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AFSCME COs Take a Bite Out of Crime

by Gerald W. McEntee

The news is good. And corrections officers all over the country deserve some credit for it.

Murder rates and crime rates are down — dramatically down: by 11.7 percent in New York City, 10.8 percent in St. Louis, 14 percent in Hartford, Conn., 8.6 percent in Milwaukee, 8.6 percent in Columbus, Ohio.

Because a lot of murderers are on ice. And AFSCME COs are watching them.

In the 1980s, Americans decided in favor of longer and surer incarceration, to combat the crime wave that was closely connected to the spread of narcotics.

In 1988, George Bush beat Michael Dukakis for President of the United States on the strength of one big issue: nailing Dukakis for the Massachusetts "early release" program that let Willie Horton out.

States could only avoid an early release program by building new prisons, and by staffing up. AFSCME fought hard for prison construction and higher staffing, and when President Clinton proposed an $8 billion program of federal aid to states for prison-building, we were there in full support.

Many states still haven’t caught up to the number of cells needed to confine the convicted population. New York, Illinois and Hawaii are still toying with early-release programs.

But the lesson is clear.

As a New York Post editorial stated: "The more felons there are behind bars, the fewer there are on the streets to mug and murder the rest of us. ... Full prisons help make for safe streets."

ACU can say with confidence to every state legislature: "Give us the space and staff to confine every felon the courts sentence to prison, and we’ll give the voters a lower crime rate and a greater sense of personal safety."

 

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