THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 3, 1994 TAG: 9411030021
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
The United States has passed another milestone, perhaps a reassuring one in some ways, certainly a disturbing one in others. The Justice Department announced the other day that some time during the first six months of 1994 the population of our federal and state prisons went over 1 million.
Long fed up with both the incidence and violence of crime, Americans may feel statistically less endangered because more of the dangerous are locked up. They applaud the get-tougher-on-criminals policies evident in both the federal crime bill and those of the states, Virginia's prominent among them.
But the statistics point to dismaying crime growth, measured several ways. For example, the prison population has doubled in 10 years. And between 1980 and 1982, the number of inmates per 100,000 people shot up from 139 to 373.
The District of Columbia, included among the states in the statistics, imprisons the largest percentage, 1,578 per 100,000. Texas is a distant second with 545. Virginia is 15th with 374.
With another half-million in local jails, the aggregate of 1.5 million or so represents an incarceration rate four times Canada's, five times that of England and Wales and 14 times Japan's.
A Justice Department statistician did observe that not only has arrest volume risen; so has the likelihood of confinement. In 1980, of every 1,000 people arrested for narcotics violations, only 19 were sent to prison; in 1992, 104 served time.
Even taking these factors into account, the contrasts to earlier times and to other countries are stark.
``Since the 1970s,'' said Professor Franklin E. Zimring of the University of California Law School, ``we've had an uninterrupted growth cycle in the number of inmates, one that is longer now than any previous one in the 20th century.
``The thing I find both remarkable and frightening is that there is no indication of a diminished sense of need in the public discussion. One of the things you look for after a point is a sense that enough is enough. But you sure don't find it in any of the key constituencies that are making demands on the prison system.''
And unless society finds the key to discouraging criminality in the first place, this growth cycle - and the attendant cost rises - will continue uninterrupted for years to come. by CNB