,000 until it competed successfully for a
major state prison.

After that the state upgraded the road leading to the town and the
population began to explode.

A new movie theater and a $2.5 million swimming complex
opened.

Because Buckeye was sitting on ample supplies of water, it suddenly
became prime real estate.

Mayor Dusty Hull reckons the town will reach 35,000 in five
years.

According to the Department of Agriculture's Economic Research
Service, 245 prisons sprouted in 212 rural counties during the 1990s.
In West Texas, where oil and farming both collapsed, 11 rural counties
acquired prisons in that decade.

The Mississippi Delta, one of the poorest regions in the country, got
seven new prisons.

Appalachian counties of Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky built
nine, partially replacing the collapsing coal-mining industry.

If the prisons closed, these communities would quickly collapse
again.

When states try to cut prison budgets, they quickly come up against
powerful interests.

In Mississippi in 2001, Gov. Ronnie Musgrove vetoed the state's
corrections budget so he could spend more money on schools.

The legislature, lobbied by Wackenhut, overrode the veto.

In fiscally distressed California, about 6 percent of the state budget
goes to corrections. Yet no senior politician, including Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, has dared challenge the power of the 31,000-member
California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which pours a
third of the $22 million it collects each year in membership dues into
political action committees.

Even efforts by some states to speed up the release of nonviolent
offenders are unlikely to reduce the total prison population by much.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics has found that two-thirds of those
released from prison on parole are re-arrested within three years.

Released prisoners face institutional barriers that make it difficult
for them to find a place in society. Welfare reform legislation in
1996 banned anyone convicted of buying or selling drugs from receiving
cash assistance or food stamps for life. Legislation in 1996 and 1998
also excluded ex-felons and their families from federal housing.

Most inmates leave prison with no money and few prospects.

They may get $25 and a bus ticket home if they are lucky.

Studies have found that within a year of release, 60 percent of
ex-inmates remain unemployed. Several states have barred parolees from
working in various professions, including real estate, medicine,
nursing, engineering, education and dentistry.

The Higher Education Act of 1998 bars people convicted of drug
offenses from receiving student loans.

Prisoners are told to reform but they are given few tools to do so.
Once they are entangled in the prison system, many belong to it for
life. They may spend stretches of time inside prison and periods
outside but they are never truly free.

Last year Robert Presley, secretary of California's correctional
agency, noted that after several years of decline, crime rates were
rising again and his state's prison population had resumed its growth.

Maximum-security inmates made up the fastest-growing segment.

Despite the building boom of the previous 20 years, prisons were at an
average of 191 percent of capacity. This hardly sounds like a recipe
for a falling prison population.