TOO MANY PRISONERS?

Maybe the recent story in The Economist will be the prod that causes some
long, hard introspection in America regarding its prison system. The land
of liberty is a cruel joke for a too-large percentage of the U.S. citizenry.

Consider some statistics: For almost 50 years, from 1925 to 1973, an
average of 110 Americans for every 100,000 were in federal and state
prisons. By 2000, the incarceration rate had risen to 478 per 100,000. Add
in the local jail population, and almost 700 of every 100,000 Americans is
behind bars.

Some sociologists have done some broad calculations that indicate that as
many as 13 million U.S. citizens, about 7 percent of the adult population
and 12 percent of the adult males, have been convicted of a felony. While
not all are behind bars, the felony conviction is a deal breaker in many
job applications. And the numbers are far worse for black males.

Drug offenses and the efforts of the war on drugs are a major contributor
to the increases in incarceration. In 1980, 15 of every 100,000 Americans
were in jail on a drug conviction. In 1986, the number was 148.

A recently released U.S. Justice Department report noted that there were
5.3 million adults either incarcerated or under the supervision of the
criminal justice system in 2001. In North Carolina, the report said, 46,500
people were incarcerated and 113,600 were on probation in that same period.

As the magazine notes, the United States has passed Russia as "the world's
most aggressive jailer." This incarceration rate is accompanied by an
appalling indifference about what happens when convicts are released from
prison. Some more statistics:

In California, a survey showed that half the inmates were functionally
illiterate. In the United States, it's estimated that three out of four
released prisoners have been on drugs. Surveys suggest that a majority of
employers won't knowingly hire a convict. Fewer parole decisions are made
by parole boards, thanks to mandatory sentencing, which means that
prisoners do their time and are released pretty much no matter how
unprepared they are.

Those who break parole represent the fast-growing element in prison
admissions. More than half the parolees break parole. About two-thirds of
released prisoners are arrested again within three years, and two in five
are already back in jail within that period.

Rehabilitation as an objective of incarceration fell from favor in the
1970s, when studies appeared to show that efforts did not affect
recidivism. Today, research results have done a 180. A study showed that
federal prisoners who completed a drug-treatment program were 73 percent
less likely to be arrested again than those who did not. But programs have
become harder to join. As recently as 1991, a quarter of state prisoners
received treatment. By 1997, the ratio was one in 10. Job training has also
been shown to reduce recidivism, but there's less of it now.

The magazine holds out a slender reed of hope, noting that some eyes are
beginning to open. The Justice Department recently put $100 million into
helping released prisoners. Better than nothing, it's not a lot when
compared to the $54 billion we spend annually on the prison system. There
is growing skepticism about the effectiveness of the war on drugs, which
should lead to some reform. It's about time.