Building More Jailhouses

In “New National Monument: the Jailhouse” (Column Left, Aug. 27), Robert Scheer makes important points about the “new conservatives’ ” addiction to prisons over jobs programs, but really misses the point by blaming “Gingrichites,” and neglects the role of the Democratic-controlled Congress in supporting the escalation of the drug war and subsequent jailhouse expansion.

Scheer correctly states that the percentage of drug abusers in state and federal prisons has more than tripled since 1980 and that 60% of federal prisoners are drug offenders. But the number of drug arrests during the Clinton Administration’s tenure has exceeded the total during the entire Bush presidency. For example, in my county the number of marijuana arrests has doubled in the past two years, but is not the result of partisan politics.

The institutionalized no-win “jailhouse” policy described by Scheer is now under the control of the Office of National Drug Control Policy created with hysterical zeal by Congress in the 1980s. What resulted was the formation of the National Interagency Counternarcotics Institute, which trains military and law enforcement agencies in tactical drug war strategy and propaganda, including how to secure dwindling government funds.

Unless our once-great country radically alters its drug war machine, or eliminates it entirely, the prison population will continue to increase. Controlled legalization of drugs is the only solution imaginable. It must be addressed by the drug warriors; that is, Republicans and Democrats alike.

ALAN McAFEE

San Luis Obispo

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* Scheer decries the fact that “5.1 million Americans--almost 2.7% of the adult population--were under some form of correctional supervision last year.” Readers would likely assume that all these offenders were behind bars. Scheer neglects to tell his readers that 71% of these 5.1 million were not incarcerated at all, but were serving their sentences in the community, either on probation (just under 3 million) or on parole (690,000).

In a concession to the need for at least some prisons, Scheer admits, “Of course those who commit violent crimes should be jailed, and the public needs to be protected from repeat offenders.” Perhaps it would surprise him to know that fully 94% of the nearly 1 million inmates of state prisons throughout the United States are either convicted violent offenders or convicted repeat offenders. And most of the rest were convicted of very serious, but technically nonviolent, crimes like burglary, drug trafficking and arson.

JOSEPH M. BESSETTE

Associate Professor

Claremont McKenna College

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* How can you compare 5.1 million people under correctional supervision (some part of the year) with 6 million in educational institutions (essentially full-time)? Further, in the same time the inmates at prisons have grown, so have the attendees of educational institutions. Finally, the statistics for growth between 1980 and 1985, are, well, dated.

MICHAEL D. FRIED

Irvine