Prison Overcrowding: No Way to Build Our Way Out By Comptroller DAWN CLARK NETSCH

Rising crime throughout the 1980s brought stiffer punishments for violent criminals and new prisons were built around the state to house the surging inmate population.

But the harsher punishments and the increase in incarcerations have not translated into a reduction in violent crime in Illinois. Quite the opposite.

"We cannot build our way out of the problem of prison overcrowding," says Nic Howell, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Corrections.

The reason is that although the state has built 14 prisons since 1975, Illinois prisons today house 30,400 people, more than 25 percent beyond their rated capacity of 24,200.

Six new facilities have been built but are vacant now because the state fiscal crisis has meant there are no funds to staff them. Even when they are opened, they will add only 1,900 beds to a hopelessly overcrowded system.

So what do you do if you don't build more prisons?

"We need to put violent criminals away, but we cannot afford to send all offenders to prison," Howell says. "We need to look at intermediate sanctions for criminals such as drug offenders, who might be better suited for some type of community-based treatment." Illinois is home to the nation's foremost expert on "intermediate sanctions," Norval Morris, professor of law and criminology at the University of Chicago. He has literally written the book (along with Michael Tonry) — "Between Prison and Probation" — addressing the need to increase the use of intermediate punishments in our justice system.

"The present overuse of both imprisonment and probation has not had a measurable effect on crime rates," Morris noted recently in an article in the Federal Prisons Journal. "The criminal justice systems of the United States would seem to be prime targets for a massive expansion of all those punishments that lie between imprisonment and probation."

The numbers alone, Morris said, mandate that judicial and corrections officials pursue other options, such as halfway houses and home confinement programs, most of which are connected to electronic or phone monitoring systems.

U.S. prison and jail populations have more than doubled since 1980, according to Morris, with more than one million adults now incarcerated, and four million under the control of the justice system. U.S. imprisonment rates are many times those of comparable industrialized countries. Yet our streets and our homes are not safer.

Since stricter correctional treatments and punishments have failed to reduce violent crime levels, Morris

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argues that intermediate punishments will at least lessen prison and probation overcrowding, be cheaper than imprisonment, and provide greater justice by offering greater proportionality in matching punishments with crimes.

The criminal justice system, Morris noted, needs to be given greater freedom to target the truly dangerous criminals. While no one proposes easing up on hardcore criminals, lesser punishments might be appropriate for less serious offenders who commit less serious crimes.

But as Morris explained, the criminal justice system can do little to change violent trends that are in large part outgrowths of widespread poverty and an overabundance of guns on the streets.

"Our criminal justice systems are overwhelmed by the criminogenic consequences of an entrenched culture of violence which tolerates civilian control of handgun and even automatic weaponry, and the existence of an increasingly locked-in underclass denied the minimal conditions necessary for a productive and peaceful life," Morris said. "Booming crime rates are an important part of the cost to society of the creation and continued toleration of these evil conditions."

And with booming crime rates, intermediate punishments, whether they make us feel safer or not, are already being deployed. Almost 700 state prisoners were under the control of an electronic monitoring program in June 1992 (at an annual savings of more than $10,000 per prisoner).

Hundreds more are held in state work camps that have been open for 12 years, according to Howell. In addition, a new boot camp program is geared toward younger prisoners (ages 17 to 26) who are offered education, drug rehabilitation and job training programs.

The Illinois Task Force on Crime and Corrections, created by the governor in February, is expected to make a number of proposals by the end of the year dealing with intermediate punishments. One possible idea calls for the consideration of non-prison options for "low risk" inmates from among the more than 600 state prisoners who are 55 years of age or older. •

Page 6 / Illinois Municipal Review / January 1993