Instead of pouring millions into prisons, we should invest in treatment and prevention, training and education
I worked in local government my entire life. I have great empathy for the position of the Lincoln County Commission in opposing a planned men’s prison in the county.
The state has made a case that they need another prison and the locals have made a case about the traffic and other negative effects. Yet perhaps the real issues are being ignored.
The case for a new prison is that the number of incarcerated persons has reached the point beyond the capabilities of the current system and it is projected to continue to increase. The driving force seems to be drugs. A large portion of the incarcerated population are there for drug-related reasons: distributors, dealers and pushers as well as users that commit crimes in order to obtain drugs.
The proposed prison solution is part of a concept called “supply-side economics.” Incarcerating the dealers, distributors and pushers is designed to get them off the streets and reduce the drug problem and make South Dakota a better place to live, work and do business. It is a failed approach.
Where there is a demand, there always will be those who will supply it, whether it be legal or not. We found that out with alcohol during Prohibition in the 1920s.
But we didn’t learn; we still keep trying to control supply because it looks easier. It won’t work nationally, either. Instead of reducing our domestic demand for drugs, we are trying to make Mexico and Canada responsible for reducing the supply. It will fail. They cannot control the supply any more effectively than we have. It may or may not be good politics, but it is really dumb economics.
If America is to deal with the drug problem effectively (and, therefore our crowded prisons), it must attack the demand; trying to control the supply has always been another lesson in abject failure. And a very expensive failure.
If, instead, we spent our money on treatment facilities and prevention (education, etc.), we would not only save substantial money, we would have a better society and definitely smaller prison populations. Keeping people from becoming addicts to begin with is a great success. Treating addicts to help them recover and become productive people with jobs and paying taxes is also a societal benefit.
The problem isn’t really the Legislature or those proposing the prison. The problem is the public.
For whatever reason, people are opposed to having their tax dollars benefit someone who “doesn’t deserve it,” even if it is good for the state. An example is the backlash when technical education was offered to juvenile delinquents and other inmates (as illustrated above in a public domain photo posted on wikimedia commons) so that they could be productive when released. It appears to be a great plan to reduce recidivism.
But people objected to “bad” people getting free education when they had to pay for it for their children. A great plan ended. In the fight against drugs, the public would rather spend $100 on punishing people because they “deserve” it rather than spend $10 on prevention and treatment of people who don’t “deserve” it. There is still public resistance to the “rehabilitation” plans included in the new prison planning.
That mentality may mean that we cannot solve the problem.
In the 1960s, America started an anti-smoking campaign with education and treatment. Since that time the per-capita consumption of cigarettes has dropped by more than 70%. We could easily do the same with our drug problem.
Does the public really want to spend upwards of $1 billion to recreate the same failing system when it could spend much, much less for a better overall society and smaller prison reality?
John Cunningham of Sioux Falls has spent his career in local government finance, including in Fulton County, Ga., and Atlanta. He has a master of public administration from Harvard and has done consultant work in four foreign countries.
