Pubdate: Tue, 26 Aug 2003
Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL)
Copyright: 2003 Orlando Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/325
Author: Myriam Marquez, of the Senrtinel
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

NOT FISCALLY SOUND OR MORALLY JUSTIFIED

Florida's rush to build more prison beds even as the state's serious crime 
rate stands at a 30-year low signals trouble ahead for the nation's justice 
system.

All this prison building is neither fiscally sound nor morally justified.

The United States remains in the prison-building business like no other 
Western democracy. In Western Europe, for instance, about one of every 
1,000 people is behind bars. In this country, it's one of every 143 people.

Those numbers are much worse for young black males, whose sentences are 
disproportionately tough compared to sentences for whites charged with 
similar crimes. It's a national disgrace.

These inequities are generated by America's drug war, which continues to 
nickel-and-dime treatment alternatives even as more and more studies 
suggest that drug treatment can result in both public safety and reduced 
public costs in the long term.

Gov. Jeb Bush maintains that dipping into the state's reserve funds to 
spend $66 million to build 4,000 more prison beds is an investment in 
public safety, which is "first and foremost" in importance for voters. No, 
it's pandering to base instincts, nothing more.

It's a very expensive fix to cover the upsurge in offenders incarcerated 
the past few months -- more than one in four of those for drug-related 
crimes. And that's not counting the home robbers or car thieves who might 
be stealing to pay for their addictions.

What might have happened the past two years had the state kept financing 
drug-treatment programs for inmates at even puny 2001 levels?

There likely would be fewer arrests today for drug-related offenses. The 
revolving door might not be swinging so wildly -- and costing us so much 
more to close with steel and mortar.

The state is investigating what caused the upsurge in prison admissions, 
concentrated in five counties, this summer. And there may be other reasons 
contributing to the problem.

But do the math. It's not too complicated. We get what we pay for.

The state was spending about $15.5 million on prison treatment services in 
2001. After the 9-11 terrorist attacks caused Florida's economy to tank, 
the state slashed treatment by half and then again last year to $5.8 million.

Only four of Florida's 55 prisons kept in-house drug-treatment programs, 
financed in part with federal funds, during the first round of cuts. Had 
all of that money been kept in the pipeline, it could have saved a whole 
lot of taxpayers' money and today helped turn around many lives.

In fact, the state's own corrections department has outlined the benefits 
of drug treatment. Statistics it compiled for 1998-99 indicated that of the 
offenders who completed drug-treatment programs in prisons, 70.5 percent 
stayed out of trouble after two years. The rate was 77.5 percent for those 
offenders who get monitored treatment instead of prison time.

Of course, treatment dollars have always been in short supply. But the 
sharp cuts the past two years in treatment programs and the recent spike in 
drug-related offenses only prove how important treatment can be.

Treatment's not only the compassionate thing to do, but it can save 
taxpayers a bundle. You would think Bush, of all people, would have figured 
that out by now, particularly after his family's own problems with addiction.

But no. The prison monster must be fed, and politicians are all too happy 
to appear tough on crime even when the crime -- drug addiction -- should be 
treated like the health threat it is.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom