Dudley Sharp, a victim advocate, proposes distributing the attached 1996 articles to counter-balance recent negative publicity? Do you agree?

Prisons are a Bargain, by Any Measure

The New York Times, January 16, 1996

by John J. DiIulio, Jr.

All told, research shows it costs society at least twice as much to let a prisoner loose than to lock him up. Compared with the human and financial toll of revolving-door justice, prisons are a real bargain.

On average, it costs about $25,000 a year to keep a convicted criminal in prison. For that money, society gets four benefits: Imprisonment punishes offenders and expresses society's moral disapproval. It teaches felons and would-be felons a lesson: Do crime, do time. Prisoners get drug treatment and education. And, as the columnist Ben Wattenberg has noted, "A thug in prison can't shoot your sister."

All four benefits count. Increased incarceration explains part of the drop in crime in New York and other cities. As some recent studies show, prisons pay big dividends even if all they deliver is relief from the murder and mayhem that incarcerated felons would be committing if free.

In two Brookings Institution studies, in 1991 and 1995, the Harvard economist Anne Piehl and I found that prisoners in New Jersey and Wisconsin committed an average of 12 crimes a year when free, excluding all drug crimes. In other studies, the economist Steven D. Levitt of the National Bureau of Economic Research estimated that "incarcerating one additional prisoner reduces the number of crimes by approximately 13 per year."

The economists Thomas Marvell and Carlisle Moody of William and Mary College found that "a better estimate may be 21 crimes averted per additional prisoner." Patrick A. Langan, senior statistician at the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, calculated that tripling the prison population from 1975 to 1989 may have reduced "violent crime by 10 to 15 percent below what it would have been," thereby preventing a "conservatively estimated 390,000 murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults in 1989 alone."

Studies by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 94 percent of state prisoners in 1991 had committed a violent crime or been incarcerated or on probation before. Of these prisoners, 45 percent had committed their latest crimes while free on probation or parole. When "supervised" on the streets, they inflicted at least 218,000 violent crimes, including 13,200 murders and 11,600 rapes (more than half of the rapes against children).

Most Americans are more likely to be a victim of violent crime than to suffer injury in a car accident. As estimated in a forthcoming National Institute of Justice study, the violent crimes committed each year will cost victims and society more than $400 billion in medical bills, lost days from work, lost quality of life?and lost life.

Here's the revolving-door rub. Known felons whom the system has put back on the streets are responsible for about one in three violent crimes, and barely one violent crime in a hundred results in imprisonment. On any given day in 1994, about 690,000 people were on parole and 2.96 million were on probation. About 1.5 times as many convicted violent felons were on probation or parole as were in prison.

All elected leaders should reckon that those who break their promises to protect society from career criminals can count on voters to shorten their political careers.

The benefits of prison vs. alternatives to incarceration debate will go on and on regardless. How do you really define and identify the "career criminal"?

In today's Cox News Service report concerning the recent Dyslexia Research Foundation study of the link between inability to read and the unsuccessful rehabilitation of offenders we find the following: "every 1000 nonreaders released from prison will cost taxpayers $12 million in future prison costs," and that more than 15% of those released in 2002 in Texas were unable to read. I have to imagine the report is correct in its assessment that the study "is expected to generate new support for a growing list of alternative-to-prison initiatives, as a way to cut crime, save taxpayer money and avert building more prisons in coming years."

My conclusion: rehabilitation can succeed or it can fail and the societal costs are great in either event.

I have noticed a definite pattern of send away to prison as a last resort, at least as far as certain offenses and offenders are concerned, in my jurisdiction recently. We just finally had a probation violator sentenced to pen time after 10+ years and I don't have any idea how many dollars and it was like pulling teeth to do that. The guy originally was part of a major theft ring that stole over $150,000 worth of farm equipment, trailors, etc. over several counties and he was involved in at least five of the thefts etc. He was originally placed on deferred adjudication and about a year or so later violated his probation the first time. This last time he was finally revoked was after having committed at least five new offenses, the first violation was a felony drug offense which only resulted in probation in another county and some innocuous amendment of his probation here, then there were several domestic violence problems with the usual vacillating complainants and short stints in jail as a slap on the wrist as well as continuous bouts of absconding. Finally, in 2000 after about four motions to adjudicate he was finally adjudicated and got shock probation! That started a new ten year probation which was finally revoked this year after he absconded again, this time to Florida, committed a new offense there which resulted in pen time and fought extradition back here.

But wait, there is more, here is where the money argument comes in. When he was brought back, along with a bill of about $1200 for transporting him, he was made, get this, a Trusty! and began working outside on a regular basis and was treated more like a county employee than an inmate. As his motion hearing started its slow move through out docket, (for some reason he and his attorney were in no hurry to get this disposed of, go figure) we wanted to send him away for an appropriate length of time to match his lengthy criminal journey, but began getting letters from various government officials and employees expounding about his politeness and the great work he has done for the county as a trusty etc., etc.

The final blow, as far as I am concerned, was when one county official began talking about how we probably owed this guy money because of all the fine work he had done etc. They wanted us to agree to give him one year in the County Jail so that he could continue to work for them on various projects. Luckily our Judge did not think that such decisions should be budget based and revoked him. Now I would not be surprised to see them try and keep him here anyway, but we will see. Bottom line, he has probably cost five times as much if you add it all up as it will cost to house etc. him in prison for the amount of time he will be there.

I think that trying to help someone succeed on probation is a good thing, but it can get ridiculous. Oh and I don't know if he has any learning disabilities, except the obvious ones made worse by well meaning people. Isn't being a Trusty supposed to be a privilege? I guess that counts as my June venting alotment. Thanks for your time.

Joan, anytime I find myself in need of a reality check, I just ask myself what our ancestor Daniel Gilleland would do or would think.

I don't think Daniel would approve of the cronyism that you speak of in your post. He would be proud that you kept on going and that the right thing got done. And surely, he would be amazed that there is any kind of debate whatsoever regarding the need for prisons.

Joan, sounds like your guy is in line for the Bosque County rehab plan. We actually bench-warranted a prisoner back out of state custody so that he could continue to perform his good services in the local community. He was released to perform as a trusty during the day and returned to the county jail at night (getting credit on his sentence as though in the state system). The surprising thing to me was TDCJ has no problem with such an arrangement. It is amazing how creative the alternatives to punishment can be for the right persons.

Yes Martin,

I think that the process to get our intrepid Trusty back from TDCJ to continue his good works in our county began even before the ink dried on the judgment. I figure now, as long as the Pen Pack actually gets sent to where it is supposed to go, that it is all up to TDCJ and Parole now and whatever they do is their responsibility. At least he is not like the guy who committed an Aggravated Robbery here while he was out on furlough from TDCJ several years ago, and he actually went back at the end of his furlough. That case is famous for ending, at least at that time, the furlough program.

When the Judge was considering all arguments on this guy, he spoke of the dangers of deciding cases not only on the basis of budgets, but also on the basis of who had the most marketable (for the jail and/or county purposes) skill. He made the comment that what if some poor guy was a saxophone player rather than a carpenter etc.? The defense attorney had a good reply to that one, well we could used a good saxophone player around here at Christmas. At least things seldom get boring around here.

Back to the subject at hand though, I have not put a pencil to it, or a calculator either to that matter, but I know that keeping some of these guys in prison can't cost nearly as much as what we have sunk into them while trying to help them make it on probation. Some of them are worth it, but not the majority. But hey, I have job security at least.