Just the facts: Sorting out the jail debate

This column was originally published in the News & Record on June 27, 2007.

For more information on the study conducted by the League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad, visit their Web site.

Americans love to believe that, in the end, our world behaves predictably, like a spaghetti Western where the good guy gets the girl and the bad guy gets a bullet in the gut. So when we hear that the Guilford County jails are so overcrowded that inmates are sleeping on floors and tables, we tend to think that discomfort is fair play in crime and punishment.

We also like to believe that people leave jail with a renewed dedication to the straight-and-narrow. In our collective minds, imprisonment is akin to a child’s time out, where the presto-change-o into responsible citizenship somehow comes from time to reflect and conditions that are poor enough to discourage people from returning.

But what about when conditions become so poor that they start to toe the line between humane and unjust treatment? What happens when too few guards are in place to manage the explosive tension that can come from overcrowding? The years-long debate has been branded with expensive price tags and the controversy of just how well we believe incarcerated people should be treated.

While the rest of us have been following the debate, the League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad has been examining it, intensely. In May 2005, LWVPT began what would become a two year study entitled, “Lock them in or help them out: A local study of incarceration and its alternatives”.

According to Diane Davis, president of LWVPT, the initial inspiration for the study came from a theory that our jails were overcrowded largely due to homeless people committing minor offenses in order to get a meal and shower.

“We found that wasn’t true,” Davis said during a recent interview. “The overcrowding was due to lots of problems.”

Primarily, the study found that despite the best efforts of the court, 80 percent of those in our county jails are awaiting trial. Often, bail is unreachably high for the accused but too low to be a good investment for bail bondsmen, leaving these technically-innocent people crowded into confinement.

The study also found problems in jail-alternative programs.

“One of the major things we found out is that even though there are over 100 non-profit substance abuse programs [in Guilford County], there’s no standard for evaluating the success of these programs,” said Davis.

Subsequently, even short out-patient programs can judge themselves based on program completion rather than the long-term outcomes for participants. It’s no wonder that nearly half of those imprisoned have already been through a jail-alternative program, only to drop out or commit an additional crime later.

The LWVPT study not only pointed out problem areas but also offered suggestions for improvement. These are not creature comfort suggestions; there are no budget lines for flat-panel TVs or cushy mattresses. Rather, every suggestion considers the essential needs of inmates, guards and justice equally: private space to meet with lawyers, basic opportunities for rehabilitation, separate sections for those awaiting trial and those who have been convicted, as well as to separate violent and non-violent criminals, and, perhaps most importantly, job training that would give those re-entering society a means to earn a legal, living wage.

As we question the use of our tax dollars and how criminals fit into that equation, it is important to remember that the end-game of this debate doesn’t lie behind the reinforced walls of our jails but in our city streets, where our ex-cons must choose between a reformed life and returning to one of crime.