Karen Heller: In Pennsylvania, prison still a growth industry

Great news: For the first time in a decade, state prison populations declined last year, with almost half of all states reporting decreases, even tough-as-bullets Texas.

However, and you knew there was a however, Pennsylvania led the nation in growth, adding nearly as many inmates, 2,214, as state prisons cumulatively lost.

Pennsylvania is so invested in the prison business - the Land of Oz - that we export inmates to Michigan and Virginia facilities. Says civil rights and criminal defense lawyer David Rudovsky, "Instead of shipping produce and other products of economic benefit, we're shipping prisoners."

And all of this costs noxious amounts of money; the state allocation is due to grow 8.5 percent, to almost $1.8 billion. That's nearly a third of what Pennsylvania spends on education.

Why aren't voters, usually angry about the high cost of any government expenditure, incensed about spiraling prison costs, especially, as Temple criminologist M. Kay Harris points out, that "an increase of incarceration has no effect on the crime rate"?

The annual tab to house each of Pennsylvania's more than 51,000 inmates is $32,000, almost twice the cost of tuition, room, and board for state residents at Temple.

More than half the state's prisoners were convicted of nonviolent charges, many drug-related, yet narcotics continue to flourish. "When you lock up a rapist, it takes his rapes off the street," says Carnegie Mellon's Alfred Blumstein. "When you lock up a drug seller, as long as the demand is there, you recruit a replacement."

For decades, the nation's inmate population basically flatlined. Then, in the 1970s, America declared a war on drugs, and the prison-industrial complex mushroomed. Since 1980, when the state corrections budget was a mere $94 million, Pennsylvania's number of facilities has tripled and the inmate population multiplied sixfold, even though - this can't be stressed enough - the state's population has barely grown.

Corrections officials credit last year's inmate expansion to Gov. Rendell's September 2008 moratorium on paroles for all violent offenders. The order came after former inmate Daniel Giddings, one month following his release, shot Philadelphia Highway Patrol Sgt. Patrick McDonald, who later died.

But that ban lasted little more than two months, so that answer seems insufficient. Meanwhile, the department projects the inmate population reaching 61,000 by 2014.

The state is building four new prisons to house 8,000 inmates, including two additional facilities at Graterford, for $800 million.

"That assumes that we would ever close Graterford," says William M. DiMascio of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, "but they never shut down prisons. They can't close these places because the prison population keeps growing." At the projected rate, the state would still be over capacity.

"You send people who are nonviolent offenders in for a year or two, the likelihood is they'll become violent," DiMascio says. "This doesn't make a lot of sense if we can deal with them in another way without jeopardizing the community."

Why is the increase happening? Pennsylvania sentences nonviolent offenders to longer terms. Pennsylvania keeps inmates longer. Pennsylvania remands inmates on technical parole violations such as missing a probation hearing or testing positive for drugs. Pennsylvania leads the nation in people serving life without parole, including almost 450 inmates sentenced as children, which suggests that we believe no one can ever be rehabilitated.

There are people who have done horrible things who deserve to be locked up without parole, but one-sixth of all inmates have mental health issues. Substance abuse is rampant. Pennsylvania Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard has testified on these issues, but he can't set policy, affect sentencing, or sway the parole board.

"There isn't accountability for our economic policies on political officials," Harris argues. They're not held responsible for the soaring cost of prisons. Few people complain. "Politicians know how vulnerable they are when they're viewed as 'soft' on crime," Blumstein says. "Nobody has yet done the rethinking, like New York, Michigan, and Texas, about who do we really want to lock away and for how long."

The key is incarcerating the right people, while developing smarter, cheaper alternatives to rehabilitating nonviolent offenders.

Drugs are not just a crime issue. They're a public health issue. But finding a solution is complicated, involving multiple agencies and reform initiatives in the legislature, the judicial system, and law enforcement.

Fortunately, the state Senate passed three bills this month sponsored by Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf (R., Montgomery) aimed at reducing sentencing for nonviolent offenders. The bills are under review by the House Judiciary Committee.

Meanwhile, the 8.5 percent hike in the state's $1.8 billion prison funding is set to sail through the budget process while legislators will continue to fight, yet again, about increases for education.