Southern States Reconsider ‘Tough on Crime’ Approach

By Mikel Chavers

Although the state of Oklahoma makes good use of corrections resources, Oklahoma  state Sen. Kenneth Corn believes the costs of staffing and running state corrections facilities and programs are still eating a bigger and bigger piece of the pie.

In 1991, the state was spending roughly $156 million on corrections. This year, the state will spend an estimated $506 million on corrections—an increase nobody is excited about.

Part of the increase in spending was a result of the state’s tough on crime approach, Corn said at the Southern Legislative Conference in Oklahoma City July 13. “We can lock everybody up—let’s be tough and crime; let’s put everybody in jail,” Corn said of those days.

“We’ve been passing these laws with little regard to what the financial implications are,” Corn said. And so far, no legislator is really stepping forward to change the state’s tough on  crime approach, Corn said. “We spend all of our time trying doing the political gotcha game—everybody wants to be tough on crime,” he said. “Sometimes I think it’s better for us to take a step back as lawmakers.”

In fact, other Southern states are reconsidering the lock ‘em up, tough on crime approach.

Texas was faced with a huge deficit of prison beds and put money that would otherwise be used to build prisons and “put that money upfront into programs that will actually reduce recidivism and take that money off the books,” said Richard Jerome, project manager for the Pew Center on the States.

You can read more about what Texas did to handle a burgeoning prison population by visiting The Council of State Governments Justice Center. An article in the August issue of State News magazine also features the state’s effort in corrections.

The Pew Center on the States recently released a report detailing the number of Americans in jail and the amount of money states spend to house them behind bars. According to the new Pew report, more than one in 100 Americans is behind bars—and this is not because crime has gone up or because population is increasing, it’s mostly because of policy changes, Jerome said.

There is a wide variation across the country in terms of prison growth and “the Southern states do lead the country in terms of prison growth,” he said.

And back to Oklahoma—the tough on crime policy there might change to what state officials call “smart on crime.” In Oklahoma, there are 11,000 in the department of corrections with mental health issues—and often those issues led to their path behind bars—something that could have been avoided, according to Steve Buck, deputy commissioner for Communication and Prevention and the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services in Oklahoma.

“When there aren’t mental health services available, what happens is unfortunately the criminal justice system becomes the treatment provider de facto,” Buck said.

The state is trying and proposing several policy changes to include crisis intervention teams to help keep clashes with law enforcement and those with mental health problems from escalating to more serious matters.

Buck said the state is looking at options that include screening individuals at booking for mental health issues and providing more substance abuse beds, to name a few.

“We know that people with mental illness seldom get out early,” he said. And with the rising cost of prison operation, that could mean more dollars spent on issues that could have been prevented with the proper treatment.