Point Of View

TO CUT CRIME, TRY INCARCERATION

In a recent editorial, the New York Times opined that, due to the cost of
incarceration, our society should incarcerate fewer criminals. The Times
has it backward. We cannot afford to fail to incarcerate dangerous
criminals. True, it costs about $22,000 per year to keep an inmate in
prison. The cost of not locking up dangerous criminals, however, far
exceeds that. The key is understanding that if the criminals are not in
prison, they will be in our community creating more victims among our
friends and neighbors. The additional crimes cause not only monetary costs
but, more importantly, emotional costs to the victims and their families.
The $22,000 per prisoner per year is only half of the equation.

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics completed a detailed study in June
2002 of 272,111 former inmates to see if they committed additional crimes.
That study found that within the first three years, 67.5 percent had been
rearrested for a felony or a serious misdemeanor. Those criminals were
found to have committed an average of four new crimes.

Those numbers represent the low end. It is unknown how many of those
released committed crimes without getting caught and how many crimes by
known offenders went unsolved. Thus, using the findings of the bureau's
study, if we release 100 prisoners, we should anticipate at least 67 of
those prisoners committing at least 270 new crimes in just the first three
years.

The bureau is not the only organization to come to this conclusion.
Criminology professor Joan Petersilia of the University of California at
Irvine has found that studies dating to the 1960s consistently conclude
that about two-thirds of released prisoners will commit new crimes in the
first three years. It is a trend, unfortunately, that can be counted upon.

An informative analysis of prison costs was a Rand Corporation study,
titled "California's New Three Strikes-Law: Benefits, Costs and
Alternatives." That study showed that mandatory incarceration for
third-time offenders, although causing an increase in incarceration costs,
would reduce the serious felony rate 22 to 34 percent. The Rand study used
the correct analysis because it considers both the cost of incarceration
and the cost of failing to incarcerate criminals.

It is important to note that the criminals who end up in prison are the
most serious criminals. First-time offenders for insignificant crimes are
appropriately dealt with through alternatives to incarceration.

The New York Times is puzzled why, at a time crime rates are down,
incarceration rates should be up. Here's the answer: Crime rates are down
because incarceration rates are up.

Certainly our society needs a balanced approach to incarceration. However,
when considering the cost of incarceration, it is essential that we include
in that analysis the cost to our community of failing to incarcerate
dangerous criminals.

McCampbell is U.S. attorney in Oklahoma City, for the Western District of
Oklahoma.