Pubdate: Tue, 15 June 1999 Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO) Copyright: 1999 Post Dispatch Contact: http://www.stlnet.com/ Forum: http://www.stlnet.com/postnet/index.nsf/forums Page 14B THE PRICE OF PRISONS For the 5,000 residents of Charleston, Mo., crime does pay. The rural Bootheel community is celebrating its designation as the new site for a maximum-security prison that will bring 400 jobs and a $10 million annual payroll. Like so many rural communities across the nation, Charleston needed an economic boost and found it behind bars. Charleston also found stiff competition for the new prison. More than two dozen Missouri communities vied for two prisons that eventually went to Charleston and Licking. The exponential growth of the prison industry is good news for towns like Charleston. Criminals get locked up; local people get steady jobs. But all of us pay dearly for localized prosperity. There are now 25,000 people behind bars in Missouri. It costs Missouri taxpayers about $12,731 a year to feed, house, clothe and provide medical care for each inmate. That per person price tag - more than twice the cost of educating a Missouri public school student - does not include the cost of building new prisons like the 1,500-inmate lock-up in Charleston. Since 1990, the Department of Corrections has seen its budget balloon to $495 million from $191 million. Its inmate population swelled 67 percent, from 15,106 in 1990 to 25,277 today. More money spent on incarceration means there is less money available to spend on schools and social services. While some experts give partial credit to longer, harsher sentencing and higher prison populations for a national and regional drop in the crime rate, it has been achieved at a price. Our relentless pursuit of punishment over prevention does nothing to break the cycle of poverty, illiteracy and crime that makes it necessary to build more prisons. Meanwhile, our public schools are desperate for funds, beat the bushes for teachers and beg for books. Seven of 10 prisoners in America cannot read, and many of Missouri's prisoners come from St. Louis city, where 35 percent of residents can read barely or not at all. We need to spend more of our prison money and manpower on a proven, powerful form of prevention: education. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea