View Point

Friday, February 6, 1998

Building more prisons
won’t make Hawaii better

While some might rush to argue that the
high incarcertion rate explains the drop in crime,
research supporting such an association is fairly thin.

By Meda Chesney-Lind

HAWAII achieved a dubious distinction recently. We now lead the nation in prison population growth. The number of inmates sent to Hawaii prisons increased by 21.6 percent in one year compared to a national increase of only 4.7 percent.

This should have been a wake-up call to a state already strapped for funds. Instead, while there is direct talk about "no sacred cows" in budget cuts, which is widely understood to signal cutting both lower and higher education, the real sacred cow, corrections, continues to grow.

Nationally, corrections spending is the fastest growing item in state budgets, and Hawaii is no exception to this trend. In 1992, the typical family of four in Hawaii paid out $364.40 per year to fund corrections -- the tenth highest average in the nation. This is even before bills to run a costly new prison on the Big Island are included.

All this means that we have failed to learn what other states have already figured out: You cannot build (or ship) your way out of prison overcrowding.

California tried that. In the three decades since the UC system last opened a campus, the state opened 21 new prisons, and California prisons are still overcrowded.

Strong leadership is necessary if we are to be smart on crime rather than simply mindlessly tough. Fortunately, an intelligent response to Hawaii's crime problem is possible without jeopardizing public safety.

The data on our own state reveals that a major and undiscussed policy change in parole and probation violations is largely responsible for our prison overcrowding problem.

In 1995-96, these offenses accounted for nearly half (45.4) of all admissions to Hawaii's prisons. Most significantly, in 1991-92, they accounted for only 3.2 percent. Further, most of these did not involve the commission of new crimes, but were instead "technical" violations of the conditions of parole and probation.

Also critical to prison population is the issue of "length of stay," and Hawaii has typically had a longer length than the national average, despite a prison population with comparatively fewer violent offenders.

In 1994, for example, Hawaii had a length of stay of 38.8 months, compared to a national average of 26 months. Research has shown that you don't get more "bang" for your buck with those added months. In fact, there is considerable evidence that longer stays in prison increase recidivism.

Is the run-up in our prison population the consequence of serious increase in Hawaii's crime problem? The short answer is no.

Hawaii's crime rate, like the rest of the nation's, is down.

The "index offenses" tracked by the FBI showed an 8.8 percent drop between 1995 and 1996. Property crime in our state, which has grabbed headlines, dropped by 9.3 percent in the last year. Finally, while much has been made about our property crime rate being "the fourth highest in the nation," that is a misleading statistic.

If one compares the property crime rate in the city and county of Honolulu to cities of comparable population, we have a rate that is actually 5.5 percent lower than other cities our size.

Why the difference? Hawaii is a highly urbanized state, so our figures are "bi-modal." This means that most of our residents live in Honolulu, where crime is more prevalent, but it is still lower than other mainland metropolitan areas.

More importantly, the property crime rate is actually driven by one offense -- larceny theft, which is composed chiefly of shoplifting offenses or theft from automobiles.

These offenses, while clearly troubling, usually involve relatively minor cost. When they are committed by chronic offenders, they generally signal a problem with drugs -- a problem that can and should be dealt with in community programs.

The best news of all is that violent crime in Hawaii is 56.5 percent lower than the national average, and violent crime also dropped last year.

While some might rush to argue that the high incarceration rate explains the drop in crime, research supporting such an association is fairly thin.

Even those who contend such a relationship exists acknowledge that the reduction in crime is modest and restricted to property crimes (not serious crimes of violence) and that the cost is staggering.

Others dispute the relationship entirely and note that, nationally, the crime rate has both risen and fallen during the most recent surge in incarceration.

We can and should do better in corrections by spending scarce dollars in a smart way. This means reserving prison space for violent offenders who jeopardize public safety, and finding other ways to deal with property and drug offenders.

We can start with reinvigorating the notions of probation and parole, and seeking solutions to the problems of minor offenders with alternative sanctions and in-community programs.

We should remember that virtually all the people we send to prison will someday return to the community. Because of this, it is in all of our interests to make the best use of the time they are under supervision by addressing their drug problems, keeping their families together and making it possible for them to find work upon release.

We have seen that nearly half of admissions to Hawaii's prisons are for offenses that are relatively minor. A smart approach to crime suggests that we find ways to address these problems in the community, rather than cutting vital public services like education to pay private, profit-making corporations to warehouse our citizens.

---

Meda Chesney-Lind is principal investigator of the
Youth Gang Project and is a professor in the women's studies program
at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.