Monuments to Failure: America's Prison Crisis

<v Announcer>This special program was funded in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting <v Announcer>through a grant from the Pacific Mountain Network Program Fund. <v "Rocky">The first time I was here, they had us packed <v "Rocky">in dormitories, double bunks. <v "Rocky">People just- You couldn't move around. <v "Rocky">It was just solid people just kept us churning all <v "Rocky">the time. <v Unnamed Law Official>You can't take people anywhere, much less violent people and just keep <v Unnamed Law Official>compressing them and compresing them without worrying about some point you're going to <v Unnamed Law Official>hit critical mass and it's going to explode. <v Another Unamed Inmate>You got 110 people sharing 1 latrine. <v Another Unamed Inmate>You got 4 showerheads, man. If that ain't overcrowding-

<v Unnamed Commentator>No society wants to face the failures it produces. <v Unnamed Commentator>So to me, it is understandable that <v Unnamed Commentator>people don't look- take a closer look at the makeup of the people behind <v Unnamed Commentator>bars. <v Unnamed, off-camera commentator>Keep a dog in a cage all night, it comes ?inaudible? <v Unnamed, off-camera commentator>American ?inaudible? <v Unnamed, off-camera commentator 2>This is our life, man, this is how we got to deal with it. <v Unnamed, off-camera commentator 3>It's not right. <v Unnamed, off-camera commentator 4>Not working right. <v Unnamed, off-camera correctional officer>Come on Evans, let's go. <v Tom Wicker, host>I'm Tom Wicker. This is a story about prisons in the United States, <v Tom Wicker, host>specifically about our state prison systems. <v Tom Wicker, host>They're mostly in the grip of a crisis so deep, so pervasive as to border <v Tom Wicker, host>on disaster. This happens to be the New Mexico maximum security prison just <v Tom Wicker, host>outside Santa Fe.

<v Tom Wicker, host>The new look in prisons designed for riot control with the latest in high tech <v Tom Wicker, host>security systems. <v Tom Wicker, host>But all is not well here or in other prisons like this, in growing numbers <v Tom Wicker, host>all over the nation. To the eye, they are a far cry from the old fortress <v Tom Wicker, host>prisons built in the 19th century or early in this one, made famous in <v Tom Wicker, host>Hollywood films of the '30s. <v Tom Wicker, host>Places like California's San Quentin. <v Tom Wicker, host>But appearances deceive. <v Unnamed inmate actor>[Clip from "San Quentin" starts here:] Pretty nice campus isn't it? <v Unnamed inmate actor 2>Yeah, it's big. <v Unnamed Inmate actor>Well, it may look big to you now. Wait until you've been here for a stretch, you'll feel <v Unnamed Inmate actor>like you're in a telephone booth with 4 other guys and no telephone. [End clip from "San Quentin"] <v Tom Wicker, host>New Mexico's new prison was erected out of the blood and rubble of one of the worst <v Tom Wicker, host>prison riots in American history. <v Tom Wicker, host>Even now, the images linger in the minds of many Americans. <v Tom Wicker, host>February 2nd, 1980, shortly after midnight.

<v Tom Wicker, host>Inmates in the grossly overcrowded and mal-administered Penitentiary of New Mexico <v Tom Wicker, host>seized control of the institution. <v Tom Wicker, host>Inside the walls, unspeakable carnage and bloodshed followed. <v Tom Wicker, host>Thirty six hours later, officials regained control, but 33 <v Tom Wicker, host>inmates were dead, murdered by their fellow inmates. <v Tom Wicker, host>The prison itself was a virtual ruin. <v Tom Wicker, host>8 years earlier in upstate New York, another historic uprising inside the 30 <v Tom Wicker, host>foot walls of the state prison at Attica brought me a personal journey into the dark <v Tom Wicker, host>corridors of the so-called corrections system. <v Unnamed radio correspondent>5 a.m. September 13th. <v Unnamed radio correspondent>We're on the roof of A Block, waiting for the assault to begin. <v Tom Wicker, host>For several days in the late summer of 1971, I was part of a group of

<v Tom Wicker, host>unofficial negotiators who tried unsuccessfully, as it turned out, to arrange <v Tom Wicker, host>a peaceful settlement between state officials and inmates rioting at Attica. <v Tom Wicker, host>When state troopers were ordered by Governor Nelson Rockefeller to storm the prison, <v Tom Wicker, host>39 people, including 10 hostages, were killed in 6 <v Tom Wicker, host>minutes of indiscriminate gunfire. <v Tom Wicker, host>Could New Mexico have learned from Attica, probably? <v Tom Wicker, host>Could other states learned from both Attica and New Mexico? <v Tom Wicker, host>Clearly. <v Tom Wicker, host>Have they? With few exceptions, evidently not. <v Tom Wicker, host>For reasons ranging from serious overcrowding to inadequate health, <v Tom Wicker, host>rehabilitation, and work programs, roughly 2 thirds of the states <v Tom Wicker, host>are under some kind of federal court order to make vast improvements in their prisons. <v Tom Wicker, host>To put it bluntly, federal judges across the nation have found that confinement

<v Tom Wicker, host>in the great majority of our prisons amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, <v Tom Wicker, host>unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. <v Tom Wicker, host>How did a society devoted to human rights fall into this situation? <v Tom Wicker, host>Part of the answer lies in political neglect and social indifference. <v Tom Wicker, host>Who cares about the outcast? <v "Rocky">You can't take us in here and treat us inhuman and treat us well <v "Rocky">below substandard and then expect us to be nice people when <v "Rocky">we get back to ?inaudible? because all that is built up <v "Rocky">must be released. I haven't killed anybody. <v "Rocky">Sure. I went out and I did something and I wrote checks and I <v "Rocky">got money for it and stuff. Is that the way you punish somebody that writes checks, <v "Rocky">you torture him and then you put him back in society and say, OK, now you're going to be <v "Rocky">normal? <v Daniel Vasquez>The issue of incarceration is everybody's business.

<v Daniel Vasquez>It's not just my business. I wasn't born a warden. <v Tom Wicker, host>Daniel Vasquez, warden at California's San Quentin Prison. <v Daniel Vasquez>Our business is out of sight, out of mind. And the only time it comes to mind is when <v Daniel Vasquez>there's an escape that causes, attracts nationwide attention. <v Daniel Vasquez>Then they, then, then the attention is focused on the prisons for just a short period of <v Daniel Vasquez>time. But we're a business that's out of sight and out of mind. <v Daniel Vasquez>And it shouldn't be that way. <v Orville Pung>Corrections has no constituency. It's a politically negative activity. <v Orville Pung>You don't get more votes ever for having a good correction system. <v Tom Wicker, host>Minnesota Commissioner of Corrections Orville Pung. <v Orville Pung>No governor, no legislator I know of has ever run on the ticket <v Orville Pung>of the of his or her or their good correctional system. <v Orville Pung>Doesn't get any votes. Nobody cares about it. <v Orville Pung>A bad correctional system gets in the media because the media has a high interest, for <v Orville Pung>whatever reason, extremely high interest in prisons all over the United States. <v Orville Pung>They're fascinated by it. It's always good ink or it's always good tape. <v Orville Pung>A prison.

<v Unnamed Correctional Officer Actor>[Clip from "San Quentin" starts here:] Hello, ?inaudible? City Press? Let me talk to Slim Mackie. Hello <v Unnamed Correctional Officer Actor>Slim, sharpen up your pencil I got a story for you. <v "Jerry">People get this preconceived notion around the penitentiary is full of these <v "Jerry">animals and that's why they're there. <v "Jerry">Most of us never made the media. [End clip of "San Quentin on-screen.] Some of us might <v "Jerry">have, you know, but usually all you ever hear about are those sensational crimes where a <v "Jerry">guy goes out and rapes and kills 10 or 20 people and they run into their voting polls and <v "Jerry">they pass laws, bad laws that affect 95 other guys who have nothing to do with <v "Jerry">that. You know, yet they're going to sit in here for most of their lives. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>I think there is a general fear and ignorance in the populace. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>There's no question about that. But I think that the media and, and politicians <v Roger Morris, Journalist>in particular could overcome that fear and ignorance very easily. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>They could make a strong case that safe prisons are also economic prisons, are also <v Roger Morris, Journalist>enlightened prisons.

<v Tom Wicker, host>Beyond political neglect, Americans' attitudes toward crime have toughened in recent <v Tom Wicker, host>years. State lawmakers around the country have responded with so-called anticrime <v Tom Wicker, host>measures, including stiffer and less flexible sentencing laws that put more <v Tom Wicker, host>people behind bars for longer periods of time. <v Tom Wicker, host>It's called determinate sentencing. <v Justice Mary Walters>And that, of course, removes from the court any discretion. <v Justice Mary Walters>To consider the facts surrounding that person's criminal <v Justice Mary Walters>activity. <v Tom Wicker, host>New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Mary Walters. <v Justice Mary Walters>As a result, everybody goes to prison. <v Justice Mary Walters>Some of them have mandatory additional sentencings <v Justice Mary Walters>if there were firms involved. <v Justice Mary Walters>So in addition to the basic sentence, the courts are required <v Justice Mary Walters>to add the additional enhanced sentence.

<v Justice Mary Walters>My thought has always been that all you need for that sort of <v Justice Mary Walters>disposition is a kind of a cash register. <v Justice Mary Walters>Up on the, up on the judge's desk and he punches in <v Justice Mary Walters>the crime and he looks to see whether it's a first or a <v Justice Mary Walters>fourth degree felony. And he punches the next button and then up pops the sentence. <v Justice Mary Walters>And that individual is sentenced according to that mechanical <v Justice Mary Walters>means. <v "Rocky">In New Mexico, if I go out and I joy ride in your car, that's a felony. <v "Rocky">And I get time for it. But I'm convicted of a felony. <v "Rocky">Then if I get arrested for writing a check, I'm a habitual criminal <v "Rocky">under the laws in Mexico, which can give me extra time. <v "Rocky">Even though the crime that happened was a nonviolent crime, that <v "Rocky">it might have been a very petty crime, it's the felony conviction. <v "Rocky">It doesn't say whether it was a murder felony or a nothing felony.

<v "Rocky">It is a felony. Therefore, it's worth more time, yet I might have already <v "Rocky">done that time completely discharged, paid my debt in full. <v "Rocky">I will be made to pay again a later. <v Justice Mary Walters>If the man must go to prison, sentences have become longer <v Justice Mary Walters>because of the this perception of the way of handling it. <v Justice Mary Walters>And the people going to prison are going in greater <v Justice Mary Walters>numbers every day of every month of every year. <v Justice Mary Walters>And the persons who are already there are not being released, which they cannot be <v Justice Mary Walters>under the determinate sentencing basis. <v Justice Mary Walters>What is left but overcrowding? <v Tom Wicker, host>Minnesota, it has one of the nation's lowest crime rates, one of the <v Tom Wicker, host>lowest per capita imprisonment rates in the nation.

<v Tom Wicker, host>And something almost unheard of these days, more prison space <v Tom Wicker, host>than it needs. It has done so with policies from rational <v Tom Wicker, host>sentencing to keeping adult and juvenile offenders in the community <v Tom Wicker, host>rather than casting them out of it and into prison. <v Tom Wicker, host>Debra Dailey is the director of Minnesota's Sentencing Guidelines Commission. <v Debra Dailey>The movement first was toward a system that would be more strictly determinate. <v Debra Dailey>That is, the legislature would by by statute, define what sentences should <v Debra Dailey>be and that that would be more mandatory, more determinate <v Debra Dailey>type of sentencing. <v Debra Dailey>But those that were still highly in favor of the indeterminate system fought <v Debra Dailey>with that notion of going to a strict determinate system, which would remove all the <v Debra Dailey>discretion from from all from the judicial branch and <v Debra Dailey>essentially from the executive branch, meaning the parole, parole board, and putting it <v Debra Dailey>on the hands of legislature by defining what the sentence should be.

<v Debra Dailey>So the compromise was sentencing guidelines because with sentencing <v Debra Dailey>guidelines, you could provide a more determinate sentence. <v Debra Dailey>That is, you would have a structure that would define what the, what the presumed <v Debra Dailey>sentence should be for the typical case. <v Debra Dailey>At the same time, you provide some flexibility for judges to sentence apart <v Debra Dailey>from those prescribed sentences, when the circumstances just did not <v Debra Dailey>seem to fit with the typical case. <v Justice Mary Walters>I'm impressed with the guidelines that have been set in Minnesota. <v Justice Mary Walters>What I think is admirable about it is that it is considered to be <v Justice Mary Walters>a guideline and there are a number of factors that may be taken into <v Justice Mary Walters>consideration for any single crime <v Justice Mary Walters>in the manner in which the individual was sentenced. <v Justice Mary Walters>And the judge may depart from the guidelines if, in <v Justice Mary Walters>his judgment, there are circumstances which would warrant departure.

<v Justice Mary Walters>But it it removes the rigidity with which <v Justice Mary Walters>most states now operate because of legislative <v Justice Mary Walters>enactments. And of course, the courts recognize that it is within the power <v Justice Mary Walters>of the legislature to determine what the sentencing should be. <v Tom Wicker, host>Today, more than a half million people are behind bars in this country, <v Tom Wicker, host>nearly 70 percent more than just 10 years ago. <v Tom Wicker, host>In state after state, multi-billion dollar prison construction programs <v Tom Wicker, host>have been the result. <v Tom Wicker, host>California leads the way with more than 2 billion dollars in construction. <v Tom Wicker, host>That will add 14,000 new beds to its prison system. <v Tom Wicker, host>Another 850 million dollar prison bond issue may go before California <v Tom Wicker, host>voters in June. <v Ira Reiner>Some people belong in the penitentiary.

<v Ira Reiner>Plain and simple, we don't have enough penitentiaries and we got to build enough <v Ira Reiner>penitentiaries. <v Tom Wicker, host>Los Angeles County District Attorney Ira Reiner. <v Ira Reiner>There are people who are violent criminals that we ought to forget about trying to <v Ira Reiner>rehabilitate them. All we ought to do is put them in the penitentiary for so long <v Ira Reiner>that by the time they get out, they're no longer a threat to anybody. <v Ira Reiner>And if that means just warehousing them, then so be it. <v Robert Presley>I guess somebody has to do it. <v Robert Presley>And I think it's something they're certainly needed to be done. <v Robert Presley>Going back a number of years before I got heavily involved in the prison system, <v Robert Presley>legislation I was very involved in anticrime legislation. <v Robert Presley>And I did my bit about increasing sentences and ensuring that the criminals <v Robert Presley>went to jail and stayed there a long time. <v Robert Presley>So it seems to me then the responsible thing to do if you're going to do that then, is to <v Robert Presley>build the prison system to hold them. <v Tom Wicker, host>State Senator Robert Presley is perhaps the key legislative architect of California's <v Tom Wicker, host>massive prison construction program.

<v Robert Presley>We have been in California at least, and a very strong building mode for the last <v Robert Presley>6, 8, 10 years. And as far as we can tell in the future, that looks like <v Robert Presley>that's going to continue. The immediacy of the problem is to get these criminals off the <v Robert Presley>street and get them locked up. And I think that's what the people want. <v Robert Presley>You can hardly argue with that. <v Robert Presley>If that's your crisis, that's that's what you have to deal with. <v Tom Wicker, host>But overcrowding persists in that state and elsewhere. <v Tom Wicker, host>Designed to accommodate 38,000 inmates. <v Tom Wicker, host>California's prisons now warehouse nearly 60,000. <v Tom Wicker, host>Michael Satris is a leading California advocate of prison reform office. <v Michael Satris>It's easy to say we should be hard on criminals and I'm tough on crime. <v Michael Satris>And I'm going to put more people in prison and I'm gonna build more prisons in order to <v Michael Satris>do it as a way to gain public office, because nobody <v Michael Satris>objects to that. <v Unnamed inmate>You know what? They build new prisons and they fill all them up and they still do nothing <v Unnamed inmate>about the overcrowding, you know, where's it going to end?

<v Unnamed inmate>They're going to keep building to keep building til this is one big prison, California. <v Tom Wicker, host>Texas, historically notorious for neglecting its prisons and its prisoners, <v Tom Wicker, host>the number of inmates has increased 112 percent in <v Tom Wicker, host>6 years. But despite 670 billion dollars in construction, <v Tom Wicker, host>the capacity of prisons in Texas has increased only 50 percent. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>Several years ago, Texas had the questionable distinction of being <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>the third largest prison in the world. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>I think only behind the Soviet Union and perhaps South Africa. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>Now we are behind California, which has had <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>the fastest growing prison system because of a law dealing with determinate sentencing. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>Very politically popular, we still have a large prison, but Texas <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>is one of the larger states. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>We have to make some important decisions on money. <v Tom Wicker, host>But Texas Governor William Clements says he speaks for Texans

<v Tom Wicker, host>on corrections issues. <v William Clements>The people of Texas today are strong, strong, <v William Clements>strong in every survey, every poll that I've seen over the past <v William Clements>2 or 3 years, and I'm told by like 70 percent. <v William Clements>Of the people say, we want those criminals in prison where <v William Clements>they belong. And we want them kept there. <v William Clements>And we're not in favor of an early release program. <v William Clements>Now that's the way the people of Texas feel. <v Tom Wicker, host>Texas State Senator Ray Farabee has played a key role in the Lone Star <v Tom Wicker, host>State prison construction program. <v Tom Wicker, host>But Farabee sees limits. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>Well, I think California is now terrified because of <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>the cost of operating these many prisons that they have put into place. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>And I think that's going to happen in Texas and happen in other states that try to solve <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>the problem just by adding more prison beds. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>Now, that's not to say we shouldn't add prison beds.

<v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>We are adding them in Texas and many states are. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>But we have to look to alternatives. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>We have to apply the same economic conservatism that many of the very people who say <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>build more prisons, this is the answer, talk, they <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>talk conservative about other issues, but we need to apply conservatism across the board. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>If that term really means anything anymore and say, hey, is there a more efficient <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>way of handling this offender or that offender. <v Tom Wicker, host>But Governor Clements doesn't buy the Farabee view. <v William Clements>You know, I speak for the governor's office and he speaks for his opinion in the Senate. <v William Clements>You say, well, it's costly. Well, certainly it's costly. <v William Clements>But it also has to do with a reordering of your priorities. <v William Clements>You can't have it both ways. <v Tom Wicker, host>Construction costs are only part of the story. <v Tom Wicker, host>California currently spends 2 billion dollars annually to operate <v Tom Wicker, host>its corrections system. More than 17,000 dollars simply to keep one <v Tom Wicker, host>inmate behind bars for 1 year.

<v Tom Wicker, host>Texas spends nearly half a billion dollars on corrections efforts every year, <v Tom Wicker, host>about 14,000 dollars per inmate. <v Tom Wicker, host>Nevertheless, the courts still hold that state's prisons unconstitutionally <v Tom Wicker, host>inhumane. <v Tom Wicker, host>Even in a poor, sparsely populated state such as New Mexico, prison <v Tom Wicker, host>costs are sky high. Nearly 23,000 dollars per inmate per <v Tom Wicker, host>year, an annual operating total of nearly 85 million dollars. <v Tom Wicker, host>Prison costs, in short, are staggering, especially for so little return <v Tom Wicker, host>in decreasing crime. <v Tom Wicker, host>Even those who support more prison construction wonder how much longer tax <v Tom Wicker, host>and rate payers will stand for it. <v Ira Reiner>The money to build prisons doesn't come from heaven. <v Ira Reiner>It comes from taxes. So the public is concerned with getting criminals off <v Ira Reiner>the street, violent criminals in particular, and putting him in a penitentiary. <v Ira Reiner>But wanting them off the street in the penitentiary is one thing.

