Pubdate: Sat, 9 Jan 2010
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
Copyright: 2010 Journal Sentinel Inc.
Contact: http://www.jsonline.com/general/30627794.html
Website: http://www.jsonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/265
Authors: Tom Lebel and Stan Stojkovic
Note: Tom LeBel is an assistant professor in the Helen Bader School 
of Social Welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Stan 
Stojkovic is dean of UWM's Bader School.

OUR POLICY: LOCK 'EM UP, REPEAT

Building More Prisons Is Not the Answer to Overcrowding

Imagine you're walking along a giant line graph depicting U.S. prison
population growth since 1920. For the first 60 years, you'd climb ever
so gently. Then, when you reached 1980, you'd suddenly start scaling
the graphic outline of Mount Everest. Along this slope you'd scramble,
up, up, up, until today, when the grade lessens. But the problem - and
it's significant - is you're spent. Out of money. Out of space.

The U.S. prison population is at an all-time high, the result of three
decades of tough sentencing laws and underfunded reintegration
programs. To ease overcrowding, we can shorten sentences or build more
prisons. These, however, miss the big picture. For lasting change, we
need to commit not to building more prisons but to reducing recidivism.

For that, we need to address why about half of released prisoners
return to prison within three years.

Tough-on-crime laws have sent tremendous numbers of low-risk,
nonviolent offenders to prison, kept people incarcerated longer and
continue to send record high numbers back to prison for technical
violations of their supervision.

These laws failed - not only because they've drained resources but
because they ignore the root problem. What currently looks like a
budget problem is, in the long run, a people problem. We're asking
correction departments to solve the aftermath of generations of
decisions that have left many urban areas with poor schools, poor
public transportation and poor employment opportunities. Unless we
direct more efforts into repairing residents' social welfare issues,
most states will never see long-term budget cuts in
corrections.

Various approaches are being tried or considered by states where
prison overcrowding has reached a breaking point.

California - the state with the most prisoners - will release
one-third of its low-risk, nonviolent offenders over the next three
years.

Colorado - where the prison population rose since the early '80s from
4,000 to 23,000 - is considering granting judges discretion at
sentencing and changing the charge for marijuana possession from a
felony to a petty offense or misdemeanor.

Kansas is focusing efforts on identifying prisoners most at risk of
recidivism and moving social welfare manpower to help prevent it.

Texas chose to divert money, originally earmarked for new prisons, to
providing more evidence-based substance abuse programs. Is it working?
For the first time in several years, the state's prison population has
stopped growing.

In contrast, Pennsylvania is continuing the climb, building three new
prisons at a cost of $600 million. Moreover, Arizona is showing the
nation what desperation plus bankruptcy can do to decision-making;
it's considering privatizing its entire prison system, despite a U.S.
Justice Department study that suggests privatization does not save
money.

Here in Wisconsin - where the prison population is 20% over capacity and
the corrections budget has grown $50 million per year for the past
decade - early releases are set to begin in 2010. But a different
recommendation altogether sits on the table in Madison: build more
prisons.

Perhaps we should look at New York, a state that's been closing
prisons. New York has seen a 15% reduction in prison population since
2000, in an era of decreasing crime rates. (So the answer to the
question "Why is crime decreasing?" cannot be "Because we keep
prisoners locked up longer.") New York decided years ago to identify
prisoners who would be good for merit time, based on their completion
of rehabilitation programs.

Reducing sentences can stop the budgetary bleeding. But unless we
close some prisons while providing better services to the 95% who will
eventually be released, we'll likely either continue our trek up the
slope that started in 1980 or, at best, witness mild downhill
stretches. So let's ask ourselves:

.Are we willing to provide alcohol and drug abuse treatment? (About
80% of the prison population could benefit from AODA treatment.)

.Are we willing to fund programs that prepare prisoners for the work
force? (Employment is a significant predictor of who will stay out of
prison.)

.Are we willing to work to increase job opportunities in urban areas?
(In Milwaukee, for example, two-thirds of African-American prisoners
are released to communities where there are 25 job seekers for every
full-time opening.)

.Are we willing to develop public transportation that allows people
without cars or driver's licenses to reach work sites?

.Are we willing to improve urban education?

It was easy to pass a law with a politicized name like "truth in
sentencing." It will be much harder to turn the ship and address the
real issues. But the payoff will last longer than any politician's
term.

Where do we - the nation with the world's highest incarceration rate -
start? With one sentence: We won't build more prisons. From there,
we'll decide on the next step.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake