Montana’s billion-dollar addiction — prisons

Montana has a problem.

Not crime.

A prison addiction.

We can’t stop building them, investing in them, funding them.

A new women’s prison – $250 million.

An expanded Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge – $150 million.

A new forensic mental health facility in Laurel – $26.5 million.

A new Yellowstone County jail – $375 million.

Jail expansions in Flathead County – $105 million.

Smaller remodeling in Lake and Cascade counties – $7 million combined.

Add it up.

Nearly $900 million.

One. Billion. Dollars. For cages.

Apparently, the solution to every social problem in Montana is now the same: Build another jail.

Someone is addicted. And the drug is incarceration.  It’s the easy answer. But, there is another option —  crime prevention.

We can invest in programs that work.

The best crime prevention program – education.  Few people in prison have a college degree.  And, guess what?  It costs far less to educate someone than to incarcerate them.  Today, a Montana resident’s tuition for one year at the University of Montana averages around $3,000.  Prison $40,000.

So, why do we choose cages over classrooms and guards over teachers?

Sadly, tragically, the U.S. locks up more people than almost any other country in the world.

The world. And Montana is even higher.

This is a bankrupt system.

It is unleashing incalculable misery.

Purgatory for inmates and their families.

As a taxpayer, I feel complicit. As a lawyer, I am ashamed.  As a neighbor and relative, I am outraged.

We must be better than this.

If incarceration worked Montana would be the safest place on earth by now.

Is it?

Instead, we keep building bigger jails. More jails.

Because clearly the problem is that we don’t have enough of them.

This is the logic of a compulsive gambler. “Just one more bet.”

Just one more prison.

Just one more jail.

Just one more bond issue.

Just one more hundred million dollars.

If this strategy worked, we would not have to spend another billion dollars on more cages.

Our leaders have basically ignored critical social services like healthcare, housing assistance, counseling, mentoring, addiction treatment, substance abuse treatment, mental health care, poverty, and so much more.

Montana is doubling down on a strategy that has failed time and time again.

Look at the data. Facts are sacred.

Where – where has this ever worked?

Other countries decided to try something radical.

They invested in people.  Healthcare.  Education.  Job Training.

Look at Norway, Iceland, Japan, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Liechtenstein, Canada, Greece, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom.

Their incarceration rates are a fraction of those in the U.S. and Montana.

Under 100 people per 100,000 population. The U.S.?  Roughly 541 people per 100,000.

In Montana, we toss people in a cage.

Let them sit.

No parole because that would “undermine the severity of the crime.”

It’s the most expensive failure cycle in government.

Here’s a thought: What if even a fraction of that $900 million went somewhere else? What if we invested in proven crime-prevention programs that have worked in other states or countries?  Look at the data.  We can learn from others.  We do not have to keep investing in failure.

Crime prevention isn’t as easy as jail.  It’s a suite of programs to address tough problems.

But those investments quietly save lives.

And they save money. Lots of it.

Jails are a public necessity.  So is crime prevention.

We should invest in both. Not just cages.

Here’s the truth: Cages aren’t the solution; they are evidence of our failure.

We cannot build enough jails to solve addiction.

We cannot build enough jails to solve mental illness.

Jails won’t solve poverty – they expand it.

We can bankrupt ourselves trying.

Jails plus investments in crime prevention – would be a game changer.

Montana must decide.

We can elect leaders who only build cages.

Or we can elect leaders who also believe in crime prevention.

One path is expensive and endless.

The other actually works.

The real question is simple: Will we invest in people as well as cages?