
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, November 4, 1994                   TAG: 9411040119
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A15   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                 LENGTH: Medium

STUDY: PRISONS DO REDUCE CRIME

A new study that shows slower crime growth in states that have built more prisons challenges the view of many criminal justice experts who claim there is no evidence more incarceration means less crime.

But critics of the ``Report Card on Crime and Punishment'' questioned the validity of the study. Alvin J. Bronstein, head of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project, called it ``voodoo criminology'' and added, ``They are misrepresenting everything.''

Christopher Baird of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency called the study ``one more version of the same overly simplistic type of analysis that has been periodically rehashed since the Reagan administration.''

The study was issued Wednesday by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a national association of state legislators. It was based on FBI crime and imprisonment data from 1960 through 1992.

A report of the findings said ``there is an indisputable relationship between crime rates and incarceration figures.''

Of the 10 states where violent crime rates decreased most between 1980 and 1992, six were among the 10 states that increased their violent crime incarceration rates the most, the study said.

While most criminologists define the incarceration rate as the number of people in prison divided by the total population of a state, this study uses a different methodology. Researchers divided the number of prisoners by the number of crimes reported in the FBI's annual Crime Index. They call this the ``criminal incarceration rate.''

Among those speaking for the council in Washington was former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, co-chairman of Gov. George Allen's parole abolition commission. The plan drafted by the commission and approved by the General Assembly in September will require an estimated $1 billion to $2 billion in new prison construction in Virginia in the next 10 years.

``This study makes a strong case that increasing prison capacity is the single most effective strategy for controlling crime,'' wrote Barr in the study's foreword.

The study said that from 1960 to 1980, ``the experience in Virginia mirrored the national trend,'' as Virginia's criminal incarceration rate declined 62 percent while its crime rate increased 180 percent. But, from 1980 to 1992, the criminal incarceration rate increased 85 percent and the crime rate declined 7 percent.

According to the study's ``time clock,'' there is a murder in Virginia every 15 hours and 32 minutes; a rape every 4 hours and 22 minutes; a robbery each hour; and an aggravated assault every 42 minutes.

Baird said the biggest reason for the growth in crime from 1960 to 1980 was the maturation of male baby-boomers into the age group most prone to commit crimes.

by CNB