Lock 'em up strategy failing

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crowded nation's prisons. Cost is

high and safety claims aren't proven.

The experiment with mandatory minimum sentencing has been a failure, according to a yearlong study by the American Bar Association.

The report echoes familiar themes, pointing out how popular laws adopted over the past two decades calling for tough mandatory sentencing have done little more than fuel dangerous and expensive crowding in prison systems across the nation. Meanwhile, the report questions whether this shift toward longer sentences has actually made us any safer or been an effective deterrent.

Two things are beyond dispute. First, the cost to incarcerate the 2.1 million Americans now behind bars is escalating and so is the prison population. Mandatory minimums and the policies that have either discouraged or abolished parole means offenders spend more time behind bars. Secondly, the sentences have had the largest impact on petty drug offenders.

South Carolina knows well the impact of get-tough policies that take discretion of the hands of judges and mete out one-size-fits-all justice. Our state's prison population has boomed because of so-called truth-in-sentencing laws.

The Department of Corrections projects South Carolina's prison population will increase by more than one-third over the next four years. Corrections is already virtually out of bed space. So this state is faced with either adopting sentencing reform or shelling out the money now to build more prisons. Building more prisons is unlikely, as state revenues have stagnated. This is why Corrections has run an operational deficit for three years, shut down facilities and fired more than 500 workers, mostly prison guards.

There is no question about the ABA's liberal credentials. But this commission was inspired by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's remarks last year about the fundamental unfairness of sentencing laws that disallow flexibility. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan's final Supreme Court appointee, is a solid centrist. He's surely no liberal.

This problem will persist if it is viewed solely through an ideological lens. Conservatives and liberals alike should be able to agree that money spent simply warehousing nonviolent offenders is money misspent. Both state governments and the federal government should begin making greater use of noncustodial programs that have proven effective for nonviolent offenders at a fraction of the tens of thousands of dollars spent annually to imprison, feed and care for an inmate.

Though popular among voters, some prosecutors and politicians, the laws have never been popular among most judges who have seen their power and discretion severely limited or with prison administrators who are forced to deal daily with the effects of rising incarceration rates that have yet to find a ceiling.

The public deserves protection. But misguided laws that burn billions of dollars and aren't proven effective shouldn't be part of the equation.