>From: "Peter McWilliams" >Subject: more on P-2,000,000 >Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 04:31:07 -0800 >X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 >X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 > > >Pubdate: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 >Source: Washington Post (DC) >Copyright: 1999 The Washington Post Company >Address: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071 >Feedback: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm >Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ >Author: William Raspberry > >2 MILLION AND COUNTING > >Americans love nice round numbers. Anticipation of a 200-yard game, the >year 2000 or a 12,000 Dow can make us downright giddy. Try this one: >2,000,000. > >The folk at the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) have vetted the trends, >crunched the numbers and come up with a nice round prediction. On Feb. 15, >2000, America's prison and jail inmate population will top 2 million. > >What is involved, though, is a lot more than roundness, says JPI policy >analyst Jason Ziedenberg. "What blew me away when I was doing this research >was the whole issue of where we stand internationally," he told me. "Next >year, America, with under 5 percent of the world's population, will have a >quarter of the world's prison inmates." > >An astounding portion of the increase will have taken place this decade. We >had fewer than 200,000 adults behind bars in 1970, 315,974 in 1980, 739,980 >in 1990. By the end of this year, we will have 1,983,084, having added 61 >percent more inmates than were added in the 1980s and nearly 30 times the >average number added during the five decades before 1970. > >Sounds awful, you say, but isn't it working? Isn't America's crime rate >going down, arguably as a direct result of what was done during what the JPI >calls "the punishing decade"? > >Ziedenberg acknowledges the link between incarceration and crime rates - to >an extent - but he offers this statistical tidbit: > >"A number of jurisdictions - California, Texas and the federal government - >have had huge increases in incarceration rates, but those are not >necessarily the jurisdictions that have had the biggest drops in crime. New >York and California both increased their prison and jail populations, but >California did so at a much, much higher rate that helped drive up the >national total. New York, however, experienced a much, much deeper drop in >crime, helping to create the so-called New York miracle." > >New York's drop in violent crime was sharpest between 1992 and 1997 (38 >percent), when it had the second-slowest-growing prison population in the >country - 30 a week - and when its jail system was downsized, according to >Ziedenberg. During the same period, California's inmate population grew by >270 inmates a week, a 30 percent rate, while its violent crime rate fell by >23 percent. > >Nor should it be surprising that the link between incarceration rates and >violent crime should be so tenuous. The biggest contributor to prison >population growth during this decade has been drug offenses. By some >estimates, as many as half a million inmates are behind bars for drug >offenses, their last crime being either possession or low-level dealing. > >No matter, you say; it's their own fault. It is, of course, but it does >matter to the rest of us. It matters because we'll be devoting more public >resources to keeping people behind bars, diverting some of those resources >from things we'd like to do, things such as improving the schools, which >might all by itself go a long way toward reducing crime. > >It matters as well because almost all the people we lock up will be back on >the street one day, not necessarily less dangerous for having spent five or >10 years behind bars. > >And it matters a third way, says Ziedenberg. "It is an important indicator >of the sort of society we want to be. We're not only out of step with the >rest of the civilized world; this doesn't fit with anything in our own >history - or world history." > >There's nothing startling in the approaches proposed by the JPI. They >include consideration of alternative sentencing, rationalization of >drug-sentence schedules and the institution of a continuum of services to >address why so many people are in trouble in the first place. > >But what may be needed more than new policy alternatives is for us to step >back and look at what we're doing - what we're becoming - and ask ourselves >how much sense it makes to continue along the present path. > >----- > >Pubdate: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 >Source: Dallas Morning News (TX) >Copyright: 1999 The Dallas Morning News >Contact: letterstoeditor@dallasnews.com >Address: P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, Texas 75265 >Fax: (972) 263-0456 >Feedback: http://dmnweb.dallasnews.com/letters/ >Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/ >Forum: http://forums.dallasnews.com:81/webx >Author: Anthony Lewis, of the NY Times > >2 MILLION PRISONERS > >Incarceration Rate Shows We're Doing Something Wrong > >As we enter the new millennium, the population of America's prisons and >jails is approaching two million. It will pass that mark, according to the >Justice Policy Institute in Washington, around Feb. 15. > >In the entire world about eight million people are incarcerated, so a >quarter of them are in this country. > >The number of prisoners has been growing at an extraordinary pace, up 70 >percent in the last 10 years. We have overtaken Russia for the honor of >having the world's highest incarceration rate. > >All this has a profound social cost. Since 1995 the states have spent more >on prison than on university construction. Operating prisons in the year >2000 will cost about $40 billion. > >And of course it is not just the money. Two-thirds of the prisoners are >there for nonviolent offenses. Chances are good that by the time they are >released -- after sentences that are among the longest anywhere -- they will >be thoroughly brutalized. > >The figures are so stunning that even some experts known for taking a hard >line on crime think it is time for a reappraisal of criminal justice >policies. One is Prof. John J. DiIulio Jr. of Princeton. He summed up >his view in The Wall Street Journal in March under the headline "Two Million >Prisoners Are Enough." > >"The value of imprisonment is a portrait in the law of rapidly diminishing >returns," Professor DiIulio said. He noted that correctional costs were >squeezing money for policing. He urged officials everywhere to maintain >gains in public safety "while keeping the prison population around two >million and even aiming to reduce it over the next decade." > >To that end he suggested, first, repealing mandatory-minimum drug sentencing >laws. Since 1973 the Rockefeller drug laws in New York State have imposed >fixed terms running from 15 years to life for all kinds of offenses. >Federal laws also include many mandatory minimums. > >The result of fixed sentences is to put hundreds of thousands of nonviolent >drug offenders away for many years, at great cost to them and to us. About >a quarter of those in American prisons and jails are drug violators, >according to the Justice Policy Institute. Their number has gone up >sevenfold in the last 20 years. > >Professor DiIulio called for the release of nonviolent offenders imprisoned >only for drug violations. He also urged that drug treatment be required for >users, in prison and afterward. > >Legislation that requires extremely long sentences for drug and some other >crimes is a political phenomenon of the last 25 years or so. Few >politicians, state or national, have been willing to challenge the mantra of >"toughness on crime" -- willing to look at the harsh consequences of such >rigidity, human and societal. > >Mandatory-minimum sentences seem to me to reflect the delusion that >eliminating the element of judgment will make the criminal justice system >work better. Absolute rules assure certainty. But they also assure >injustice. > >Leaving too much discretion to judges risks uneven sentences. Leaving none >produces equally harsh sentences for situations and individuals that demand >different treatment. > >------ > > > > >================================================================ > >This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to > the mailing list . >To unsubscribe, E-mail to: