Pubdate: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 Source: News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) Copyright: 2008 The News and Observer Publishing Company Contact: http://www.newsobserver.com/484/story/433256.html Website: http://www.news-observer.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/304 A LOCKED-UP LAND A new study gives the U.S. the dubious honor of the highest rate of imprisonment on the globe. It reflects shortsighted policies Americans are accustomed to being No. 1 in a host of areas, but it's a dubious achievement indeed that we hold the top spot for incarceration. A study by the Pew Center on the States says that the U.S. has more people in jails and prisons than any other nation -- 2,319,258 at the start of 2008 -- and more per capita, one of every 99.1 adults. Part of the strangeness in that is how it compares to conditions in some blatantly oppressive countries. China comes to mind, with its lack of patience for free speech and its inclination to put its people (including dissidents) behind bars. The reason for the spike in imprisonment in the United States is well known: Jumps in the crime rate in the 1980s and '90s led state and federal lawmakers to "get tough on crime." Three-strikes laws and longer sentences for non-violent drug offenses, for instance, stuffed existing prisons and required more new cells to be built. But they provided a vaccine for lawmakers worried about being called soft by political opponents crusading for law and order. That still seems to be the mindset. Order and public safety must be maintained, of course, and a get-tough attitude may have made constituents feel safer. But society suffers another type of pain, an economic one, when the bills for expensive prisons come due. The Pew study reports that on average, states now spend 6.8 percent of their general fund budgets on corrections. Four of them -- Connecticut, Michigan, Oregon and Vermont - -- spend more on corrections than on higher education. North Carolina does its part to fill prisons and build more of them. A recent state estimate says that burgeoning incarceration rates and longer state prison sentences will mean about 6,000 more inmates than spaces to house them by 2017. And that's taking into account about $32 million the legislature set aside last year for new prisons. North Carolina is one of 13 states that spend $1 billion or more per year on corrections. Fifteen of every 100 state workers in North Carolina are dedicated to corrections. Only three other states have a higher rate. And of course stacking prisons full of inmates now will cause another societal shock all too soon. That shock will come from more people being released after learning from their prison neighbors how to be better criminals. The Pew report was written as part of an effort by 13 states to address crime more intelligently. No one wants to shutter prisons. Some crimes obviously are so serious that their perpetrators need to be locked up. But the expense is tremendous -- $20,000 on average in this state -- and the money is "invested" in too many cases in non-violent offenders who would not necessarily be a threat to others if they were, for example, on house arrest. The Pew Center's Public Safety Performance Project is working with the 13 states to craft programs that divert criminals from prison and protect the public at the same time. North Carolina isn't one of them now, but it should sign up. In a larger sense, America needs to ask itself how this attitude that incarceration is the first and best punishment came to be. And it needs to reckon with the fact that, though it may be the simplest response, it's seldom the smartest. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake