Priorities 101

I am growing so weary of the news that keeps reminding us, repeatedly, that our criminal justice system is beyond repair and needs a complete overhaul. But I grow even wearier of our inexplicable unwillingness to learn this lesson and take a different path. The most recent news is astounding. The Pew Center on the States announced yesterday that one in every hundred American adults is in jail or prison, for the first time in history. Yes, history. Like, forever.

Do you feel safer? Do you feel more secure? Does anyone feel as though this straight-line shot toward 2.3 million adults in prison has made us happier? We have more people in prison than any country in the world (yes, that would include China, with five times the population and, supposedly, one thousand times the human rights violations). In 1988, 20 years ago, the 50 United States spent less than $11 billion on corrections. Last year, we spent $49 billion.

Do we really believe that spending 77 cents on corrections for every dollar we spend on education, as we do in Wisconsin, is the best use of our precious resources? And this doesn’t even begin to discuss the racial disparity I’ve written about in the past. The Pew Study once again confirmed the astonishing realities of this: 1 in 30 men age 20-34 are behind bars, but it’s 1 in 9 for black men in that age group.

It is not hard to imagine, in the not too distant future, a scenario in which we’d spend more on corrections that we do on education. It is also hard not to imagine why our schools are crumbling, our class sizes are increasing, and the US is falling behind third world countries in its ability to educate its children.

Anyone else ready to try something new?