'Lock 'em up and throw away the key': a policy that won't work.

• Author: Rentschler, William H.

Americans no longer build soaring cathedrals that stir people's souls. Instead, they build countless grim prisons that smother hope. It is a depressing trade-off.

A single mean, bleak prison cell, with its thin mattress, basic plumbing, 60-watt bulb, and concrete floor, costs beleaguered taxpayers--from Portland, Ore.. to Pensacola, Fla.; Portland, Me., to Albuquerque, N.M.; and all points in between--a minimum of $45,000 and as much as $125,000 to build.

These are precious tax dollars that could be applied to hot breakfasts for poor kids' updated schoolrooms and textbooks, decent education, care of the infirm elderly and mentally ill, repair of crumbling roads and bridges, and countless other pressing needs. This is merely the beginning of the enormous cost of imprisoning wrongdoers who often do not fit the media profile of slavering brutes, but instead may be young first offenders whose minor, frequently victimless crimes pose no threat or danger to the public.

To cage a human being once the prison cell is built represents a cost of $12-30,000 per prisoner each year from tight state and Federal budgets. Because of its high labor costs, New York City spends $50,000 yearly to keep an inmate in jail. The aver age annual tab is almost $69,000 for the increasing numbers of older inmates over 55, whose health care and other special needs balloon the bill.

These numbers apply for every year an inmate serves for whatever crime he or she committed. Moreover' they continue forever as a taxpayer penalty, since every cell that exists anywhere in the U.S. is guaranteed to be occupied in a national criminal justice system where overcrowding is a grim, unchanging fact of life, no matter how many new facilities are added. This huge annual burden covers the ever-rising costs of punishing and segregating criminals. Taxpayers are stuck with the bill for warehousing, feeding, clothing, and guarding these convicted felons while they are incarcerated.

In the final decade of the 20th century, prisons in the U.S. have assumed a status of near sanctity, almost like a hallowed monument or cathedral in another era. One who dares oppose the construction of yet another new prison is adjudged soft on crime," tolerant of severe wrongdoing, and likely, if facing election for public office. doomed to defeat.

Today in America, there is virtually no enlightened dialogue or consideration of what works and what doesn't in criminal justice, how much should be paid to satisfy the lust to punish, and whether there are better ways to attack such age-old ills. Howard Peters III, director of Illinois' Department of Corrections, has said. "The public needs to understand that prisons aren't free." Yet, he is in the forefront of the drive for a new "supermax"...