<v Ira Reiner>Being prepared to come to grips with the fact that you're going to have to pay for it, <v Ira Reiner>that is you're going to have to construct additional prisons, and that means taxes. <v Ira Reiner>That's a harder sell. <v Robert Presley>Projections are that by something like 1995, instead of having <v Robert Presley>65,000 inmates in custody as we do today, we will have something like 90,000. <v Robert Presley>And it's costing us at the moment about 17, 18,000 dollars per year <v Robert Presley>to keep those people in. So it's becoming almost prohibitively expensive. <v Jan Marenissen>This year, for the first time, the state of California <v Jan Marenissen>has to take money away from the budgets <v Jan Marenissen>of education, human services, <v Jan Marenissen>welfare, and health in order to be able <v Jan Marenissen>to pay for the tremendous correctional budget, which in <v Jan Marenissen>the last 8 years has increased by 22 percent. <v Tom Wicker, host>Jan Marenissen of the American Friends Criminal Justice Commission, a Quaker

<v Tom Wicker, host>organization, is a leading advocate of prison reform. <v Jan Marenissen>So what we see now is a rapid expansion <v Jan Marenissen>of the construction of more prisons and jails. <v Jan Marenissen>And the budgetary effects is that the- they'll rob the <v Jan Marenissen>schoolhouse to pay for the jailhouse. <v George Sullivan>There's an old philosopher who is quoted as saying that you can judge <v George Sullivan>the civility of a society by looking at its prisoners. <v George Sullivan>I think that probably has never been better, said. <v Tom Wicker, host>George Sullivan is one of America's most respected corrections professionals. <v George Sullivan>When the taxpayer is actually aware that the school <v George Sullivan>being provided for our children, the quality of education being provided for our <v George Sullivan>youngsters is diminished or <v George Sullivan>placed into the balance of needing also to fund prisons. <v George Sullivan>When that realization is clear to all of our taxpayers, that will force

<v George Sullivan>the new decision. The new decision being let us not spend money for prisons beyond <v George Sullivan>that which we must spend to protect ourselves. <v George Sullivan>Let's get out of the business of locking people up just because somebody wants <v George Sullivan>them locked up. <v Robert Presley>I suspect that that will happen. <v Robert Presley>I don't hear that much yet. I think people, for the most part, still feel that they <v Robert Presley>want them locked up and they're willing to pay the price. <v Tom Wicker, host>While taxpayers and the legislators who represent them worry about the monumental <v Tom Wicker, host>costs of our prisons, pressures to build more continue. <v Tom Wicker, host>Prisons bring jobs to local communities as the constituents of Texas State <v Tom Wicker, host>Senator Ray Farabaee know. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>We have 30 counties. I've got 14 or 15 counties that are lobbying me <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>for a prison because they want to see it as economic development. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>And that's fine up to a point. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>But we have to keep our mind on the ultimate figures that it's not just building <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>a prison, it's not just providing an economic stimulus to an area

<v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>that might have some problem because of loss of industry or higher unemployment <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>rate. But finally, we have to pay for this. <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>And if we have to take all of our resources and put it into one <v Ray Farabee, Texas state senator>place, then we may be exacerbating the problem. <v Tom Wicker, host>Not to mention increasing the costs of prison operations. <v Tom Wicker, host>The 23,000 dollars New Mexico spends to imprison someone for a year <v Tom Wicker, host>reflect that reality. <v Tom Wicker, host>In 1984, New Mexico opened its new women's prison in <v Tom Wicker, host>the economically depressed community of Grants. <v Tom Wicker, host>Local residents and their state legislators welcomed the boost to the area's economy. <v Tom Wicker, host>The prison brought jobs, but the price of corrections operations scattered about <v Tom Wicker, host>any state, some far from urban facilities, are high. <v Tom Wicker, host>Garrey Carruthers, the governor of New Mexico. <v Garrey Carruthers>But additionally on and above the cost. <v Garrey Carruthers>We also penalize by distributing these prison systems around the state.

<v Garrey Carruthers>We also penalize the prison inmates occasionally. <v Garrey Carruthers>For example, in some communities, there, there is no prospect <v Garrey Carruthers>for job release to go out and do some things. <v Garrey Carruthers>If you build some of these prisons in communities that already have 10, 15, 20, and 30 <v Garrey Carruthers>percent unemployment, the prospects of hiring an inmate in that community as opposed to <v Garrey Carruthers>someone who is already unemployed is pretty bleak. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>We really have lacked a fundamental policy in corrections <v Roger Morris, Journalist>from a period dating long before the riot. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>But even in these fateful 7 years since that catastrophe, we have not come <v Roger Morris, Journalist>to grips with an integrated and coherent policy statewide. <v Tom Wicker, host>Roger Morris, the author of The Devil's Butcher Shop, a compelling account of <v Tom Wicker, host>that state's infamous prison riot. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>We've decided where to place prisons, when to build them, how large to make them, <v Roger Morris, Journalist>who to put in them, very largely in terms of the political advantages to be accrued <v Roger Morris, Journalist>from what region of the state it was placed in in terms of <v Roger Morris, Journalist>who benefits in the legislature and all the rest.

<v Roger Morris, Journalist>That's simply a shameful anachronism that we can no longer afford in corrections <v Roger Morris, Journalist>policy. We've got to make those decisions in terms of enlightened penal policy, not <v Roger Morris, Journalist>not economic development, for which corrections, after all, is hardly a viable <v Roger Morris, Journalist>substitute. <v Tom Wicker, host>As prison costs have risen, the idea of privatization <v Tom Wicker, host>appeals to some politicians. <v Tom Wicker, host>States would lease privately owned and operated prisons. <v Tom Wicker, host>Some say they would save money. <v Garrey Carruthers>Privatization is fairly new to us when when we speak about prisons, but there <v Garrey Carruthers>are successes around, there are no major systems under privatization. <v Garrey Carruthers>But I understand one state now has agreed to, I think, let the private sector build 3 <v Garrey Carruthers>major prison systems. Most of the successes are found in the southeastern part of the <v Garrey Carruthers>country. Very recently appointed by President Reagan to his 13 member commission <v Garrey Carruthers>on privatization. This is one of the issues I want to pursue. <v Garrey Carruthers>I want to seek from around the country those kinds of experiences that <v Garrey Carruthers>would lend to good public policy in the state.

<v Garrey Carruthers>I think that we'll discover that these successes lately have been significant <v Garrey Carruthers>enough to recommended to our state legislature. <v William Clements>I have I have very real reservations about this hype, <v William Clements>if that's a good term for it. <v William Clements>It has to do with privatization of prisons. <v William Clements>It's a vastly overstated proposition, if you will, <v William Clements>in my opinion. <v William Clements>We in Texas are proceeding with the utmost caution and <v William Clements>with great care. <v William Clements>And certainly we're not considering anything other than minimum security <v William Clements>facilities. <v William Clements>I think that when you move up the spectrum and you get into either <v William Clements>moderate facilities or maximum security, that is <v William Clements>fundamentally a state responsibility. <v William Clements>And I do not believe that the private sector has a proper role <v William Clements>in that in that kind of endeavor.

<v Daniel Vasquez>Well, first of all, put that in perspective. Privatization is nothing really new. <v Daniel Vasquez>San Quentin which is the oldest prison in the state of California. <v Daniel Vasquez>And if I'm not mistaken, might be pretty close to the oldest prison in the nation, <v Daniel Vasquez>started out in the premise of privatization. <v Daniel Vasquez>And I don't know what they called it back then in that enlightened period, maybe they <v Daniel Vasquez>called it something else, maybe they did call it privatization, but <v Daniel Vasquez>it didn't work then. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>Privatization is at best a very embryonic art being done on a very small <v Roger Morris, Journalist>scale in this country. So, to, to hold it out as a panacea for the problems that we now <v Roger Morris, Journalist>face. I don't think it's realistic at all. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>It would take a very long time and enormous investment of funds, would make us hostage, <v Roger Morris, Journalist>as all privatization schemes do to a whole new set of managers and bureaucrats <v Roger Morris, Journalist>and a whole new array of costs, I might add that the taxpayers, I think, are going to <v Roger Morris, Journalist>find rather onerous. <v Daniel Vasquez>Incarcerations of citizens of the United States <v Daniel Vasquez>is a constitutional issue.

