BUILDING NEW PRISONS WON'T DETER CRIME

A Study Shows That Two-Thirds Of State Prison Inmates Commit New Crimes
Within Three Years Of Being Released.

THE prison-building frenzy of the past quarter-century may have kept more
criminals off the streets, but it did little to rehabilitate them. A study
of 15 mainland states by the Justice Department showed that most inmates
released from prison commit new crimes within a short time. The study
provides further evidence that building more prisons in Hawaii will not
deter crime.

A report by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics found that
two-thirds of the 272,111 inmates released from prisons in the 15 states in
1994 committed at least one serious new crime within three years. By far,
property and drug offenders had the highest re-arrest rates, while offenders
of violent crimes had the lowest.

The rate of recidivism has changed little from earlier studies dating back
to the 1960s. During that time, the philosophy toward incarceration has
shifted from rehabilitation to getting tough on crime to deterrence.

The main thing this report shows is that our experiment with building lots
more prisons as a deterrent to crime has not worked, says Joan Petersilia, a
professor of criminology as the University of California at Irvine and an
expert on parole.

States generally have cut back on rehabilitation programs, such as drug
treatment and vocational education, so they could build prisons. Only about
15 percent of state prison inmates nationally are enrolled in such classes.

This year's Hawaii Legislature enacted a law that requires judges to direct
nonviolent, first-time drug offenders to community-based treatment programs
instead of prison. An estimated 85 percent of Hawaii's prison inmates are
believed to need substance- abuse treatment, and a large number of parolees
who violate conditions of their release do so for drug-related reasons.

The state has called for construction of a new prison in Halawa Valley,
mainly to replace the Oahu Community Correction Center in Kalihi, but also
adding 768 beds to the state's existing prison capacity. Hawaii now confines
about 1,200 of its 5,100 inmates in privately operated prisons on the
mainland at a cost lower than that required to house them here.

The inmate population at state prisons soared from less than 200,000 in 1972
to more than 1.2 million last year, but it seems to have peaked. The head
count has actually declined since then, partly because of the implementation
of new strategies to treat drug offenders. Turning to drug-treatment
programs outside the prison walls and improving other programs on the inside
are the best approach.