JAILS: THE NUMBERS GAME

The risk of winding up in a local jail is higher in Wisconsin than in most
states even though lawbreaking is less common here than elsewhere,
according to the latest federal data. This discrepancy ought to prompt
officials to explore whether they are relying on costly lockups too much.

A recent Justice Department report shows that Wisconsin lags the nation in
the use of community supervision in lieu of jail. Of accused and convicted
offenders in the custody of counties, Wisconsin diverts 5% to community
supervision. The comparable national figure is 9%.

Wisconsin also falls below average in offering educational opportunities to
inmates; only 6% get a chance for schooling, compared with 8% nationwide.
That's a missed opportunity: Schooling might reduce the number of repeat
offenders and thus cut the jail population.

The report centers on jails, not prisons. Jails, often run by counties, are
short-term lockups, which house suspects awaiting charges or trials and
convicted offenders with short sentences. In contrast, prisons, virtually
always run by states and the federal government, tend to house convicted
offenders for longer stays.

Both jails and prisons share one trait: Their number has soared over the
last two decades. Wisconsin has helped to lead the way, with the jail
population quadrupling from 3,000 inmates in 1983 to 12,600 in 1999 - the
third-steepest increase in the nation.

Right now, of every 100,000 Wisconsin residents, 239 are bunking in jails -
an incarceration rate that's the second-highest outside the South and the
12th-highest among all the states. Yet, according to FBI data for 1999,
Wisconsin boasts the 13th-lowest crime rate among the states.

Do high incarceration rates yield low crime rates? Yes, one theory goes,
jailing a lot of people is the price of safe streets. The trouble with that
reasoning is that the facts don't bear it out.

Take Florida: It ranks fourth in incarceration and, according to the
theory, ought to rank low in crime. Yet the Sunshine State leads the nation
in lawbreaking. Or take New Hampshire, which features the nation's
seventh-lowest incarceration rate and ought to be wallowing in lawlessness.
Yet that state boasts the nation's lowest crime rate.

This is no argument to stop fighting crime. But for financial and other
reasons, it also makes sense to explore cheaper, potentially effective
alternatives to jails for keeping the streets safe. Some possibilities:
home detention, group homes, mandatory drug treatment and employment help.