ROBBING OUR PUPILS TO PAY FOR THE PRISONS

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Not really, but it's a matter all of us should be concerned about.

I'm talking about the fact that a new Justice Department study shows that
at the end of 2002, there were 2,166,260 Americans in local jails, state
and federal prisons and juvenile detention facilities.

That's a lot of folks, way more than would fit in all 32 of the National
Football League stadiums combined on a given Sunday afternoon.

The study, released this past Sunday, shows that the nation's prison
population grew by 2.6% last year despite nearly a decade of declines in crime.

But more importantly, the study said, ''The $40 billion cost of corrections
nationally now threatens the viability of higher education and other vital
state services.''

''I think much of what it shows is that the legacy of the get-tough
movement of the '80s and '90s, mandatory sentencing, three strikes and
you're out, the war on drugs continued to send more people to prison and
keep them there for longer periods of time despite the fact that crime is
actually going down,'' said Marc Mauer, assistant director for The
Sentencing Project, a Washington-based national organization that promotes
criminal justice reform and alternatives to incarceration.

Just four years ago, in 1999, Mauer authored a book titled Race to
Incarcerate (The New Press), in which he predicted then that the nation's
prison population would reach 2 million by 2000. He also issued a
passionate plea for change.

Such a plea has been made by others for years, but far too many states just
keep locking people up.

And that's especially true when it comes to people of color.

The Justice Department study, according to The New York Times, found that
10.4% of black men ages 25 to 29, or 442,300 people, were in prison last
year. By comparison, the newspaper said, 2.4% of Hispanic men and 1.2% of
white men in the same age group were in prison.

''What we find now is that African Americans are about seven times as
likely to be incarcerated in prison as whites and about half the prison
population now consists of African-Americans,'' Mauer said in an interview
over a local radio station Tuesday. ''These figures have become very
dramatic in recent years, so much so that a black boy born today stands a
29% chance . almost three of every 10 black boys born today can expect to
go to prison at some point in their lives if the current trends continue.

''There is much debate about where these figures come from, to what extent
is this crime rate, to what extent is this policy? Much of what we've seen
in recent years is the intersection of race in the justice system.

''The war on drugs by and large has not been a war on everyone's drug use
but rather a war on inner-city (I don't like that term) drug use and
low-income communities. Similarly, we've seen through documentation of
racial profiling how race plays out in terms of the death penalty and all
sorts of things. . The way discretion is used in the justice system often
has negative consequences for people of color.''

Mauer also said parents who are concerned about having to pay higher
tuition at public universities for their college-age children should also
be concerned about the nation's rising prison population.

''Policymakers don't say this very often, but basically part of the reason
tuition is going up is because of all the money that is being invested in
prisons over the last decade,'' Mauer said. ''We often develop criminal
justice policy in a very short term way.

''You know, there is a sort of crime of the month, and legislators decide
to get tough and increase sentences, but clearly what we need to do is have
more of a long-term vision. The investments we make in our children today
and our institutions are going to pay off 20 years from now, and we have to
decide: Do we want to build more prisons, or do we want to build more schools?

''It seems to me most communities would certainly rather have a more
positive approach to community development, but our public policy,
certainly in urban areas, has been much more toward emphasizing law
enforcement and incarceration.''

One of the things Mauer suggests that we do as a nation is invest early on
in our children by making sure that they learn how to read and are not
behind in math.

''I think also that we're finally starting to see the beginning of some
change, and a lot of it is being brought on by the fiscal crisis facing
many states,'' he said. ''Many states are going broke right now, and
they've got to balance the budget, and they're recognizing that prisons are
very expensive.''

In Tennessee, for example, the inmate population Tuesday afternoon in the
state's 15 penal facilities was 19,053, an increase of 1,466 inmates since
July 2000.

And most criminal justice experts say it costs an average of $20,000 per
year to house a prisoner. Just think what we could do with that money if we
find some better ways of handling people who get in trouble with the law.

Dwight Lewis is a columnist, regional editor and member of the editorial
board for The Tennessean.