Corrections figures highlight problem
Unless one believes that Alabamians are significantly more inclined to criminal conduct than the people of most other states, it is hard to justify our state having the sixth highest rate of incarceration in the nation. Something else has to be at work here.
A revealing new study by the Pew Center on the States should be examined closely by officials in Alabama -- indeed, by any Alabamian concerned about sound public policy. The study found that at the end of 2007, one in 75 adult Alabamians was incarcerated. There were more than 43,000 people in state prisons and county or city jails.
That one-in-75 figure is troubling enough, but when the Pew study expands the "correctional population" to include those on parole or probation, the figure jumps to one in 32 adult Alabamians.
Ponder that for a moment. One in 32 adult Alabamians is in jail or on parole or on probation.
As for the one in 75 behind bars, many of them, of course, should not be anywhere else. They are serving sentences for violent crimes or for offenses that present a physical threat to law-abiding society.
Many others, however, are locked up under ill-designed laws that incarcerate people needlessly. Nonviolent property crime offenders, most of them with drug problems, are not well served by incarceration, and neither is society. It's expensive and unproductive.
Alternatives to incarceration are crucial for Alabama, not merely to help contain the costs of incarceration -- although that's important -- but to lead over time to better outcomes for both the offender and society. Little is accomplished by incarcerating a person with a drug addiction whose crimes do not involve violence. The offender and the society to which he or she will eventually return both will benefit much more from an effective drug abuse treatment program.
That doesn't mean that these crimes draw no punishment. Instead, it means that alternative sentences for such nonviolent offenders include appropriate treatment along with restitution to victims. Simply locking up someone in this category of offender just raises the cost to the taxpayers without providing any real return in long-term enhancement of public safety.
Alternatives such as community-based corrections programs are far less expensive to operate than prisons and provide much better opportunities for treatment and restitution. In the end, everyone benefits more from that than from a mindless insistence on incarceration.
ON THE WEB
V To read the Pew report, log on to the following Web site:
pewcenteronthestates.org
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