Some states spending more on prisons than college
(posted by Angelica)
The recently-reported Pew Center research finding that one in 100 Americans are behind bars for the first time in history have rippled outwards into a number of articles and reactions. I’ve previously mentioned the piece written by the writers of The Wire passionately attacking the War on Drugs as a big cause of this unhappy state of affairs. This Detroit Free Press piece also point out that the resources we devote to locking up folks who don’t really need locking up is a horrible drain on resources.
Before the nation hits two in 100 behind bars, which seems inevitable, it’s time for a national debate on corrections and criminal justice policies that will lead to a more rational, humane and cost-effective system. The nation has gotten far too little for its enormous investment in locking people up. Violent crime rates are higher than they were more than three decades ago, when tough-on-crime policies, including mandatory sentencing laws, created a prison-building boom.
States can no longer afford to divert so many resources from education, health care and other pressing needs. Michigan, for example, with one of the nation’s highest incarceration rates, spends $2 billion a year on corrections, or 20% of its general fund. It is one of four states spending more on corrections than higher education. In today’s economy, spending more on prisons than college is a recipe for failure.
Let’s hope that the conversation don’t peter out because we need to talk about this sort of thing.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:56 am
Truly a disturbing report. Who would have guess that the “land of the free” is the biggest incarcerator in the world? I see it largely as the new enclosure movement. Prison-labor is becoming more common, private “prisons for hire” make it an institutional interest (gotta fill those cells!), and once the folks are released, they find employers are not very interested in hiring them–at least at jobs that pay well.
The said reality is that in the new economy, a large section of the population as become basically redundant –structurally unemployed–and the government has to do something with the them. How about hire the more reliable ones to guard the more problematic ones? Genius!
On the education side, for all the thrashing that public education receives–it is actually is pretty effective–perhaps too effective–the last thing one wants are the dregs of society making articulate arguments, getting organized, etc.
Which makes it all the more important that public education is set up to fail (ask any teacher if NCLB is helping or hurting) for most people–with a relative handful (the cream) skimmed off the top through charter schools or scholarships so we can feel comfortable that we really do have “equality of opportunity.”
It is a sad state of affairs.
March 10th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Seriously sad. Imagine the message it sends to kids attending run-down schools when a prison goes up a few blocks from home while their school remains horribly underfunded. Makes the army recruiting office seem like the only way out (if you can make it to 18 without ending up in the slammer).
March 11th, 2008 at 12:58 am
I agree that all the prison spending is a bad sign, but do we actually want higher state spending on college? The more they subsidize it, the higher the tuition goes. Lots of kids never even graduate high school, it’s generally the better off kids that can get into college.