- Originaly published in the Chicago Tribune on 8/2/2004
by Patricia Watkins, Executive director, TARGET Area, Development Corp., Convener, Developing Justice Coalition.
The July 27 editorial " . . . and a costly prison glut" is right on
target in suggesting our prison system is ripe for reform. Ironically,
while the budget "saved" all the prisons, it cut 4 percent across the
board from the Department of Corrections budget for programs, including
those that help offenders to avoid a life of crime after re-entry into
the community.
Missouri's programs have
reduced juvenile recidivism rates to below 10 percent. Why, instead of
emulating that model, are we saving jobs by keeping prisons open?
It's
hard to avoid the conclusion that maintaining the status quo in our
prison system is about the jobs of corrections employees. And it's hard
to avoid the facts and figures about how much the status quo costs the
state.
Costs for the state correctional
system went from $377 million in 1980 to $1.3 billion in 2000, a more
than 200 percent increase, according the Chicago Urban League.
While
we sympathize with communities that rely on public funds from
correctional facilities, we invite them to come look around our
neighborhoods in Chicago and the suburbs. Illinois sends the highest
percent of black drug offenders to prison in the nation, according to
the Urban League. While Illinois' African-Americans are 15 percent of
the state's illicit drug users, they are 37 percent of those arrested
for drug offenses and more than 75 percent of the total drug prisoners
in Illinois. More than 44 percent of drug prisoners are from Cook
County. When these individuals get out of prison, they face huge
difficulties finding jobs, treatment and access to other needed
resources.
The bottom line on prisons is
that they, at least as much as any industry on Earth, should be trying
to put themselves out of business.
We're
not naive enough to imagine a day without prisons, but we do believe
the state should seek to rein them in when appropriate, and to focus on
programs that keep in mind the bottom line: stopping people from
breaking laws.
That, we firmly believe, is the direction in which we ought to take the state's prison system.