<v Daniel Vasquez>It doesn't belong in the corporate board decision making realm. <v Daniel Vasquez>It's a constitutional issue. <v Tom Wicker, host>America's prisons are a growing, if costly business. <v Tom Wicker, host>As the bills come due, taxpayers and politicians alike begin to wonder, <v Tom Wicker, host>are these expensive institutions working? <v Tom Wicker, host>Are they accomplishing promised objectives, deterring <v Tom Wicker, host>crime, reducing crime rates, rehabilitating offenders? <v Tom Wicker, host>Or are they simply human warehouses and schools of criminal instruction <v Tom Wicker, host>out of the public sight, so out of the public's mind? <v George Sullivan>Prisons are statistically inconsequential. <v George Sullivan>We serve as no deterrent. I have never talked to an inmate in my 33 <v George Sullivan>years in this business who thought for one moment he would get caught. <v George Sullivan>If the possibility of getting caught occurred to him, he certainly did not

<v George Sullivan>go to the next level of assuming for a moment that he would be prosecuted <v George Sullivan>or would be found guilty or certainly that he would ever wind up in prison. <v George Sullivan>Inmates, criminals know that the likelihood of them going to prison for committing <v George Sullivan>a felony crime at best is about 1 in 100. <v George Sullivan>So if that's true and it is documented, there's truth in every state in our <v George Sullivan>land, our people need to know that. <v George Sullivan>They need to know that prisons have no substantial role <v George Sullivan>to play. <v "Jerry">This should be the last thing you do to an individual sent to prison, because once you <v "Jerry">send him here, he's not afraid of prison anymore. <v "Jerry">And you have nothing- there's nothing you can do to him besides killing to stop him from <v "Jerry">doing whatever he wants to do. If he survives this and he goes back to your society, you <v "Jerry">know, what can you threaten him with? <v "Jerry">I'm going to send you to prison? Psh. That's alright, I've been there, my friends are there. <v Justice Mary Walters>It has been said for at least 50 years that I know. <v Justice Mary Walters>That prison institutions are merely schools for crime.

<v Justice Mary Walters>And I don't think it's changed. And the opportunity is getting better to make <v Justice Mary Walters>criminals studentsout of penitentiary inmates. <v Tom Wicker, host>Plainly, something is not working. <v Tom Wicker, host>Recidivism rates are high. <v Tom Wicker, host>According to federal estimates, 70 percent of those released from prison <v Tom Wicker, host>will be behind bars again within 5 years. <v Ira Reiner>And something has to be done about that. <v Ira Reiner>There is more crime. It is much more violent than the people that are involved in this <v Ira Reiner>violent crime, by and large, are recidivists. <v Ira Reiner>That is, they repeat their crimes over and over. <v Ira Reiner>And the only effective way to deal with these people in the short run, that means <v Ira Reiner>right now, is to put them in jail and keep them there. <v Michael Satris>When they are released from prison, they certainly are no less of a threat to the public <v Michael Satris>than before they went in there.They're more of a threat because they have become <v Michael Satris>embittered. They've become exposed to the violence that you do see <v Michael Satris>in the prison system. And it becomes a very much of a vicious cycle

<v Michael Satris>in terms of trying to break it. <v Orville Pung>Because everybody's coming out of prison. <v Orville Pung>You go to prison for 18 months or 24 months, you're coming out. <v Orville Pung>The national average in prison must run today, somewhere around 22 months. <v Orville Pung>So these people are the people that you're walking down the street with and riding the <v Orville Pung>busses with and interacting every day. <v Orville Pung>So it isn't like you're putting them on a rocket ship and sending them off into space, <v Orville Pung>never to return again. <v "Rocky">You take an individual and you bring them inside the penitentiary here, and it takes <v "Rocky">a while to program an individual to survive inside a penitentiary setting. <v "Rocky">Then you get him here for 7 or 8 years, and then one day they open the door <v "Rocky">and all of a sudden you're free. You know, with a 50 dollar bill and you think, <v "Rocky">what do I do? Where do I go? It's like it's a complete different environment. <v "Rocky">You're stepping into an alien world that you no longer fit in. <v "Rocky">They're not taking the time to reorientate anyone. <v "Rocky">People are going out there for short periods of time and coming right back to the <v "Rocky">penitentiary.

<v Jan Marenissen>When you look at the breakdown of the prison population, <v Jan Marenissen>at least half of the population has never finished <v Jan Marenissen>high school. <v Jan Marenissen>A large percentage is functionally illiterate. <v Jan Marenissen>Many people have never had employment. <v Jan Marenissen>And skills are very, very <v Jan Marenissen>limited among the prisoners, so many of them have <v Jan Marenissen>experienced the life of deprivation, and a large <v Jan Marenissen>percentage of the people behind bars were victims <v Jan Marenissen>of child abuse and neglect. <v Jan Marenissen>It may well be that some of them are acting out, <v Jan Marenissen>maybe unconsciously or consciously, maybe in defiance <v Jan Marenissen>against the the human situation they have experienced <v Jan Marenissen>all their life.

<v Unnamed city official actor>[Start clip of "San Quentin" here:] This looks like a man sized job. <v Unnamed warden actor>Now many of those men are here just because they had bad breaks. <v Unnamed warden actor>They're not born criminals and we don't want to turn them into criminals. <v Unnamed warden actor>Come on. Now that you've seen them, we'll let them have a look at you. [End clip of "San Quentin"] <v Daniel Vasquez>We better be careful that we don't expect too much from corrections. <v Daniel Vasquez>Because when I when I receive a person at San Quentin, he's <v Daniel Vasquez>at the end of the line. Not at the beginning. <v Daniel Vasquez>I don't think it's realistic to think that to send a person to prison to rehabilitate <v Daniel Vasquez>him. I haven't- I've never rehabilitated anybody. <v "Rocky">I grew up in a prison system from juvenile institutions on into adult <v "Rocky">institutions. I watched changes happen in a penitentiary <v "Rocky">when all of a sudden everything was sociology. <v "Rocky">Well, let's go in and we'll try this. It's a controlled environment situation and we'll <v "Rocky">see how it works. And they went through a penitentiary and they painted the walls, <v "Rocky">all these bright colors, because they said that was supposed to cheer you up and

<v "Rocky">everything. And all it did was make everyone ?inaudible? <v "Rocky">Because it was these real sharp angles all down this hallway at quarter mile <v "Rocky">of all of these bright flashes, sharp lines. <v "Rocky">And we had more killings in the penitentiary than we ever had. <v "Rocky">So they said, well, that didn't work. We'll try some- paint the walls. <v "Rocky">Now we'll try sensory deprivation. <v "Rocky">We'll put them in dark boxes with nothing in there and put them naked and leave them <v "Rocky">there for 29 days and then they'll be ready to live with other people. <v "Rocky">And these were the things that were tried that a lot of us have lived through. <v "Rocky">And we think, what are you going to do next to make me fit in your world? <v Orville Pung>Part of our job is to provide a sanction. <v Orville Pung>And we do that. Part of our job is to make opportunities available <v Orville Pung>to them. It isn't our job to rehabilitate anybody- that's not <v Orville Pung>corrections job. It's our job, I think, to make the climate, the atmosphere and the <v Orville Pung>conditions available to someone who wants to habilitate <v Orville Pung>himself or herself to do something with one's life.

