Pubdate: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 Source: Anniston Star (AL) Copyright: 2006 Consolidated Publishing Contact: http://www.annistonstar.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/923 Author: Ronald Fraser A FIX FOR ALABAMA'S PRISON WOES Speaker's Stand Sadly, America's first national prison commission in 30 years failed to tackle, head-on, our lock 'em up culture and to find ways to reduce the number of people behind bars in Alabama and elsewhere. The commission's recent report is little more than a how-to manual to help wardens cope with overcrowded prisons that breed violence, disease and recidivism. What we really need is a road map to drastically shrink Alabama's prison population and, at the same time, save state taxpayers a lot of money. "Confronting Confinement," the report by the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, admits: "It was beyond the scope of our inquiry to explore how states and the federal government might sensibly reduce prisoner populations. Yet all that we studied is touched by, indeed in the grip of, America's unprecedented reliance on incarceration. We incarcerate more people at a higher rate than any country in the world." The study rightly pins responsibility for our overcrowded prisons on tough-on-crime laws passed by state and federal legislators. But it does not look for ways to downsize America's booming prison industry that adds more than 1,000 new inmates per week, costs more than $60 billion a year and employs about 750,000 workers to watch over 2.2 million inmates - almost double the 1990 prison population. The commission never asked this question: Why pay room and board to put someone like Martha Stewart, or a pot smoker or a car thief behind bars when modern electronic tracking devices can easily keep tabs on these nonviolent criminals at a fraction of the cost? The good news is that Alabama is one of 13 states headed in the right direction. From 2003 to 2004, state inmates dropped by 2,026. The bad news: Alabama taxpayers still shelled out about $276 million in 2003 to hire 7,777 state and local corrections employees to watch over 29,100 inmates. That's about $9,400 per year, per inmate. Nationally, about one-half of all state prisoners have been convicted of violent crimes, including murder and assault. The other half - in the case of Alabama about 14,500 inmates - are nonviolent, many of them convicted of possession or sale of small quantities of drugs. For such offenders - and for low-level burglars and embezzlers - prison can do more harm than good. Many will leave prison more violent and possessing better criminal skills than when they arrived. And even those who want to go straight will have a hard time finding a legitimate job. Why not treat these offenders differently? The Council of State Governments reports that halfway houses and non-residential, community-based supervision programs, including day reporting centers, community service and other work assignments, are viable alternatives to incarceration. These alternatives also allow offenders to build work and social skills needed to avoid future run-ins with the law. In 2003, Alabamians also spent $86 million, or about $1,900 per year, to supervise each of 45,000 non-incarcerated convicts. That means for every nonviolent inmate shifted from inside prison to non-prison punishment, taxpayers could save upwards of $7,500 per year. If all 14,500 nonviolent inmates were released to alternative punishments, the state could potentially save $108 million annually. Five years ago, California started sending drug offenders to treatment programs instead of prison and, based on a recent UCLA study, the state has saved about $173 million a year and no longer needs to build a planned new prison. Total savings: $1.4 billion. Maryland is cutting their prison population and saving money with a similar program. Overcrowded, violent and disease-filled prisons and jails are here to stay as long as the number of inmates sent to prison goes up year after year. As a society, we are quick to needlessly fill prisons with nonviolent inmates, and too slow to find alternative ways to punish and rehabilitate them. We now need a second commission to finish the job, and publish a step-by-step road map for ending America's "unprecedented reliance on incarceration." ========= Ronald Fraser, Ph.D., writes on public policy issues for the DKT Liberty Project, a Washington-based civil liberties organization