US prisons full, but crime, cost to taxpayers soar

Researchers urge shorter sentences, major overhaul

Crowding and inadequate medical facilities plague San Quentin State Prison in California. Among recommendations yesterday, a report called for alternative punishments, decriminalization for recreational drugs, and more help for released inmates. (JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES/FILE)

WASHINGTON - The number of people in US prisons has risen eightfold since 1970, with little impact on crime but at great cost to taxpayers and society, researchers said yesterday in a report calling for a major justice-system overhaul.

The report cites examples ranging from former vice-presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby to a Florida woman's two-year sentence for throwing a cup of coffee to make its case for reducing the US prison population of 2.2 million - nearly one-fourth of the world's total.

It recommends shorter sentences and parole terms, alternative punishments, more help for released inmates, and decriminalizing recreational drugs as steps to cut the prison population in half, save $20 billion a year, and ease social inequality without endangering the public.

But the recommendations run counter to decades of broad US public and political support for getting tough on criminals through longer, harsher prison terms. They also are in opposition to the Bush administration's antidrug and strict-sentencing policies.

"President Bush was right" in commuting Libby's perjury sentence this year as excessive, the report says. "But while he was at it, President Bush should have commuted the sentences of hundreds of thousands of Americans who each year have also received prison sentences for crimes that pose little if any danger or harm to our society."

The report was produced by the JFA Institute, a Washington criminal-justice research group, and its authors included eight criminologists from major US public universities. It was funded by the Rosenbaum Foundation and financier and political activist George Soros's Open Society Institute.

The US Department of Justice did not have an immediate comment on the report. But the Bush administration has previously resisted proposals to relax sentencing guidelines.

There are signs of shifting attitudes on sentencing policies. Some financially strapped states are shortening sentences, and Congress is moving toward bipartisan passage of increased help for released prisoners, said executive director Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project, which has advocated alternatives to long sentences.

"Compared to where we were in the [mid-1990s], it's been a very significant change," Mauer said.

More than 1.5 million people are now in US state and federal prisons, up from 196,429 in 1970, the report said. Another 750,000 people are in local jails. The US incarceration rate is the world's highest, followed by Russia, according to 2006 figures compiled by Kings College in London.

Since 1970, the US population has risen 50 percent overall.

Although the US crime rate began declining in the 1990s it is still about the same as in 1973, the JFA report said. But the prison population has soared because sentences have gotten longer and people who violate parole or probation, even with minor lapses, are more likely to be imprisoned.

"The system is almost feeding on itself now. It takes years and years and years to get out of this system, and we do not see any positive impact on the crime rates," James Austin, president of the JFA and a coauthor of the report, said at a news conference.

The report said the prison population is projected to grow by another 192,000 in five years, at a cost of $27.5 billion to build and operate additional prisons.

At current rates, one-third of all black males, one-sixth of Latino males, and one in 17 white males will go to prison during their lives.

Women represent the fastest-growing segment of the prison population, the report said. The result is increased social and racial inequality.

"The massive incarceration of young males from mostly poor- and working-class neighborhoods, and the taking of women from their families and jobs, [have] crippled their potential for forming healthy families and achieving economic gains," the report said.