PRISON CROWDING MAGNIFIES DISPARITY OF MINORITY INMATES

Jails and prisons in some counties are full to the bursting point, and I
read recently that among the fullest are jails in Polk County. Given the
increased number of inmates in Polk jails, it appears that it is difficult
for some citizens to escape the police and criminal dragnet over members of
minority groups.

Given the increased number of inmates incarcerated in penal institutions in
Polk and other places in Florida, there is a dire need for citizens and
public officials to understand specific incarceration patterns and
practices. All citizens in Polk should be cognizant of racial disparities
in incarceration rates. More specifically, according to the Human Rights
Watch Organization, there exists a continuing, extraordinary magnitude of
minority incarceration and a stark disparity in their rates of
incarceration compared to those of whites who commit the same crimes.

To be sure, all citizens should be concerned when 63 percent of the nearly
2 million inmates in penal institutions are black or Latino, though these
two groups constitute only 25 percent of the national population.

Justice should be colorblind. Indeed, racial inequalities in the
criminal-justice system will gradually erode our democratic principles and
negate 50 years of hard-fought civil rights progress. Before we build more
prison beds in Polk, we should debate current criminal- justice policies
and practices, and subsequently consider the advantages of alternatives to
incarceration.

We need to reassess the fairness and wisdom of overreliance on punitive
crime control, which has disproportionately burdened the minority
communities from which so large a proportion of the incarcerated are drawn.

In Florida, about one out of every 37 blacks is living in a prison, jail or
detention facility. Blacks make up 48 percent of all Florida inmates -- far
exceeding their 15.5 percent of the state's population. Loic Wacquant
concluded that the huge disparity between whites and blacks reflects the
fundamentally discriminatory nature of police, court and prison practice.
The proof is that blacks account for 13 percent of drug users, but
one-third of those arrested and three quarters of those imprisoned for drug
offenses.

Charles M. Streeter

Winter Haven