Prison Economics 101
by Jon Marc Taylor
Our nation's moral jihad against crime is causing us to devour ourselves
through perpetual, prolific prison-build-ing. We have 1.1 million people
impris-oned and another 500,000 jailed, yet we are historically no safer
today-nor in any greater danger of harm-than we were a century ago.
Over the past fifteen years, government-spending on prison construction
has increased more than 600%, yet construction represents only 6% of a prison's
total cost over its usable lifetime. The increases in both spending and
appropriations in state corrections for 1996 have by far outpaced every
other budget category. In 1980, correctional spending consumed only 1% of
state spending, and that was thought huge at the time. Now prisons voraciously
eat up 5% of the commonwealth's spending at the expense of everything and
everyone else.
California once had a world-class, highly accessible public higher-education
system that was the envy of the world. Now it ranks 46th in higher education
funding. Along with Florida (both of which operate two of the largest penal
systems in the world), Californians are spending more to incarcerate their
citizens than to educate their children. Michigan is not far behind. Texas
is dead last in public high school graduation rates-presently building more
prisons than anyone else to house lawbreakers, 85 percent of whom are high
school dropouts. States on average this fiscal year are increasing their
investments in public and higher education by 5%, Medicaid by 7%, and Aid
to Families with Dependent Children a paltry 6%, reserving a double-digit
increase of 13% for corrections.
Even with all this spending-tripling prison populations-the level of crime
has essentially remained unchanged over the past twenty years. Yet office-holders
predict dire perils ahead. This tremendous public investment, moreover,
has not resulted in a better, more efficient, or humane system. Over 60%
of those who go in and get out, eventually go back. Although the failure
of rehabilitation programming is not the culprit, the lack of its investment
is.
A comprehensive analysis of 443 studies on rehabilitation programs concluded
that they do work when certain principles are followed. They demonstrate
10-50 % or even greater reductions in recidivism, and subsequently in reduced
victimization and expensive revolving reincarceration as well. Paradoxically,
rehabilitation programs receive only crumbs from the prodigious correctional
pie-less than five cents of every dollar.
Nor is it true that we have built the country club prisons so vocally derided
by our statesmen and women. In fact, our nation's prison systems are in
violation of the universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International
Convention on Civil and Political Rights, with a recent European commission
finding the U.S. penal archipelago to be the "most barbarous"of
the western world. At home, as well, the courts have placed 39 states under
orders or consent decrees to clean up their acts. Prisons don't affect crime
rates, won't rehabilitate those incarcerated, and aren't palaces of luxury
and leisure.
They are, on the other hand, public work projects "nineties-style."
Communities fiercely compete in prison derbies to attract a clink to their
county. And why not! Hundreds of jobs delivering salaries and benefits averaging
in the mid-$20,000, the stimulating provision of sundry supplies, and a
steady stream of visitors to buy gas, meals, and lodging, is the economic
jackpot in an era of relocated factories, work force reductions, and shrinking
real wages.
In the Golden State, the rainbow's reward is even greater, with standard
guard pay-packages exceeding $55,000-tens of thousands more than school
teachers. No wonder the operation of West Coast gulags is more appreciated
than grade schools.
If we add the possible male work force currently incarcerated to present
unemployment rates, those figures would jump nearly two points, closing
on 9%. Some economists now worry that high incarceration levels will become
a drag on future economic growth. When eventually released, these potential
laborers lugging prison records, with poor education, little practical training,
and deficient social skills, won't be of much economic value. So we continue
spending more on prisons and less on schools, roads, and research. Crime
keeps on victimizing as before. And we are buying a less capable, more alienated
work force. Compared to our "dysfunctional '60s," we have wrought
a less civilized, more economically and socially divided society.
Time marches on and we still build more prisons to putatively make our streets
safer, while employing the laid-off corporate worker in a taxpayer-subsidized
job at half his/her previous wage and, in turn, laying off the college professor,
public health nurse, and social worker to fund further prison expansion.
Ad infinitum; ad nauseam.
Historian Barbara Tuchman, analyzing self-destructiveness in declining civilizations,
describes governmental folly as a policy that is perceived as counterproductive,
but nevertheless is pursued anyway.
The next time a politician calls for more prisons, tougher jails, or ever
more harsh terms, remember Nietzche's dictum to distrust all in whom the
urge to punish is strong. For they are punishing all of us with their folly.
JON MARC TAYLOR, Box 900-503273, Jefferson City, MO 65102.
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