BEHIND BARS

Throwaway People

THE FEDERAL Bureau of Justice Statistics has released new data
confirming that America is the foremost stockade in the community of
nations.

America's prison and jail population continued to grow another 2.6
percent between 2001 and 2002, reaching 2.2 million, a record. America
locks up people at a rate five to 10 times higher than most modern
nations.

Federal and state taxpayers shell out $40 billion a year to keep this
huge segment of the population in steel cages.

If all these people were locked up because they were incurably
violent, a danger to their communities, then we would say, well done.
But that is not the case. Much of the increase is fed by mandatory
sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.

In federal prisons, 60 percent of inmates are serving dope terms,
according to the Sentencing Project, a reform group in Washington.
State prisons lock up 13 times as many drug offenders as they did in
1980. Most are not high-level drug traders, and most have no prior
criminal records for violent offenses, the Sentencing Project found.

And as long as 10 percent of black men between ages 25 and 29 are in
cells, compared with only 1.2 percent of white men, something is
horribly wrong.

Jailing people needlessly wrecks the lives of fathers and mothers and
sons and daughters. People who could have been helped by mental care
or other treatment do not belong in cells. People who turned to crime
because of poverty or hopelessness might be saved from such a life.
Children who have a parent in jail are more likely to go to jail
themselves, the Child Welfare League reports.

But there's also a practical reason to address this problem: It costs
state and federal governments about $20,000 a year to keep each person
locked up. The United States needs citizens out where they can work
and contribute to society, not drain it.