Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Prison experience

Too many are jailed for victimless crimes

Notwithstanding a decade-long economic boom and a steady reduction in violent crime rates, the United States now holds the dubious distinction of having the world's largest proportion of its population behind bars.

At the end of 2001, more than 5.5 million Americans had some exposure to the prison system; some 1.3 million Americans were incarcerated in federal or state prisons and nearly 4.3 million more had been behind bars at some time during their lives. Roughly one of every 37 Americans has spent some time in jail.

Between 1974 and 2001, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports, the number of current and former prisoners increased by 3.8 million. If incarceration rates do not change, 6.6 percent of all persons born in the United States in 2001 will be imprisoned at some time during their lives. That's up from 5.2 percent of those born in 1991 and 1.9 percent of those in 1974.

Clearly, tougher sentencing laws -- including a greater reliance on longer prison terms -- and less-lenient attitudes about lawbreakers have proportionately boosted prison populations. To the extent that these sentences have taken off the streets murderers, rapists, burglars and others who have violated people or their property, the "tough on crime" policies have accomplished an appropriate purpose.

That said, a disturbing trend is developing as inmate populations are broken down along racial and ethnic lines: If rates of imprisonment do not change, about one of three black males and one of six Hispanic males is expected to go to prison during their lifetimes. But only one of 17 white males will be incarcerated.

The problem is, too many of our jail cells are filled with nonviolent offenders -- an undue number of them black and Hispanic -- who were caught in the cross-hairs of the war on drugs. Selling, possessing or ingesting banned substances has jailed hundreds of thousands of people who pose no threat to others.

For instance, one of every four inmates in federal or state prison has violated drug laws ... most of those are nonviolent offenses. And a third of female inmates are serving time for narcotics violations. As prison populations swell, and minimum sentences for nonviolent crimes lengthen, the criminal justice system loses the capacity to appropriately punish those who genuinely threaten the lives and property of law-abiding Americans.

Last week, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy told the annual meeting of the American Bar Association it's time to scrap mandatory minimum sentences altogether. "Our resources are misspent, our punishments too severe, our sentences too long," Justice Kennedy said.

Sadly, the numbers don't lie.Roughly one of every 37 Americans has spent some time in jail.