Pubdate: Fri, 04 Apr 2003 Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA) Copyright: 2003 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Contact: http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/28 Author: Allen G. Breed, Associated Press Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration) PACKED PRISONS New Orleans Conference Addresses Reasons Behind Rising Number Of People Behind Bars Principal Sheila Young says the family portrait drawn by one of her brightest New Orleans third-graders was disturbing: There, next to the smiling faces of the girl and her eight siblings was a frowning woman, their mother, with vertical bars over her face. "I ran to get the social worker, because it's such an exaggerated frown," says Young, whose Craig Elementary School is in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods. "It was frightening." That's when Young learned that the girl's crack-addicted mother was serving a year for a parole violation. When Young asked the girl's classmates how many of them had a relative or neighbor in prison, more than half the hands shot up. When it comes to locking people up, Louisiana leads the South. And the South leads the nation. Since 1980, the country's prison population has quadrupled to 2.1 million, with the South accounting for 45 percent of that increase, according to a report released Friday by the grass-roots group Critical Resistance South. Activists push reform Citizen activists from around the region plan to converge on New Orleans and Craig Elementary for a weekend conference to address the situation and brainstorm about how to change it. At a time when nearly every state is facing crushing deficits, Rose Braz believes prison beds are a good place to start cutting. "I do think this is a unique opportunity for states to re-examine their spending priorities," says Braz, national director for Critical Resistance. "We have a limited amount of money that is getting smaller by the minute. Do we want to invest in prisons, prisons and more prisons?" Louisiana's incarceration rate is 800 per 100,000 residents. The rate for the South is 526 per 100,000 --- higher than that of 63 percent of countries in the world, according to the report generated for the group by the Justice Policy Institute in Washington. The West is a distant second at 408 per 100,000. Thirteen of the top 20 states with the highest incarceration rates are in the South. Funds, attitude blamed Why are the region's numbers so high? Some would argue that Southern states have spent less money for the kinds of social programs that tend to keep people off the path to prison. "The South historically has had either less money available or less political interest in making those investments," says Marc Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project. A recent national survey conducted by a group of Florida State University researchers found that Southerners were more politically conservative and racially prejudiced in their attitudes than people in other regions, and more punitive. Prison populations soared through the past two decades as states got tough on crime, with so-called "three strikes you're out" and "truth in sentencing" measures that guaranteed repeat offenders long stays. But as crime rates have fallen, many states in the South and elsewhere have attempted to cut their prison populations. In the past two years, Louisiana and Mississippi --- which has the second-highest lockup rate --- have backed away from mandatory minimum sentences for certain offenders. Georgia, which ranks sixth in its lockup rate, is considering moving toward sentencing guidelines, which seek to divert nonviolent offenders into community-based programs. Alternatives to prison Faced with a looming $400 million shortfall, Kentucky recently granted early release to about 900 inmates. South Carolina's corrections department is considering releasing up to 4,000 inmates, and Arkansas' governor wants to put more drug violators in treatment programs. "I would argue that high incarceration rates are not terribly cost-effective," Mauer says. "But many of those arguments have not been persuasive in most of those states until the budget crunch hit." One Southern state, North Carolina, has had success with alternatives to locking people up. In 1980, it had the highest incarceration rate in the country. Today, it ranks 31st. Sentencing guidelines Dan Wilhelm of the Vera Institute of Justice gives much of the credit to the decision in 1994 to switch to sentencing guidelines, or structured sentencing. He says the result was a system that simultaneously "increased the likelihood and length" of sentences for violent offenders, while establishing "a continuum of community punishments for nonviolent offenders." With crime rates down and corrections budgets among the highest-growth areas of state spending, Wilhelm says policymakers from both sides of the political aisle can agree on the need for prison reform. "There's an opportunity right now for changes to be made," he says. "Because there's a common interest that's brought these unlikely bedfellows together." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom