The Cost of Doing Nothing

I watched with mixed emotions as the country went through the seizures of defaulting on the national debt.  Part of me was deeply amused.  Every cable news outlet had their “breaking news” and a countdown clock to debt Armageddon.  Both parties – and the president as well – played simple, false sound bites.  The “Tea Party” pushed demagoguery to a new limit.  Ah America, “God shed His grace on thee.”  And Virginia’s Governor?  He did more creative bookkeeping than I did to land myself in prison.

Governor McDonnell touted a $500 million surplus, except, he forgot to tell people he failed to meet the payment requirements to the Virginia Retirement System.  There is no surplus.  VRS is almost $17 billion underfunded and the Commonwealth still has an IOU outstanding to VRS for the prior year’s budget debacle.  And McDonnell has the brass set to go on CNN as a “possible VP” nominee and tout Virginia’s economic well-being.

A pox on both their houses!  As “The Economist” noted in an OpEd piece on March 19, 2011: 

“…despite all the rhetoric from the tea partiers, big government is not just the fault of the self-interested bureaucrats and leftist politicians.  Conservative voters…have kept on demanding the state do more…the right has built prisons, announced wars on drugs and terror, and indulged generals, farmers, and policemen…”

What we have seen in the recent economic unraveling is that everything costs.  And the bill for America’s love affair with “tough on crime” mass incarceration policy has come due.  Governor McDonnell can lead or he can step aside.  But, the time for change is now.

As states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Kentucky have realized, there are more effective and less expensive ways to handle most non-violent offenders.  These states are employing alternatives to sending someone convicted of a crime to prison.  They utilize home incarceration and day center reporting versus prison.

This isn’t a “bleeding heart liberal” approach.  Conservatives such as former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, drug czar William Bennett, Newt Gingrich and anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist are pushing for prison reform.

Where is Virginia in this discussion?  Not even involved.  Virginia will spend $25,000 to keep me housed in a low level facility this year and the costs continue to climb.  I am unable to pay restitution for my embezzlement while in here; I do not pay taxes; I do not help raise my youngest son.  Three years I’ve spent behind bars.  If Bob McDonnell was really the politician he claims to be, he’d look at my situation and the thousands like it.  He’d let us “do our time” outside the walls; working, making restitution, being productive citizens.

As the "Sentencing Project" reported recently, lawmakers in Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey and New York adopted significant policy changes to reduce prison populations.

“In each of these state a range of policy changes were adopted, including sentencing reforms, alternatives for ‘prison-bound’ people, reducing time served in prison, addressing parole release rates and reducing revocations”

23 states have made significant changes in the way sentences are handed out and the length of time an inmate serves – Virginia is not one of those 23.

Bob McDonnell and the Virginia General Assembly can make a difference.  $1 billion a year to house 40,000 inmates is enough reason to try.  They need to enact a real “earned good time credit” system that aggressively rewards inmates who seek to change and improve.  Early release should not just be a goal, but the mission of corrections.

Virginia can no longer afford to do nothing.  Virginia needs real solutions, not “creative” accounting.  The economic realities that showed their true colors this summer prove that government must make smart choices.  No longer can the U.S. with 5 percent of the world’s population, keep 25 percent of the world’s inmates behind bars.

Perhaps Governor McDonnell will finally get it.