I find those numbers staggering. We like to promote this country as the freest, most tolerant society in the world, home of opportunity, advanced thinking and an unparalleled quality of life. Never mind that in the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2005 quality-of-life index, we actually placed 13th, behind basically all of western Europe and that shining beacon on a hill, Singapore. We tsk-tsk the human rights abuses of China (ranked #60)and Russia (#105), and the iron thumbs under which their people are forced to live.
Yet, it is only America that finds it necessary to lock up more than 1 in every 100 of its adults, male and female. Why?
- Is it because there are 90 guns per every 100 people in America? (Yemen is second at 61/100). Partly.
- Is it a response to the rapidly growing inequality of income in America? (The top-earning 1% of Americans earned 8% of the country's total income in 1980 and 16% in 2004). A fair assumption.
- Or is it because we don't, as a society, believe in rehabilitation, preferring instead a more biblical, eye-for-an-eye system of punishment, one designed to maximize transgressors' time served while doing as little as possible to prepare them to reassimilate back into society upon their release? Most assuredly.
This attitude is responsible for tough-on-crime candidates which leads to mandatory sentences, zero tolerence and three-strikes-you're-out. Locking up criminals (not just violent offenders and drug traffickers but drunk drivers and parole violators and substance abusers as well) is the feel-good hit of the season, and it's damned near impossible to get elected to dog-catcher in this country anymore without pandering to this principle.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work.
According to the Pew report, total spending on corrections last year was over $49 billion and will be around $75 billion by 2011. The average annual cost nationwide of a single prisoner is $23,876. Let's not get into the cost of prison healthcare -- it's climbing 10% annually. Add in the fact that prison populations are getting older. In 1989, one-quarter of all prisoners were over 50. By 2010, that number will be one-third. Old people have higher health costs than young people. You do the math.
We were able to ignore these trends (or at least keep them on the back burner) when we were living fat and sassy, back in the days when W. was just a gubernatorial blip on the political scene. But times have changed, haven't they? Last I checked, the average price for a gallon of gas was $3.17 (up from $2.45 a year ago) and climbing, the sub-prime mortgage industry's failure is in the process of destroying the housing market and we're stuck in Iraq at the cost of $275 million a day, with some projected estimates of the final tally topping $5 trillion. (A big number but, you'd have to admit, quite reasonable if McCain gets his way and we're there for the next hundred years).
The point is this: solutions like diverting low-risk offenders to cheaper settings and earned time parole for prisoners who complete rehabilitation programs are not just knee jerk, liberal reactions. They're sound fiscal policy. Texas, traditionally one of the toughest states on corrections policy, as well as having the nation's second-largest prison population, has aggressively expanded drug treatment, increased diversion beds and reformed their parole practices. Their prison budget has leveled off and is expected to remain flat over the next five years.
Conservatives need to start making some choices. Want to keep funding this war? Insist upon permanent tax cuts for the wealthy? Well, the money has to come from somewhere. Prison reform could be just one small chunk of it and you wouldn't be giving up anything really important or changing the status quo. Come on. Put a brother back out on the streets. Who knows, the man you give a fresh start to today could be washing your car tomorrow.
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