Update (TL): More than 1 in 100 Americans are now in jail or prison. As TChris writes below, it's staggering. America: Prison Nation. #1 incarcerator in the world.)
Consider this:
With more than 2.3 million people behind bars at the start of 2008, the United States leads the world in both the number and the percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving even far more populous China a distant second, noted the report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.
Before you start chanting "We're number 1," consider the cost of living in Prison Nation:
More than one in 100 adults Americans is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year, in addition to more than $5 billion spent by the federal government, according to a report released today.
If you're thinking "there must be a better way," you're right:
hen it comes to preventing repeat offenses by nonviolent criminals -- who make up about half of the incarcerated population -- alternative punishments such as community supervision and mandatory drug counseling that are far less expensive may prove just as or more effective than jail time. ...
"There is no question that putting violent and chronic offenders behind bars lowers the crime rate and provides punishment that is well deserved," said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center's Public Safety Performance Project and one of the study's authors. "On the other hand, there are large numbers of people behind bars who could be supervised in the community safely and effectively at a much lower cost -- while also paying taxes, paying restitution to their victims, and paying child support."
Elected officials tend to treat drug crimes as if they were inevitably violent crimes, leading to high incarceration rates for drug offenders -- a policy that has had at best a negligible impact on the availability of illicit drugs. Drug treatment and public education (and the decriminalization of marijuana) would focus public resources in a more effective and less costly response to drug abuse.
More broadly, alternatives to incarceration, after a quarter century pursuit of a failed "lock 'em up" mentality to crime, are increasingly necessary as state governments look for ways to avoid bankruptcy in a sluggish economy.
About 91 percent of incarcerated adults are under state or local jurisdiction, and the report documents the tradeoffs state governments have faced as they have devoted ever larger shares of their budgets to house them. For instance, over the past two decades, state spending on corrections (adjusted for inflation) increased by 127 percent, while spending on higher education rose by 21 percent. For every dollar Virginia spends on higher education, it now spends about 60 cents on corrections. Maryland spends 74 cents on corrections per higher-education dollar. ...
It's time for elected officials to stop being mindlessly "tough on crime" and to start being "smart on crime." The elimination of mandatory minimum sentences and two- or three-strikes laws would be a good beginning. It isn't a bad thing to let judges tailor sentences to the particular crime and offender. Facing the prospect of ever-growing prison budgets and ever-shrinking resources to invest in more productive projects, legislators may finally see the light.
number of states, including Texas, are seeking to reduce their incarcerated population by adopting alternative punishments. "Some of these would have been unthinkable five years ago," noted Gelb. "But the bottom line is that states have to balance their budgets."
The report is here (pdf).
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/2/28/125222/655
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