Volume CXXXI, Number 22 April 19, 2002 f

Society's warehouses
HUGH HILL

I want to applaud the students who put the display up in Smith Union this week highlighting the large number of Americans incarcerated by our justice system. The fact that a nation of two hundred and seventy million has locked up almost two million of its inhabitants speaks volumes as to our society. Only Russia, the nation that gave birth to that monstrosity known as the Gulag incarcerates a larger percent of its population.

We spend billions every year to incarcerate these people and it begs the question what is the benefit our society reaps and what is its cost? Is this really the best way to spend this money?

Now lets address those who applaud this. Crime is down. The drug trade, and the violent crime associated with it that marked the 1980s, is down. In fact, over 60 percent of those incarcerated today are in prison for non-violent drug offenses. Many applaud this, noting the correlation between drugs and violent crime.

While it is true that a large part of the drop in crime during the 1990s was due to the Clinton-economic boom, it is also true that part of the drop in violent crime is from that fact that these people are no longer on our streets. In this sense, we have succeeded in making society safer. We refuse to pay the cost as a society, thankfully, of executing these people who refuse to live by our code. Thus warehousing them seems to be the only option.

Or is it?

There was another interesting statistic up in the Union. It compared the average annual cost of Head Start per pupil versus the average annual cost of incarcerating an inmate. If I remember correctly it was $4,500 for Head Start and $45,000 for the inmate, a ten-fold relation. Now we all know that it has been statistically proven that kids in Head Start are much less likely to end up in prison and much more likely to be productive elements in our society.

This point about education is important and, if you think like me, you'll anticipate the point I'm going to make about that figure (not that it doesn't scream in your face or anything). However let's put it on hold for a second.
We're doing that because I want to make a point about crime. I am a strong believer in poverty and lack of opportunity being the root of almost all crime. Yes there are always going to be the socio-paths. I went to prep school with a kid who is now in prison (along with his brother) for multiple attempted murders and he came from one of the richest, nicest families in the DC-area. There was just something wrong with his psyche that made him unable to function as a normal human being.

That's not who we're talking about. We're talking about the vast majority of criminals in our prisons today (remember that 60 percent non-violent drug offender number?). They are there because of poverty and lack of education. No one wants to grow up to be thief, a drug dealer, a gangbanger, a drug-user. But when the only opportunity is the remote possibility of a job at McDonalds, what do you expect people to do?

Now we'll go back to that number above us. It is ten times more expensive to incarcerate someone than to educate them. Already our society is losing the opportunity of having almost two million of its members contribute anything more than license plates. Shouldn't we be smart and spend the money we use on incarceration more wisely? It sounds like a pretty good investment to me when, for ten percent of the cost, you can almost-entirely ensure that you will not have to imprison someone. We need to spend our money on training and education to ensure that our prison population does not grow any larger.

We can also shrink our population. Instead of having our prisons be merely warehouses for our undesirables, we could spend just a little more money and turn them into places where we could transform people. Many of our prisons now only turn out hardened criminals. What if they were turning out people with marketable job skills? Most people don't want to be criminals, but if that's all you know how to do, that's what you're going to do. Give prisoners a chance at a better life and most will leap for it and, most importantly, we all will benefit.