CRIME STILL DROPPING

Despite Florida's $66 Million Expansion Of Prisons, Crime's Down
Nationwide

Crime rates in America, which for demographic, economic and other
reasons were supposed to either level off or bounce back up in 2002,
have surprised the sociologists making the predictions.

The fact is, they are down again, according to an Associated Press
account of a Justice Department report. They haven't been this low
since the keeping of national records on property and violent crimes
began in 1973, and here is the further news that ought to bring cheer:
The decline over the past 10 years has been 50 percent.

The reason? Experts differ, but what seems clear in the welter of
speculation and counters speculation is that law enforcement has
improved in both prevention and the capture of lawbreakers, and that
sending record numbers of people to prison for lengthy sentences has
been effective. After all, if you are behind bars, you are not on the
street committing dozens of crimes a year.

That must be the philosophy driving Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and the
Legislature, because they recently appropriated $66 million to build
more prison cells instead of spending it on schools, where young
people could learn to get jobs that would keep them out of trouble
with the law, and on the rolls as good-citizen voters and taxpayers.

It's hardly a matter that warms the heart that so many Americans --
mostly young men -- have been imprisoned, and there should be
continued efforts to find substitute means of dealing with the least
dangerous lawbreakers and of keeping them from breaking the law in the
first place. An extra incentive in this cause is money. Prisons are
expensive, and many states now have near-hopeless budgets. The
exception, apparently, is here in Florida where budgetary problems can
be ignored when hard-line campaigning is needed.

If crime rates do not head up again, prison populations eventually
will decline.

In the meantime, the fact that Americans responded to a rise in crime
with efforts that have been beating it back should give us confidence
in our capacity to deal with social issues, especially when published
reports tell us that many European nations have been experiencing a
crime increase during the same period crime here has been declining.