Sorry, for stepping on your toes

by David Grand
May 5, 2005

With prisoners crammed into 9' by 6' cells at San Quentin state prison, that's probably heard quite often, as the two cell mates attempt to move about without bumping in to each other. But that's indicative of the crisis of overcrowding that's pervasive in federal and state prisons.      

When I'd wrote a column on the soaring prison population in August, 2000, it was increasing at the rate of 50,000 a year; and would, at that rate, soon reach the 2 million mark (roughly the size of Houston), up from 1.1 million in 1990. And sure as heck, between 2003 and 2004, the nation's prisons and jails held 2.1 million people (one in every 150 U.S. residents.)

The burgeoning population is due mainly to the "get tough policies" in the 1980's and 1990's, among which were mandatory drug sentences, "three-strikes-and you're-out" laws for repeat offenders, the "truth-in-sentencing" laws" that restrict early releases; and with parole abolished in some states, and in other states parole boards having less latitude than they once did.      

Some other observations I made in my previous column that remain basically as true today as then:

• California has the largest prison population, number of prisons, and inmates on death row, with Texas a close second in those categories. 
• The South has the highest incarceration rate, and the Northeast the lowest.
• Minorities-blacks, Latino and Asian youths-are seven times more likely to be sent to prison for violent crimes than whites. 
• Those in prison for non-violent, drug crimes represent nearly 70 percent of prison populations, and often are given more prison time than murderers and rapists.
• It costs about $44,000 to house a prisoner, and nearly double that for geriatric prisoners.
• While the U.S. has five percent of the planet's population, one-out-of-four prisoners worldwide are in U.S. prisons.      

But there's been a downward trend in the number of death sentences, which fell to a 28-year low of 125 last year, primarily because of juries now having the choice of "life without parole" that they didn't have before; that defendants facing the death penalty are being provided better legal representation; and the Supreme Court's narrowing of those defendants eligible for that sentence. Plus, that DNA tests have, since 1996, exonerated 117 of those on death row has made juries less willing to impose the maximum penalty, aware as they are of the system's fallibilities.      

There were 3,374 prisoners awaiting execution as of the end of 2003, with an average 75 executions each year, and with Texas leading the pack by a wide margin.      

Now, as I said before in my closing comments, that as long as prisons remain a place of physical horror, where inmates live in a constant state of fear of being killed, beaten or raped, there's no way they can realistically ever be rehabilitated; and that until more emphasis is placed on prevention, rather than on punishment alone, prisons will continue to be a blight on our society. Or, as Henry David Thoreau put it, "there's thousands hacking at the branches of evil, too few who are striking at its roots."       

Here's a tip for those of you who play the stock market. Buy shares of Corrections Corp. of America and Geo Group, with both stocks now trading at or near multi-year highs, thanks to at least 21 states who've either established or are considering legislation for privately operated prisons. Who says crime doesn't pay?