With the world's largest inmate population of 2,186,230 (as of June 2005) in federal and state prisons and local jails, the United States faces an incarceration crisis.
Not only is there a growing lack of cells, but a strange and growing lack of public support for building sufficient facilities to handle tough sentencing policies the public demands through their politicians.
And who're the scapegoats in all this?
Jailers and corrections officials who must find space for more incoming prisoners, a feat comparable to trying to pour 10 gallons into a 5-gallon bucket.
Idaho's Department of Correction Director Tom Beauclair, a 24-year veteran of the system with five years as its chief, seems to have been the latest to take a fall because of the pattern of problems that face virtually every jail and prison.
He "resigned" after Gov. Jim Risch expressed his displeasure.
Closer to home, Blaine County Sheriff Walt Femling is understandably incensed about 5th District Judge Barry Woods' decision throwing out the county's program to finance a new $10 million jail.
If Idaho's prison system is overcrowded, then Blaine County's jail is not only overcrowded but also literally unlivable. Jails with far fewer deficiencies than Blaine County's have been taken over and managed by federal courts because of the dehumanizing conditions.
The sheriff and Blaine County have tried three times through public votes on bond issues to build a new jail to replace the facility built in 1972—and three times voters have turned them down.
Rejecting plans for a new jail provides no savings for taxpayers. When jail cells are fully occupied, Femling is forced to send prisoners to other counties for holding, for which Blaine County is charged.
The same is true of the Idaho system. Overcrowding has forced the state Correction Department to send prisoners for housing in several other states.
This incomprehensible contradiction—the public with tough-on-crime demands but its unwillingness to pay the price of facilities—ultimately will be decided by higher courts, where judges will eventually order local and state governments to immediately build facilities that are both sufficient for growth and decent in their housing basics. Worse, they might order the release of non-violent prisoners.
Idaho's state legislators found themselves in a similar fix after refusing to fund public school repairs. Finally, after 10 years of resistance, lawmakers were ordered by the Idaho Supreme Court to do what common sense and public conscience dictated a decade ago. Now, the expense will be even greater.
So, too, will be the jails and prisons taxpayers are refusing to build now.
