Southern Republicans think it’s time to slow down the growth of locking up
On the outskirts of Columbia, South Carolina’s capital, lies a rolling swathe of farmland where cattle graze, tomatoes sprout and razor wire glints in the afternoon sun. This well-tended campus is home to seven of the state’s 28 prisons, including both Broad River, where inmates sentenced to die are lethally injected or electrocuted, and Campbell, which houses prisoners on work-release, who spend their days at fast-food restaurants or laundries and return to their “dorms” to sleep.
Part of their earnings goes to repay the cost of jailing them. And it is a cost: from 1983 to 2008 spending on the state’s prisons increased more than sixfold, as its prison population rose from just over 9,000 to almost 25,000. That rise had several causes, among them the greater number of people imprisoned for non-violent crimes and the heavier sentences that came with new laws laying down mandatory minimum terms.
Another factor was the decision of South Carolina, like many states, to adopt statutes in the mid-1990s that said certain criminals had to serve 85% of their sentence before becoming eligible for parole. Those serving such sentences now account for 42% of the state’s total prison population. Not only do these inmates clog the system, they are also less likely to take advantage of vocational training or education in prison, and more likely to be put back behind bars after their release.
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