Treatment works better and costs less. The teeming jails are also an expression of an abiding racial divide in this country. African Americans and Latinos make up a disproportionate number of prisoners. Almost one-half of the young African American males in the nation's capital are in prison, on probation or parole. Locked up for non-violent offenses, blacks are disenfranchised, separated from their families, shorn of their jobs and hopes.
Cowardly politicians play on people's fears and hatreds and perpetuate the crime of punishment.
It isn't hard or clever. Conservative Republicans became the party of white sanctuary in the South by using law and order as a code for racial fears. New Democrats thought it easier to switch than fight. Three strikes and lifetime jail, two strikes and out, racially biased laws on crack versus cocaine, mandatory sentences, macho work camps, even the death penalty - all became grist for campaign ads to prove they were tough enough to govern. Politicians like Bill Clinton and George Bush Jr. prospered, even as they ruined the lives of offenders who committed no crime greater than what they had done in their salad days.