Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 6, 1994 TAG: 9412060048
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Such phrases are the mantra of Republicans intent on institutionalizing tough-minded conservative policy making in Richmond, Washington and around the country.
Excellent. Permit us to introduce the toughest of the tough-minded to a Roanoke-based initiative that, despite its name, embodies all four descriptions. It's called Virginia CARES.
Cost-effective? With a severely limited budget of $1.3 million in yearly state funding, Virginia CARES operates a grass-roots network of community-action groups that have saved state taxpayers inestimable millions in the costs of crime and incarceration.
It does this by working one-on-one each year with about 3,000 about-to-be released inmates, or those recently released from state prisons. It helps them to find and keep jobs and housing; to get training, education, and treatment, if necessary, for drug and alcohol addiction; and to reconnect with their families whenever possible.
These clients aren't the most deserving around. But criminals' victims don't deserve to be victimized, either. By helping inmates find a place and firmly set their feet in law-abiding society, Virginia CARES helps deter many of them from doing what most of the state's ex-prisoners do: commit more crimes.
Virginia's overall recidivism rate hovers around 60 percent. This alarming statistic helped spur Gov. Allen's initiatives to end parole and impose stricter sentences for violent crimes. Violent predators do need longer prison stays. But the governor's actions are expected to swell Virginia's inmate population from 20,000 to about 52,000 in 10 years, and require up to $2 billion in new-prison construction costs - plus the costs of maintaining inmates behind bars, which now run about $16,000 per prisoner per year, not counting extraordinary medical expenses. This will be cost-effective, says the governor, if it prevents new crimes from being committed by ex-prisoners.
But, meantime, studies indicate that the recidivism rate for inmates who participate in the Virginia CARES program is about 25 percent lower than the overall state rate. It shouldn't take a genius in cost-benefit analysis to figure that expanding Virginia CARES, so that it could work with more ex-prisoners, might save taxpayers money - not to mention turning prisoners into tax-paying contributors to society instead of liabilities and threats.
Privatized? Gov. Allen wants to study privatizing some prison operations. Virginia CARES is a good example of the private sector doing well what the public sector - in this case, the bureaucratically entrenched Virginia corrections system - has failed to do: rehabilitate offenders.
Entrepreneurial? Virginia CARES was started in Roanoke as a small pilot project of Total Action Against Poverty. A few people saw a need - a market, if you will - and acted on their vision. The program, responding practically and flexibly to diverse situations, now serves 31 prisons and 28 local communities.
Tough on crime? It's really tough on crime to prevent it. Though it may be less politically popular than throw-away-the-key rhetoric, prevention is also a more pleasant option for would-be victims thereby spared.
It is curious that Gov. Allen seems to have given no serious thought to a bigger role for Virginia CARES in his crime-busting crusade.
Curiouser still, some corrections officials have toyed with recommending that the group's work be taken over by the state - this at a time when the governor is threatening to fire 16,000 state workers.
Could it be the corrections bureaucracy is more interested in job preservation than crime prevention? Or has the cost-conscious, privatizing, entrepreneurial, tough-on-crime crowd gone soft in the head?
by CNB