Fox Butterfield of the New York Times is famous for his ongoing astonishment that crime can fall while prison building increases. In August 2000, he wrote a story: “Number in Prison Grows Despite Crime Reduction.” In 1998 he wrote “Prison Population Growing Although Crime Rate Drops.” In 1997 he observed: “Crime Keeps On Falling, but Prisons Keep On Filling.” Well, it looks like the Times has been selling it’s Kool Aid: here’s the headline for an AP story in today’s Washington Post : “Number Of Prisoners Rises as Crime Drops.” Here’s how it begins:

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 yesterday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Preliminary FBI statistics showed a 0.2 percent drop in overall crime during the same span.