Ordinarily, a kind mention in the New York Times — there have actually been a few, lately — sends me back for a serious rethink of whatever action or stance gave rise to the compliment. But this week’s support for our proposed criminal justice reforms in Indiana will engender no second thoughts, because the Times has it right — we can be a lot smarter about our incarceration policies.
During my transition to service in December 2004, I was told that we would need to build at least one new prison a year starting immediately. I said, “Uh, the state’s broke. I think we’ll need to find an alternative.” Six years later, we are housing 38 percent more prisoners without having built one additional cell. At a per day cost that is down around 30 percent, by the way. But even we are out of capacity utilization ideas.
Enter our friends from the Council on State Governments and the Pew Foundation. Their analysis shows that we are imprisoning, in our most expensive spaces, more people for relatively minor, non-violent offenses, like low-level property and drug violations, than most other states. Some of our guests are not with the state corrections system long enough for any rehabilitation, substance-abuse counseling, or job training to take place. They’re only with us, as my guys say, “long enough to study under some real criminals.”
If we can get our legislature to go along, we will soon be matching the place of incarceration more closely to the offender’s true danger to society, reducing recidivism and saving a bundle of money on new prisons we don’t have to build and staff. We’ll reinvest a small fraction of the savings into better community corrections and rehab services. And, as the researchers told us, “You’ll still be five times tougher on criminals than Ohio, just not ten times.”
As the Times editorialists were thinking, “Even a benighted Midwestern Republican stumbles on a good idea once in a while.” Which is approximately what I was thinking about them!
I volunteer in a prison in Indiana with Prison Fellowship. The Governor is on to something. The prison is practically brand new (5-10 years old) and houses low-level offenders in a well made, over-gunned facility. I applaud this effort on the part of the State and Daniels.
(Plus: he has no charisma? Come on, he's hilarious. No sarcasm.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAfter 30 yrs in law enforcement I would offer the following caveats: drugs are the major driver of crime, specifically “low-level property crime”. A junkie with a $100 a day habit has to steal $1000 worth of property (fenced at 10 cents on the dollar) in order to buy his dope. This adds up to $365,000 per year, not counting the repeated costs of arrest processing @ about $4000 per arrest repeated multiple times throughout the course of a year or years until the offender is finally incarcerated. As for rehabilitation, fugeddahaboudit! The corrections industry has been trying for rehabilitation for just about 90 years now, without any success. I would hazard that this long of a research period is sufficient to conclude that there is no sense in wasting money or effort on self-perpetuating scam that has produced no credible results. What does appear to work is warehousing criminals where they cannot prey upon the public. Warehousing costs maybe $20,000 per year, which is a savings of $345,000 per year minimum just in property losses to the public. As demonstrated by the correlation between the drop in the crime rate over the last 10 years with the rise in the number of criminals incarcerated, warehousing works demonstrably better than the ever elusive “rehabilitation”.Before someone responds that we should just legalize drugs to stop the crime, what do you suppose all those criminals making all that money are going to do? Are they going back to school to finish their masters, or get a 9 to 5 job at the bank? These are criminals who do not want to work for a living and do want easy money. They will continue to sell drugs targeting children if its legalized for adults, or engage in kidnapping, extortion, robbery, banditry, piracy and general nefariousness. They are criminals by predeliction and trade and will continue to prey upon society regardless of whether or not drugs are legal. The NY Times would actually prefer that no money be spent on the criminal justice system in order to put and end their perception of “oppression by da man". If Mr. Daniels agrees to that return to the law of the jungle, so be it. Don’t protect anybody’s property. Just keep in mind that some of us will do what is necessary to protect our property and our families if the state deems it too expensive to protect us. Maybe the other frivolous state expenditures are what is too expensive, beginning with the cost of Congress and all its staffers that we waste money on.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI've always thought that the state’s primary reason for existence was to provide for the safety of its citizens and their property. Money seems to be plentiful for everything else but public safety. Light rail, bike lanes, kum-by-yah programs anyone?
I agree with Bill, low level proerty crime is still crime especially if it is your property. Also I think Rudy G proved in New york that enforcing petty crimes helps preven major crimes.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePoint 1)
I don't understand why marijuana is still illegal anyway. Do you realize how many otherwise law-abiding citizens go to work every day, pay their bills on time, and like to come home to have a few tokes rather than a beer?
One other way to look at it: Ask State Troopers how many alcohol related accidents there are compared to accidents caused by pot smokers. Ask about domestic violence where alcohol is involved, versus marijuana.
People get far more wacked-out on alcohol than on weed, hands down.
Even Pat Robertson of the 700 Club supports the legalization of marijuana because filling up the prison system with pot smokers is foolish.
Point 2)
Rehabilitation may not work on 100% of the prison population. But it's worth it for those who do take advantage of it and become productive members of society. I know a number of parolees who are working on staying clean and staying out of the prison system.
I say, rehabilitation should at least be available for those who have a desire to do the right thing for the right reason.
Point 3)
Why were the in-patient mental health care systems closed down by the scores back in the 1970s-80s? Do we think that the prison system is the appropriate place for someone with Schizophrenia or Bi-polar Disorder with a Paranoid component? I bet if you ask the prison guards, they don't particularly care for babysitting folks who have had nothing more than a bad case of brain chemistry mixed with a bad day of trying to survive on the street.
Unfortunately, many of the Mentally Ill that are elderly end up in nursing homes, terrorizing residents there, and in some cases even killing them.
Conclusion:
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo, take the Mentally Ill out of the prisons. Take the petty drug violators out of the prisons (either legalize or decriminalize marijuana). Reform a few of the "3-strikes" laws. There, you have it: Only the truest of hardened, big-time criminals are behind bars. No overcrowding, and tax dollars are used more appropriately.
Obviously 30 years in law enforcement doesn't make you an expert on understanding societal problems Bill. When the beacon of Freedom in the world (i.e. America) incarcerates more people than Communist China, there is a very serious problem w/ how we are addressing our crime and "punishment" situation. We still have a colonial mentality when it comes to crime... ie just ship them off to an island and forget about it. We have proven that this does not work.
I applaud these moves. Unfortunately, they are coming 10-15 years later than they should have and it took a budget crisis to where we couldn't afford to build more prisons for people to actually realize it was the wrong tactic all along. Most of these people don't want to be criminals, they don't want to be drug addicts, they just don't have many options, or they don't know how to use the options we provide. If you show many of these people a better way to live, and provide them the resources to live those lives, they are going to take the better life free of crime, drugs and poverty every time.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOhio like the rest of the country already has MUCH more people on community supervision (alternatives) than in prison. The premise for reform is false. In 2009 Ohio had about 51,133 people locked up. This compares with about 269,524 in the community (mostly probation).
Nationally, during that same year we had about 1,613,741 people in prison with about 5,203,275 on community supervision. In this country imprisonment IS an alternative sentence.
The real and potentially dangerous over crowding is in community corrections. Probation/Parole officers struggle with caseloads of up to 500+ in some jurisdictions. Many of these cases are"banked" meaning they receive little to no supervision. A regular unsupervised probation case costs about $400.00 per year. Providing these cases with the needed supervision and treatment will cost more. But SO WHAT?
Public safety is not a matter of cost but of value.
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