Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 21, Number 8, 1 August 2004 — No end in sight [ARTICLE]

No end in sight

According to statistics as of December 2000, states housed some 53,000 prisoners in private prisons... The U.S. ratio of prisoners to population was 110 per 100,000 between 1900 and 1975. In less than thirty years that figure has increased four-fold to 445 per 100,000, a total of over one million caged citizens. The U.S. is trapped in a penological tautology predicted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower four decades ago. A decrease in crime heralds the success of building prisons, and so we build more prisons. An increase in crime means we need more prison, and so we build more prisons. This is exactly the "corrupted" reasoning on whieh private prisons thrive. This is exactly the "corrupted" reasoning that state and federal legislators are using tax dollars to support. And the reality is that there is no end in sight. Imagine ten years from today, with the statistics offered how our state and federal government will be forced to enclose a whole state just to capacitate its ever growing prison population, of whieh the majority is non-violent offenders. The State of Hawai'i has fallen prey to this vicious cycle. Your tax dollars are no longer being fueled back into Hawai'i's economy. It is now being used to support other states. Is this how you have chosen to appropriate your tax dollars? Jacqueline Aloha Overturf MeLouel, OK