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

DATE: TUESDAY, August 29, 1995                   TAG: 9508290030
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CRIME OFFERS NO EASY CHOICES

THE POSTURING by both political parties about prison-building in Virginia might tempt some to dismiss the concern as election-year politics-as-usual - which it is. Despite that, it shouldn't be dismissed as such by voters.

There are substantive differences over important issues.

First, a brief observation about what those differences are not. Democrats have never displayed any conspicuous desire to free murderers and rapists in order to help them get back on the streets as quickly as possible and hurt people - possibly you. Republicans have never suggested that money that would have provided little Susie or Johnny with remedial reading instruction should be snatched away and spent on building prisons in time to throw them in the slammer when they become illiterate adults.

Would that the state's choices were so clear-cut.

Truth is, George Allen won the governorship in part with a pledge to end parole. He said this would require building prisons, and prisons cost lots of money. He proposes paying for them with future debt. While the Republican administration has been no friend of higher education, it has not slashed university budgets explicitly to funnel the money into prison cells. (It has slashed university spending, and asked for authority to borrow more money for more prisons.)

The Republicans have invited this easy political dichotomy, though, by focusing efforts and rhetoric on plans to slap up concrete walls and barred windows as fast as the one can set and hold the other in place.

Longer terms actually spent incarcerated offer welcome protection from violent and repeat offenders. The longer the predators are kept away from law-abiding citizens, the better.

But considerable anguish is inflicted on the innocent before just some of the worst offenders are identified, convicted and removed from society. Lowering the level of violence will require at least as much emphasis on preventing it as on responding to it.

So, while Democratic lawmakers have authorized quite a lot of money, actually, for quite a lot of prison beds, they take the more sensible view that such successful crime-prevention programs as community-based policing are a much-needed investment deserving higher priority.

It's good, generally speaking, to be thinking of choices with costs and consequences - instead of demanding or offering all possible goodies delivered simultaneously. What the electorate and our political leadership must acknowledge is that limited resources force any government to make choices about how it spends its money.

Allen continues to enjoy support in public-opinion polls for building prisons. But building prisons comes in last when voters are asked to rank the state's spending priorities.

There is no conflict here. When asked if they'd like criminals kept off the street, most everybody will say yes. When asked to choose between paying room and board for felons and educating children, the answer is equally easy to anticipate.

While the Democrats have oversimplified the prison-schools choice, as the GOP complains, there is truth in what they say about the administration's overall spending priorities.

by CNB