<v Orville Pung>That's as far as we can go. <v Orville Pung>I don't think we should be expected to do to heal or to bless or to cleanse <v Orville Pung>or to do anything else. <v Michael Satris>I think that that conditions that lead to crime are the conditions in our <v Michael Satris>society. You know, it's it's it's very much different than than in <v Michael Satris>European societies. For example, there, there's there's much less crime. <v Michael Satris>And one of the problems here is, is the gross inequities <v Michael Satris>in the economic structure. <v Michael Satris>The one constant that that all the criminologists have, have ascertained <v Michael Satris>with crime is that it goes up and down according to the rate of unemployment. <v Ira Reiner>Obviously, poverty has some impact on it. <v Ira Reiner>But to suggest that poverty is the cause of violent crime and this tremendous <v Ira Reiner>increase, I think is frankly nonsense. <v Unnamed inmate>I've been in prison 3 times and I've been on the streets twice. <v Unnamed inmate>It's hard to get a job. It's hard to find employment. <v Unnamed inmate>They look at your history, oh, you're a criminal.

<v Unnamed inmate>You've been in prison for robbery or burglary, whatever it be. <v Unnamed inmate>It's hard to deal with that man because they look at you as a as a subject, not a person. <v Unnamed inmate>And we all still are people here. We have rights. <v Jan Marenissen>When you look at the state prison population in California right now, all <v Jan Marenissen>done, you will see that at least 65 percent <v Jan Marenissen>belongs to the third world. <v Jan Marenissen>36 percent are Black, 27 percent are <v Jan Marenissen>Latino. And 2 to 4 percent Native American <v Jan Marenissen>and Asians. <v Jan Marenissen>We in California, we are practicing some kind <v Jan Marenissen>of an apartheid system which people don't want to look at. <v Jan Marenissen>But that is exactly what we are doing. <v Tom Wicker, host>Not many want to talk about it. <v Tom Wicker, host>But given the disproportionate number of minorities in state prisons, the disturbing <v Tom Wicker, host>issue of racism cannot be ignored.

<v Ira Reiner>People belong in the penitentiary based upon what they have done, that's the only test. <v Ira Reiner>Someone's an armed robber then he belongs in the penitentiary. <v Ira Reiner>And it matters not at all whether that person is Black, brown or white. <v Jan Marenissen>We cannot say that Black people or Latinos or <v Jan Marenissen>Native American people are innately more criminally inclined <v Jan Marenissen>than white people. <v Jan Marenissen>So we have to look at some of the underlying causes, reasons <v Jan Marenissen>why 65 percent of the population is <v Jan Marenissen>nonwhite. And then, of course, then we are thinking in terms of <v Jan Marenissen>the nonwhite population not participating in the so-called dream <v Jan Marenissen>of America. <v Unnamed inmate>You know, I hold the job down, but as soon as they get to read my files, <v Unnamed inmate>I'm out. I'm fired for some reasons. <v Unnamed inmate>It's hard. It's hard. I got 3 kids, a wife, and you know what?

<v Unnamed inmate>Making minimum wage ain't what's happening, and that's all I got. <v Orville Pung>I call prisons the ultimate welfare state. <v Orville Pung>We don't like welfare. But somehow or another, we're willing to take people and feed, <v Orville Pung>clothe, give medical care, free medical services the absolute best. <v Orville Pung>And that's what, that's what you can do when you start incarcerating a lot of people. <v Orville Pung>It's an enormous cost. And I think that some states have found themselves having to start <v Orville Pung>release people early because they can't afford the system. <v Orville Pung>We may have we may be heading for a system that is not- in the country. <v Orville Pung>The corrections system may replace the welfare system. <v Orville Pung>It may be the new welfare system for the underclass in America. <v Orville Pung>It has that potential unless we really think through what we're doing. <v Tom Wicker, host>Taking stock is a painful business, but as the costs and ineffectiveness of corrections <v Tom Wicker, host>policy aroused debate, the search for a different approach is inevitable.

<v Tom Wicker, host>A case in point, Georgia, where the high costs of prison construction <v Tom Wicker, host>and operations have prompted a fundamental change. <v Tom Wicker, host>Georgia searches for alternatives to traditional prison confinement after a <v Tom Wicker, host>disillusioning history. <v Tom Wicker, host>As recently as 5 years ago, Georgia imprisons more of its citizens <v Tom Wicker, host>per capita in any State of the Union. <v Tom Wicker, host>Despite an already overcrowded prison system, despite a federal court order <v Tom Wicker, host>that required improvements. The result of putting so many people behind bars <v Tom Wicker, host>was hardly rehabilitation in the traditional sense. <v Inaudible Dialog>[inaudible call and response resembling a military chant between a corrections officer and a handful of inmates.]

<v Vince Fallin, Dept. Commissioner Georgia Department of Corrections>Most of the states in the south have been always very conservative <v Vince Fallin, Dept. Commissioner Georgia Department of Corrections>relative to what we do with offenders. <v Vince Fallin, Dept. Commissioner Georgia Department of Corrections>We have tended to look at prison as one of the primary answers. <v Vince Fallin, Dept. Commissioner Georgia Department of Corrections>And as a result, I think we had to begin to rethink what we were doing to provide <v Vince Fallin, Dept. Commissioner Georgia Department of Corrections>the judges with some other options other than just basic probation. <v Inaudible Dialog>[Military drill taking place, many inmates responding to something called out by an off-camera voice.] <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>A special alternative <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>incarceration program is a rather unique approach to prison diversion. <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>Take a young man between the ages of 19 and 25 who's beginning <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>his criminal career, adult criminal career and put him on probation. <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>And as a special condition of probation, you determine that he is required to serve 90 <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>days. And that's our program.

<v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>We have 1 of 2 located in the state of Georgia here. <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>It's military oriented, basic training. <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>We combine the best of what the military has to offer in terms of military discipline <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>and also the best of what the prison system has to offer in terms of hard labor. <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>And if he successfully completes the 90 day program, he can return home and serve <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>the remainder of his sentence on probation. <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>If he fails to complete this program satisfactorily, we may recommend <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>revocation to the courts. And thus far, those we've recommended for revocation have been <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>sent into the regular prison system. <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>The results thus far indicate that approximately 75 to 77 <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>percent of the people that come through this program 3 years later have not <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>returned to prison. But it's the first time he's been in prison, fairly short, <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>but it's very intensive. And we give them an opportunity to see the consequences <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>of their behavior so that when they return to society, they can decide whether or not <v Truett Goodwin, Warden at a Correctional Training Center>this is the type of work they want to be doing for the rest of their lives. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>The Griffin Diversion Center is one of the many programs options that

<v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>a judge in Georgia has during his sentencing phase. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>A judge sends a person in here to go through a process. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>First of all, the judge deems that this persons crime was too severe for regular <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>probation, but yet still not severe enough to incarcerate him. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>He gave them a second chance. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>He has to work. One of the major prerequisites to enter this program is that you got to <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>be able to work, you see, because the person they're sentencing pays for everything <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>that he gets. He pays room and board at a rate of 4 to 550 a week. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>He has a fine to pay, he pays off that fine. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>He has restitution pay, he pays that at restitution. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>He has to have a certain amount of money in savings before we release him. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>And if he has a family, have to send home family support, we won't allow him to go on <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>welfare. So you won't be a burden to taxpayers here. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>You pay taxes just like the average man on the street while in this program. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>We keep this person productive. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>Whereas in a in a prison, you are just sitting in a cell, you just

<v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>doing time. Here, you're doing time, but you're doing productive time. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>You're working on what we say to building. The building is the person's inner self. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>We are making you do things that's going to make you feel better about yourself. <v James Fletcher, Director of Griffin Diversion Center>To give you a strong, positive outlook that you can make it. <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>Intensive probation is the next most strict form of probation <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>that is offered. <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>We've now added a home confinement component to intensive probation. <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>And these individuals who are placed in home confinement are required to be at home for <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>24 hours a day for the first 3 months they're on intensive, except the time that we allow <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>them to be away from home. The program is designed primarily for moderate risk <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>offenders, if you will, to be assigned to a very strict probation program and <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>thereby allow them to be supervised on the streets rather than <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>going to prison. A very tight curfew is established. <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>We have weekly employment verification.

<v William Larkey, Probation Officer>Weekly record checks to local law enforcement is required to make sure that no arrests <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>have occurred. Drug and alcohol screens are taken on a periodic basis. <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>Community service is a component of intensive probation and they are required to do one <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>132 hours to fully complete intensive probation. <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>I will tell them from day 1 that I know you're not like <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>this probation. I know you're not going to like having to abide by these rules <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>and abide by this, these strict standards. <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>But I let them know I don't require that you like it because that would be, I think, <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>unrealistic. But I remind them of the fact that had it not been <v William Larkey, Probation Officer>for the existence of this program, they'd be in jail. <v Inaudible Dialog>[Another scene of the correctional officer doing a military style call-and-response with a group of inmates] <v Vince Fallin, Dept. Commissioner Georgia Department of Corrections>The availability now of options ranging from regular probation <v Vince Fallin, Dept. Commissioner Georgia Department of Corrections>to community service as a condition of probation to intensive probation involving <v Vince Fallin, Dept. Commissioner Georgia Department of Corrections>2 officers working with a small caseload, 2 diversion centers

<v Vince Fallin, Dept. Commissioner Georgia Department of Corrections>to shock incarceration has really given the judges what we refer <v Vince Fallin, Dept. Commissioner Georgia Department of Corrections>to as a cafeteria of sentencing options, mid range punishment options <v Vince Fallin, Dept. Commissioner Georgia Department of Corrections>that can, in fact punish, control, respond to the victim <v Vince Fallin, Dept. Commissioner Georgia Department of Corrections>and also meet the needs and the treatment needs of the offenders that we have in our <v Vince Fallin, Dept. Commissioner Georgia Department of Corrections>system. <v Tom Wicker, host>Georgia's promising innovations are driven by the same forces that shape <v Tom Wicker, host>America's larger prison crisis, dangerous overcrowding, <v Tom Wicker, host>federal court intervention, economic necessity. <v Tom Wicker, host>The vast majority of our states are being compelled to seek new ways to <v Tom Wicker, host>respond to crime. <v Tom Wicker, host>Unlike Georgia, some states continue to follow the policies that largely <v Tom Wicker, host>spawned the prison crisis. <v Tom Wicker, host>Take the case of New Mexico. <v Tom Wicker, host>Despite a 1978 federal court order the Duran consent decree <v Tom Wicker, host>to reduce the overcrowding that ultimately fostered the bloody riot of 1980.

<v Tom Wicker, host>The governor of financially strapped New Mexico vows renewed litigation <v Tom Wicker, host>to fight that court order. <v Garrey Carruthers>That court order came to us after one of the worst prison riots ever in the United <v Garrey Carruthers>States. Now, had we just had a law case and <v Garrey Carruthers>some discussion in the courts and litigation and decided to settle the case out of court, <v Garrey Carruthers>which is a consent decree and nothing else to happen I would believe <v Garrey Carruthers>that we would not have agreed to the conditions that we agreed to at Duran. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>That's not accurate historically. The consent decree was under negotiation for several <v Roger Morris, Journalist>months before the riot ever took place. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>There, in fact, were talks between the state and the convict plaintiffs <v Roger Morris, Journalist>represented by the ACLU and by a federal arbitrator at that point in the late months of <v Roger Morris, Journalist>1979, discussing the specific standards and measures <v Roger Morris, Journalist>that would be embodied in the decree. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>The decree really represents no more than the best and most enlightened penal thinking in <v Roger Morris, Journalist>the country.

<v Garrey Carruthers>But the 1980 prison right up the ante and it upped the ante against society <v Garrey Carruthers>on behalf of the inmates. I think we had collectively a great sense <v Garrey Carruthers>of guilt for what happened 1980 because the Duran filing was about <v Garrey Carruthers>overcrowding and conditions in the prison. That's what Duran was complaining about. <v Garrey Carruthers>And I think we perhaps collectively decided that we felt guilty, <v Garrey Carruthers>perhaps we ought to give a little more than we should. <v Garrey Carruthers>What we did is define some conditions that do not permit us then as a public to manage <v Garrey Carruthers>the prison. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>It is not some kind of special concoction that grew up after the riot. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>It's not the product of bureaucratic guilt. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>It is, in fact a distillation of the best and most progressive standards in corrections <v Roger Morris, Journalist>practices around the country. <v Tom Wicker, host>Clearly, millions, perhaps billions of dollars have been spent on litigation <v Tom Wicker, host>involving our states' prison conditions, something rarely included in calculations <v Tom Wicker, host>of the costs of corrections. <v Garrey Carruthers>The cost of funding litigation is a concern to New Mexico has been difficult to <v Garrey Carruthers>continue the fight simply because it's not easy to over overturn something you already <v Garrey Carruthers>agreed to. And consequently, we find ourselves in somewhat of a pickle.

