Crime and Punishment:

WRITER CONTENDS THAT BUILDING PRISONS SOLVES LITTLE

HARD TIMES BLUES: How Politics Built a Prison Nation, by Sasha Abramski;
Dunne/St. Martin's, $25.95.

Free-lance journalist Sasha Abramski views the increase in American
prisoners from 1 million in 1990 to 2 million in 2000 as a result of
cynical political manipulation. He points out that half of the inmates,
serving sentences for non-violent, victimless crimes, in his view, would
not be incarcerated except for political pressure to do so. He thinks that
the burgeoning prison population results from a conspiracy of politicians
who cunningly use the crime issue to win elections. He says elected
officials are aided by the 6-o'clock news and newspaper stories that focus
on the rare violent crime to boost ratings and sales. This in turn, he
contends, creates fear in the public and demands that politicians do
something. So they pass draconian laws that result in more arrests and more
prisons.

ABRAMSKI laments the current emphasis on punishment rather than treatment
or rehabilitation. He claims the justice system divorces the drug problem
from issues of poverty and unemployment, but focuses instead on the
offender's individual accountability.

He claims that the crime rate is about the same today as it was a decade
ago. From this, he concludes that incarceration is ineffective and far too
expensive.

To illustrate his points Abramski uses the same techniques he accuses
politicians and the media of using: the sensational example. He cites the
case of Billy Ochoa, a small-time career criminal, who received a 300-plus
years sentence for welfare fraud. Ochoa symbolizes for Abramski the
injustices of the system. But clearly, this is not a representative case
for this type of crime.

MOREOVER, Abramski's analysis is hardly new. Joel Dyer in The Perpetual
Prisoner Machine (1999) and Joseph Hallinan in Going Up The River (2001)
make the same points in the same way. Most crime reports indicate that
crime, especially violent crime, is down over the past 10 years. Public
opinion, at least as measured by election returns, appears to support
punishment and imprisonment, rather than rehabilitation and alternatives to
incarceration, as the preferred method to deal with lawbreaking.

Hard Times Blues is a decidedly liberal critique of current criminal
justice policies.

Louis Cei is employed by the Virginia Department of Corrections.