SYSTEM SHOULD TURN FOCUS TO RESTITUTION

After two decades of being "tough on crime" by "locking them up and
throwing away the key" -- to recall two of the effective political
slogans of the past -- the bill has come due. Many states have become
incapable or unwilling to pay the cost of housing record numbers of
inmates. Twenty-five states have already passed laws easing or
eliminating the minimum sentencing requirements that were politically
popular in the 1980s and '90s. They are also considering early parole
for nonviolent, non-dangerous offenders to ease overcrowding and the
cost of warehousing so many convicts. Joseph Lehman, secretary of the
state of Washington Department of Corrections, told The New York Times
that the people behind liberalizing the tough laws "are not all
advocates of a liberal philosophy." Indeed, they are not. I am one of
them.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the U.S. prison
and jail population exceeded 2 million for the first time in June
2002. By the end of last year, 33,000 more inmates had been added to
the total. That means one out of every 142 residents is incarcerated
in this country. The average cost to states per inmate per day is
$57.92, according to the 2000 Corrections Yearbook. In Georgia, where
about 35,000 citizens are behind bars, it costs taxpayers more than
$20,000 per year per inmate and each jail cell costs $60,000 to build.

What are taxpayers getting for their money? They get a false sense of
security, as if putting current criminals behind bars ensures there
won't be future criminals. If locking up everyone now committing
crimes would eliminate crime, I'd be all for it, but new criminals are
born, or made, every day. Something is wrong with the system.

Violent and dangerous offenders should be locked up and, in capital
cases, executed. But violent offenders are just 49 percent of the
prison population. Again, according to BJS, the rest of the prisoners
are behind bars for property crimes (19 percent), drug crimes (20
percent) and crimes affecting the "public order" (11 percent). This
half of the prison population ought to be doing something else besides
sitting in prison and costing the law-abiding money.

We do retribution well. We should be focusing on restitution.

If I steal your TV set, putting me in prison won't get it back. Making
me pay a fine to the government (whose TV set was not stolen) won't
restore your set, unless you have a very low deductible on your home
owner's insurance, which will undoubtedly go up if you file a claim.
It would be better if the law required me to work to earn the money to
buy you a new TV set and to pay you, not the government, a fine for
your inconvenience and trouble. I should also be forced to pay court
costs.

Such an approach would have a number of benefits. First, you would get
your TV back. The victim should always be the law's primary concern.
Second, forcing me to acknowledge that I have wronged a person and not
the state (which is a non-person) can help change my view of other
people's property. Third, it would save taxpayers the cost of
incarcerating me. And, fourth, making me pay the person I have wronged
is a far better and more proven method for changing my life and
behavior than putting me in prison where statistics show I am more
likely to become a better criminal than a better citizen.

If the objective of criminal laws is to reduce crime, the laws on the
books are clearly not achieving it. The corporate monsters who rob
stockholders and employees of their jobs and careers shouldn't go to
jail. They should be forced to work to pay off as much as they can to
those they have wronged. That is redemptive for them, and it is
restorative to the victims who lost their retirement and their
paychecks to greed.

Republicans, who were behind many of these "tough on crime" laws, have an
opportunity to fight crime in ways that will actually work and save the
taxpayers lots of money. That is supposed to be the Republican way. It is
certainly the only way that will succeed.