The effects of rising incarcerations are assailed, defended
By Frank Green
Richmond Times-Dispatch
RICHMOND, Va. — Some believe that record prison growth in recent decades may be self-defeating. Others say the need for prisons is real, as regrettable and as expensive as they are.
A study by the Pew Center on the States released this week found that more than one of every 100 adults in America now is in jail or prison. Of that number, one in every 15 black men is in jail or prison compared with one in every 106 white men.
Experts say ways of slowing, if not stopping, the growth include more crime prevention, helping ex-inmates ease back into society, and making treatment programs, drug courts and other prison alternatives available for more nondangerous offenders.
“It’s not, ‘Should we have prison or not?’” said Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project. There is a need to keep dangerous criminals behind bars, he said. But too many who are locked up are not dangerous, he said.
Many behind bars have been there before. According to a 2002 study by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, of the prison inmates released across the country in 1994, more than two-thirds were rearrested and half were back in prison within three years.
The social effects of criminals going in and out of prison and on and off streets are felt the greatest in the neighborhoods where most of it is taking place, according to the U.S. Justice Department and other experts.
King Salim Khalfani, executive director of the Virginia NAACP, said, “It’s having devastating consequences upon families and our community as a whole.”
Roughly 60 percent of Virginia’s prison population is African-American.
“We know that prevention works,” said Khalfani, citing programs such as Boys and Girls Clubs and better prenatal care. More investment in such programs, which are far less costly than prisons, could change things, he said.
But, he contends, “there’s just no commitment to do so from our federal, state or local governments.” Khalfani said, “If we don’t do something other than what we’ve been doing, the cradle-to-prison pipeline will continue.”
Virginia and many other states have been working on prison diversion and inmate re-entry efforts in recent years to slow down prison growth.
Many state law and policymakers, however, continue to see a strong need for prisons. Del. David B. Albo, R-Fairfax, said yesterday that Virginia prisons are not holding many, if any, nonviolent, first-time property or drug-possession offenders.
Albo, chairman of the Virginia State Crime Commission, said the prisons are holding people who belong there and at present, at least, there is no good alternative. Locking up criminals prevents crime, he argues.
In 1994, the state ended parole and stiffened sentences for violent and repeat offenders who now are backing up in the system.
Since 1990, Virginia has approved 21,000 new prison beds at a cost of more than $1 billion. As of Jan. 1, Virginia had 38,555 state prison inmates (including 5,623 state inmates being held in local jails) and an additional 21,960 local and regional jail inmates.
Tucker Martin, spokesman for Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, agrees with Albo. “The violent crime rate in Virginia has been decreasing, in large part due to tougher sentencing laws and the abolition of parole,” Martin said.
But, Martin said, “at the same time, more must be done to assist prisoners when they re-enter society. Prisons should not have a revolving door. That is too costly to our society, and repeat offenders factor greatly into our current prison population.”
Copyright 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch