Pubdate: Sun, 27 Jul 2003
Source: Wilmington Morning Star (NC)
Copyright: 2003 Wilmington Morning Star
Contact:  http://www.wilmingtonstar.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/500
Author: Curt Anderson

CRIME DROPS, BUT PRISON POPULATION CONTINUES TO GROW

Mandatory sentences are a major reason inmate populations have risen for 30 
years.

WASHINGTON - America's prison population grew again in 2002 despite a 
declining crime rate, costing the federal government and states an 
estimated $40 billion a year at a time of rampant budget shortfalls.

The inmate population in 2002 of more than 2.1 million represented a 2.6 
percent increase over 2001, according to a report released Sunday by the 
Bureau of Justice Statistics. Preliminary FBI statistics showed a 0.2 
percent drop in overall crime during the same span.

Experts say mandatory sentences, especially for nonviolent drug offenders, 
are a major reason inmate populations have risen for 30 years. About one of 
every 143 U.S. residents was in federal, state or local custody at year's end.

"The nation needs to break the chains of our addiction to prison, and find 
less costly and more effective policies like treatment," said Will Harrell, 
executive director of the Texas American Civil Liberties Union. "We need to 
break the cycle."

Others say tough sentencing laws, such as the "three strikes" laws that can 
put repeat offenders behind bars for life, are a chief reason for the drop 
in crime.

The Justice Department, for example, this year ordered Bureau of Prisons 
officials to stop sending so many white-collar and nonviolent criminals to 
halfway houses.

"The prospect of prison, more than any other sanction, is feared by 
white-collar criminals and has a powerful deterrent effect," Deputy 
Attorney General Larry Thompson said in a memo announcing the change.

Even as these costs keep climbing, the federal government is tackling a 
giant budget deficit and 31 states this year are cutting spending to deal 
with shortfalls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"The prison population and budget figures, taken together, should be 
setting off alarm bells in state capitols," said Jason Zeidenberg, director 
of policy and research for the Justice Policy Institute, a nonprofit 
organization focused on ending reliance on incarceration.

Drug offenders now make up more than half of all federal prisoners. The 
federal penal system, which has tough sentencing policies for drug 
offenses, is now the nation's largest at more than 151,600 - an increase of 
4.2 percent compared with 2001.

Over the same period, state prison and jail populations grew just 2.4 
percent. Prison-alternative advocates credit moves in some states to divert 
drug offenders to treatment programs and other innovations for that lower 
growth rate.

Texas, for example, recently passed a drug treatment alternative law and 
saw its prison population remain virtually unchanged from 2001 to 2002.

Ohio, which revised its sentencing and parole guidelines in the late 1990s, 
had its prison and jail population rise just 0.8 percent last year compared 
with 1.9 percent for the Midwest as a whole.

"The way to reduce prison spending is to reduce the number of people in 
prison and the number of prisons, like some states across the country have 
done," said Rose Braz, director of Critical Resistance, a California-based 
group opposed to prison expansion.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens