Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 19, 1994 TAG: 9411020006
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN P. FLANNERY II
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
To persuade the public his idea had merit, Gov. Allen invited us to study the years from 1986 through 1992. I did. Virginia confined more prisoners than ever in those years. We granted parole more sparingly in cases of violent crime. Yet violent crime increased. Questions of the dizzying cost aside, the governor wants us to repeat a policy that has failed miserably in the past. Even a child figures out after a couple of attempts that a round peg does not fit into a square hole, and tries something else.
I don't know why we are surprised that prisons don't work. Very few ``criminals'' who commit crime ever tangle with the system. Only about 10 percent of all serious crime in the nation is ever prosecuted. Ninety percent of the lawbreakers, therefore, commit crimes with impunity.
Virginia has evidence this is true. More than half of those convicted of violent crime in Virginia had no prior conviction. The governor disserves us when he claims that three-quarters of all crimes are committed by repeat offenders. They are not. The governor brags his program would have avoided about 1,600 violent convictions. Big deal! That's less than 1 percent of all violent offenses.
It should be obvious that, if you are not likely to go to prison, you are not really concerned about prison. How many criminal plots do you think conclude with the line, ``and then we get caught?'' Why Gov. Allen thinks no parole will ``deter'' killing when the electric chair has not is beyond my understanding.
Jean O'Neil, director of research and policy analysis for the National Crime Prevention Council, recently said, ``You can put a cop on every corner, [but you] could not stop homicides. I'm sorry, but it's true.'' When she made this statement at a public forum in Richmond, she added, gesturing with her hand as if it held a gun, that, even if there was a police officer present, he could not stop her from shooting the person sitting right next to her.
O'Neil recommended prevention because, she said, ``Prevention does work.'' She cautioned, however, ``We didn't get here overnight. We shouldn't pretend we'll get out of here overnight.''
The American Psychological Association says there is ``overwhelming evidence'' we can intervene to reduce crime among the young. But Gov. Allen is not proposing we even try. Rather than intervene to help young adults, the governor demonizes the young and prepares to imprison them.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hunter B. Andrews has said our debt capacity ``is finite, and must be marshalled to meet the needs of higher education ... '' That's the choice. The governor prefers to put the state in debt to imprison the young, rather than to educate them. I vote we invest in the young.
The Virginia State Police found the number of index crime offenses increased and fell almost synchronistically with the rise and fall of unemployed Virginians. Gov. Wilder's Commission on Violent Crime concluded that unemployment was a ``key predictor of recidivism.'' But Gov. Allen has almost entirely disregarded education and job training.
Our elected leaders refuse to learn from this unending drug war that the only effective crime cure is to treat those who are drug dependent. Experts concur that it is a waste of scarce prison resources to imprison the drug dealer who is immediately replaced by another dealer. Characteristically, Gov. Allen virtually disregards treatment.
We are going to fill up our prisons because the governor insists we adopt the same no-parole policy that has failed miserably in several other states. Under the governor's proposal, the model prisoner will serve as much of his sentence as the worst prisoner, no matter what the better prisoner does to prove himself. Now that's no incentive to reform.
The governor's no-parole plan is coupled with sentencing guidelines just like those federal judges and corrections officials have been attacking for years. The governor says no-parole will mean truth-in-sentencing. What we could really use is truth-in-politics.
The governor's declared objective is to ``incapacitate'' prisoners, that is, ``make [them] incapable or unfit.'' Consider how he is doing it. The governor has redefined the meaning of the term ``violent,'' and thus shall he confine more African-Americans for nonviolent offenses. His proposal is therefore racist in effect.
Although 35 percent of the prisoners are now double-bunked (already a high percentage), 80 percent will be double-bunked (two to a cell) under the governor's program. So the prisons will be overcrowded.
Although 62 percent of the offenders are unemployed when confined, almost all of them will be left untrained and uneducated under the governor's program. Although 80 percent of the offenders are drug dependent when confined, all but 3 percent (700 ``beds'') will be left untreated under the governor's program.
The measure of a civilization is how we treat our own. By this standard, the governor's proposal is barbaric. It denies prisoners any dignity or hope that they may improve their human condition.
When Gov. Allen's prisoner is led to freedom past the prison walls with $25 and a bus ticket, and no other resources, still drug-dependent, without any job training, with little or no education and virtually no hope of employment, what can you expect? He is going to commit a crime. What else is he fit to do? The governor's proposal guarantees that Virginia's prisons shall be factories of crime.
It is obvious the governor's $100,000 media campaign is mean and ugly, riddled with false and misleading statements, and predicated upon fear and hysteria, ridiculing any who have the nerve to contradict the governor. It is pure demagoguery to use crime victims the way the governor has. He parades them around the state, inviting all who hear to indulge their hate and fear in response. The governor has been victimizing the victims he would champion.
Let's give reason a chance. Let's be sure we need more prisons before we default on the education of our young. Let's not bury our children in debt for our cowardice to confront the complex issues before us.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ``Cowardice asks the question, `Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, `Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, `Is it popular?' But conscience must ask the question, `Is it right?''' The governor's program is not right. Let us set it right.
John P. Flannery II of Leesburg is attorney for Virginia CURE, Citizens United for the Rehabiitation of Errants.
by CNB