Life Behind Bars Is No Way to Build Character : Crime: Latino leaders have jumped on the law-and-order bandwagon even though that means sending more and more of their own people to jail.

Latinos should take a long, hard look at the so-called “Decade of the Hispanic”--the 1980s--to assess the consequences of their me-too attitude toward law and order. Most Latino politicians have bought the idea that urban decay can be solved by passing tougher laws and building more and bigger prisons. How else to explain their silence when the drug war disproportionately targets young Latinos, or their failure to question the need for more prisons.

A consequence of this get-along attitude toward crime, as set forth in “Choosing Democracy,” a book by Duane Campbell, is that today’s entering Latino kindergartner is as likely to go to jail as meet the admissions standards of the state’s universities.

Latino politicos are understandably concerned about rising crime rates in their districts. Their law-abiding constituency is fearful and demands action. But that’s no reason for them to abandon rationality by placing their faith in a policy of rounding ‘em up and throwing ‘em into jail. A large number of those rounded up and thrown into jail are also members of their constituency.

By the year 2000, adults and juveniles in California prisons and local jails, given present trends, may exceed 300,000, not quite double the current number of 172,000. Chances are good that 50% of the new inmates will be Latino, for several reasons: Most Latinos live in poverty and the Latino population is relatively young--two factors associated with crime; they lack economic opportunity and are victims of selective law enforcement.

Economically, Latinos are worse off today than they were 30 years ago. According to the 1980 Census, the earning power of a typical Latino family in California was less than 70% of its white counterpart, down from 79% in 1960. Latino poverty has also markedly increased.

As in Latin American countries, poor Latinos in the United States are growing more dependent on an underground economy, largely fueled here by the illicit drug trade. If current arrest and conviction trends continue, families who do not have an ex-con relation will be rare indeed.

This poses troubling consequences for the moral authority of Latino parents. When a close family member--a son or daughter--is arrested for drug abuse or dealing, parents naturally are less judgmental than if the neighbor’s child is taken into custody.

But this attitude, however commendable, weakens their moral clout. When an entire community is similarly afflicted, its capacity to exercise social control is severely strained, if not moot. Outlaws are glorified as social rebels.

Relying on incarceration to correct this situation is clearly misguided. Prison life will not build Latino character. It reinforces gang identification and encourages the growth of its associated underground subculture.

Ironically, Latinos more closely fit President Ronald Reagan’s stereotype of the all-American family--hard-working, religious, extended--than do whites. Latinos, as a group, are more likely to have a job than any other, including whites, according to the 1980 Census. They are poor, to be sure, but not because they don’t work. They just don’t get paid decent wages.

Latino politicians have failed to capitalize on this important fact about their constituents. One reason is the political mind-set born during the “Decade of the Hispanic”: Fearful of offending anyone, Latinos strove to be gentlemanly about Latino problems; none dared call anything racist. Today, this attitude plays right into the hands of the law-and-order crowd.

But the problem of crime cannot be solved so long as we place the burden of saying “no” on a poor teen-ager who sells crack so he and his family can participate in the “good life.” For Latino politicians to believe otherwise is a measure of how far they have strayed from addressing the needs of their community.

In the end, however, this problem cannot be corrected by declaring expensive wars at home or abroad. The jail quick-fix only works in John Wayne movies. In reality, it feeds crime and its acceptance, and will ultimately bankrupt California. When the state spends $3,900 a year to educate a child and roughly $30,000 a year to keep an adult behind bars, something is out of whack.