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La Incarceation Comments

Based on the U.S. Justice Department's most recent data, 461 of every 100,000 Americans are now serving a prison sentence of at least one year. California, though home to the largest total prison population, is about average per capita, with 483 inmates per 100,000 residents. In Louisiana, the rate is 794, tops in the nation - a symbol of resolve for some, a badge of shame for others. "I think there's a lot of people who should be in the penitentiary and who don't always go," said Harry Connick, Sr., the former New Orleans district attorney. "But I also think there's some who do go who perhaps shouldn't be there.
      Louisiana obviously has an ineffective policy when it comes to incarceration because, if all of this incarceration was making our streets safer, then it might make sense. But, the data indicates that there is no direct connection between the increase in the incarceration rates and decreased crime. In Louisiana, as well as the rest of the nation, the crime rate has been steadily decreasing since the mid-1990's, while the incarceration rate has increased.   A question must be asked of our elected officials, if this expensive policy of locking up more and more people is not making us safer, why don't we abandon it and find a more effective one.
    During the period from 1991 to 1998, violent crime declined by 18 percent in Louisiana. According to "Diminishing Returns: Crime and Incarceration in the 1990s," a report by the Washington, D.C.-based group The Sentencing Project, our incarceration rate increased by 59 percent during that same seven-year period. To make matters even worse, we are spending an increasing amount of our state budget on this failing policy.       Between 1985 and 2001, spending on corrections in Louisiana jumped 104 percent.   On the national stage United States appears deeply ambivalent about what it has sown. While a plummeting crime rate stands as vindication for many, a growing number of critics - not just liberals but also...