A GROWING FRATERNITY

THREE-STRIKES laws and increased incarceration for drug crimes are putting a
growing number of Americans behind bars. A new Justice Department report states
that 5.6 million people - nearly one in every 37 U.S. adults - either were
confined to state or federal prisons or had served time behind bars.

At the end of last year, a record 2.1 million people were in federal, state or
local custody, the report said.

Sentencing reform for drug offenses was finally discussed in statehouses across
the nation during the last legislative session. But in the Missouri
Legislature, the debate was driven more by the state's money woes than by the
desire for greater equity in sentencing.

The Missouri Legislature recently voted to lower the maximum sentence for some
felonies to four years, an effort to save the state as much as $8.2 million in
the first year and as much as $17 million the year after. In addition, the
lawmakers hope to discourage judges from sending nonviolent felons to prison
for a 120-day shock sentence, then leaving them there past their release date.
Under the new law, prisoners can petition judges to end their sentences on
time.

Jailing these offenders can create as many problems as it solves, some experts
say. They point to the growing number of former prisoners whose federal
convictions have made it virtually impossible for them to get a job; they are
further disenfranchised by not being allowed to vote. And addressing the
emotional problems of ex-inmates and their families puts more strain on state
and local budgets, says Jason Zeidenbert of the Justice Policy Institute, an
advocacy agency for alternatives to prison sentences.

The incarceration figures show that a disproportionate percentage of blacks are
behind bars. In 2001, the Justice Department study showed that the rate of
incarceration of black males was six times higher than that of white males. If
overall rates of incarceration don't change, nearly 7 percent of all people
born in the United States in 2001 will go to federal or state prison during
their lifetime, up from nearly 2 percent in 1971, the federal study says.

Some states are making welcome changes in order to slow prison growth. But the
changes don't address the needless harm of locking up people who aren't violent
offenders and who could be turned into responsible adults through counseling,
drug treatment and other services. Nor do they address the huge social and
financial costs of dealing with ex-offenders who return to the streets harder,
poorer and less well-adjusted than when they went in. When those costs are
factored in, the price of locking up millions of Americans makes the price of
prevention look like a steal.