PRISON STATS DISCOURAGING

Sadly, the statistics roll in. Surely, of all the head-counting and list-making government does today, the ever-growing number of prison inmates has to be the very saddest.

Nationwide statistics report that the inexorable growth in our prison population continues apace. This number has doubled over the last decade, climbing to nearly 1.6 million last year. The rate of incarceration has grown from 313 per 100,000 U.S. residents in 1985 to 600 inmates per 100,000 in 1995. Of this number, just over one million are in federal and state prisons, where terms commonly exceed one year, while approximately 507,000 are in local jails, where sentences are usually shorter.

State and federal penitentiaries are jammed beyond capacity. These institutions are between 14 and 25 percent beyond capacity. With the new, tougher juvenile crime laws being passed in state after state, it appears the foreseeable future will see continued significant increases. In the short term there would appear to be no alternative.

When a brutal criminal is in jail or the penitentiary, he can't rape and murder your sister. Still, society must aspire to do better, over the long haul, than just to keep building prisons.