THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 14, 1994 TAG: 9408120015
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
Republican George Allen's promise to abolish parole proved popular with Virginians, who overwhelmingly chose him over Democrat Mary Sue Terry in last year's gubernatorial election.
A special session of the General Assembly won't take up the governor's proposed parole-abolition program until next month. But the Allen-appointed State Parole Board has already done much to transform the campaign promise into reality by releasing inmates at dramatically lower rates than its predecessor. The rate in July was 6 percent, compared with 40 percent last spring, when the former board was dismissed.
An expanding prison population is not cost-free, of course, but the price - for more prisons and more guards - is a burden that Virginians are disposed to bear. Virginians spent $400 million for corrections in fiscal 1992-93, $296 million to operate 43 facilities.
Locking up dangerous criminals is an essential element of any strategy for enhancing public safety, of which there is too little in Virginia and elsewhere in the United States.
But a less-safe Virginia and America is the prospect, at least in the short term: A rising wave of youths reared in poverty by single parents portends continuing increases in violent crime. The quickening tempo of violent criminality has spurred prison-building nationally; a million inmates are contained in U.S. prisons and jail.
Virginia was poised to construct nine new prisons by the turn of the century even before Mr. Allen's election. Some 20,000 inmates are confined now in the state system - more than twice the number incarcerated a dozen years ago. The parole board's sharp curtailing of parole will test the the Department of Corrections' ability to make optimum use of existing facilities and compel construction of at least two more prisons than the projected nine.
No happier alternative to prison-building is on the horizon. Construction and operating costs may be held down somewhat by privatizing some correctional facilities. Improved screening of inmates may permit placement of a larger percentages of non-violent offenders in low-security, and thus comparatively low-cost, prisons.
Removing more and more menaces from society for longer and longer periods ought to keep crime rates from climbing higher than they otherwise would in the decade ahead, and that's what Americans demand. More police and prisons are expensive, but what is the cost, in broken bodies and lives, in allowing criminals to continue to rule the streets? by CNB