<v Garrey Carruthers>One of the things that saves us perhaps is that we change administrations. <v Garrey Carruthers>So in changing administrations at least, you can make an argument that we want something <v Garrey Carruthers>different and something new. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>Their only major act has been to pour more money into lawyers to fight the Duran decree, <v Roger Morris, Journalist>which is an old and I think forlorn effort. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>They've even gone to the trouble now to hire a new Washington law firm to try to wage an <v Roger Morris, Journalist>all out constitutional battle against the decree, which I think is doomed to failure. <v Roger Morris, Journalist>We've spent almost 2 million dollars on attorneys in the last 3 or 4 years <v Roger Morris, Journalist>fighting the Duran Decree. We could have spent that money so much more usefully in <v Roger Morris, Journalist>programs in in even in developing new policies in the corrections department <v Roger Morris, Journalist>rather than trying to fight progress. <v Tom Wicker, host>The good news is that there are a few states, unfortunately, too few, <v Tom Wicker, host>which seem to be the exceptions to the rule. <v Tom Wicker, host>Minnesota, like other states, it must grapple with crime and corrections. <v Tom Wicker, host>But Minnesota has avoided many of the causes of crises in other states. <v Allan Spear, Minnesota State Senator>I don't want any more prisons.

<v Allan Spear, Minnesota State Senator>I don't believe that the people who are running our correctional system in this state <v Allan Spear, Minnesota State Senator>want more prisons. One thing I've learned, if you build them, you fill them. <v Allan Spear, Minnesota State Senator>And you're just spending a disproportionate amount <v Allan Spear, Minnesota State Senator>of your state budget for something that really isn't doing the citizens much good. <v Allan Spear, Minnesota State Senator>And so we've pursued a somewhat different course on this in Minnesota, and I think it's <v Allan Spear, Minnesota State Senator>been a much better one. <v Orville Pung>We are willing and have been for a long time to spend some money <v Orville Pung>on on each other, and we have a long history of that. <v Tom Wicker, host>Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Orville Pung sees the connection between <v Tom Wicker, host>a state's social services and its corrections programs. <v Orville Pung>I think where you find a good corrections system and let's assume we have a good one in <v Orville Pung>Minnesota, you can go to other areas and find outstanding systems. <v Orville Pung>I think we have the best health care system in the country. <v Orville Pung>We spend more money on education, I think, than any other state. <v Orville Pung>We spend more money on, on generally Human Human Services in Minnesota. <v Orville Pung>So it would be inconsistent to have a poor corrections system with all these other

<v Orville Pung>systems being recognized I think in many ways as one of the best in the country. <v Tom Wicker, host>More than anything else, how we handle our juvenile offenders may determine <v Tom Wicker, host>the ultimate character of our adult corrections systems. <v Tom Wicker, host>At Redwing, a young offenders last chance in the Minnesota juvenile system, <v Tom Wicker, host>the emphasis is on education and skills as well as corrections. <v Tom Wicker, host>Juvenile offenders in Minnesota go to institutions like Redwing only <v Tom Wicker, host>as a last resort. First come community programs like <v Tom Wicker, host>?Catatan? in Minneapolis. <v Jay Lindgren>?Catatan? House is one of a large variety of programs that exist in Minnesota <v Jay Lindgren>that are there to provide the kind of structure and control <v Jay Lindgren>and toughness. It works very effectively with kids who, but for the program might be <v Jay Lindgren>in a residential program, might even be in a state institution.

<v Tom Wicker, host>Minnesota's juvenile release director, Jay Lindgren. <v Jay Lindgren>Clearly, at least in my experience, that the ultimate, the ultimate turnaround <v Jay Lindgren>comes when a kid finds out or an adult finds out that there is more <v Jay Lindgren>in it for me to do things right than there is to do the wrong and buy in it for me. <v Jay Lindgren>I mean, essential things like how do I support myself, <v Jay Lindgren>that I can by, by holding a job I can meet and find <v Jay Lindgren>some kind of meaningful work that gives me the kind of income so that I can feel that I <v Jay Lindgren>have some dignity. It works very hard to to bring about <v Jay Lindgren>an education program that's attractive to kids, that's based on basics, reading <v Jay Lindgren>and arithmetic being the 2 keys. <v Jay Lindgren>And they also use relationships, the kinds of problems that occur in day to day <v Jay Lindgren>interaction among kids and with kids and adults to be a learning experience, to learn the <v Jay Lindgren>social skills necessary to to survive and to succeed and in the <v Jay Lindgren>larger society. <v Orville Pung>I think what you want to do with juveniles is damage them the least you possibly can.

<v Orville Pung>Get them through a experience that they don't leave more bitter, more hostile and more <v Orville Pung>damaged than when they came in. <v Orville Pung>And I think you want to at least leave them with a good self concept and a feeling that <v Orville Pung>they can be successful. It's quite an investment with juveniles, because if you can- <v Orville Pung>there's a lot of money in this business. And if you can just defer 1 kid a year, you can <v Orville Pung>almost save your budget over a lifetime of corrections and crime. <v "Rocky">There's a program where convicts go talk to kids in the community, at schools <v "Rocky">and stuff to try to tell them to use their head. <v "Rocky">Because that's your future convict right there. <v "Rocky">That's what money is needed to build new penitentiaries, not to keep <v "Rocky">us, but for your children. <v On-Screen text>[On screen quote: "This too I know - and wise it were / If each could know the same - / That every prison that men build / is built with bricks of shame." - Oscar Wilde"]. <v Tom Wicker, host>Probably no American institution is a greater and more costly failure than our prisons.

<v Tom Wicker, host>I wrote those words 13 years ago in A Time to Die, a book about <v Tom Wicker, host>my experiences during the Attica prison uprising. <v Tom Wicker, host>We call our prisons a correction system. <v Tom Wicker, host>But neither those who run them nor those who appropriate the money actually <v Tom Wicker, host>believe that prisons achieve much correction. <v Tom Wicker, host>By that, we mean the rehabilitation of offenders. <v Tom Wicker, host>And as we spend billions to build more prisons in order to incarcerate more <v Tom Wicker, host>offenders, can anyone believe that these warehouses of humanity <v Tom Wicker, host>significantly deter crime? <v Tom Wicker, host>Continuing high crime rates speak for themselves. <v Tom Wicker, host>But we cannot blame prison officials and legislators alone for <v Tom Wicker, host>what we've done to ourselves. <v Tom Wicker, host>As the fear of crime has grown into a panicky political issue in this country, <v Tom Wicker, host>the bureaucrats and the politicians have done just about what we citizens <v Tom Wicker, host>have demanded. We have taken counsel of our fears

<v Tom Wicker, host>and embarked upon a dead end journey. <v Tom Wicker, host>It's ironic, a sad commentary, that we are beginning to recognize the failure <v Tom Wicker, host>of our prisons because they cost too much. <v Tom Wicker, host>But as prison costs rising out of control threaten other basic programs, <v Tom Wicker, host>including education, perhaps the most effective deterrent to crime, <v Tom Wicker, host>we are being compelled. Like it or not, to consider less expensive, <v Tom Wicker, host>possibly more effective ways to deal with crime and punishment in that <v Tom Wicker, host>there may be hope for more of us than criminals and their victims. <v Announcer>This special program was funded in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

<v Announcer>through a grant from the Pacific Mountain Network Program Fund.