Martin: Obama right to tackle prison sentences

Like many South Carolinians, I’ve held President Obama personally responsible for everything from this heat wave to the recent shark attacks. In all fairness, however, he is to be commended for his July 16 visit to a high-security prison in El Reno, Okla., where he announced his intention to begin restructuring the federal sentencing guidelines.

The incarceration rate in the United States remains among the highest in the world, and so does our crime rate. Yet we continue to lock up low-risk first-time violators at an alarming pace. In most cases, harsh sentences serve as great political rhetoric, but they’re frighteningly expensive and absolutely counterproductive.

People incarcerated for heinous violent crimes have proven they don’t deserve to live in normal society and are exactly where they should be. But we’ve seen first offenders sentenced to more than 20 years for possession of small quantities of drugs or other minor offenses. They might have entered prison as naive young people who had simply done something illegal and stupid, but that’s not how they return to their neighborhoods 10 or 15 years later. Between budget cuts and a throw-away-the-keys mentality, very little correcting is any longer possible, and prisoners get caught in the revolving door of a life sentence on the installment plan.

The S.C. Department of Corrections reports that it costs $19,137 per year to house and feed one inmate. So for the price of keeping two inmates in prison, taxpayers could get a well-trained professional probation officer to provide intense supervision for 30 to 40 nonviolent first offenders. That would go a long way toward eliminating both the financial and human toll of prison sentences that are often completely disproportionate to the offenses.

I’d rather know a young petty criminal is gainfully employed and receiving over-the-shoulder supervision by a professional probation officer than to see him return from prison either dead or an unsalvageable thug.

So here are a couple of sentences I never thought I’d write: I believe President Obama’s thinking on this is entirely appropriate and realistic. I admire his willingness to visit a prison to listen and see the reality for himself. There, I said it.

This story was originally published July 29, 2015 at 7:33 PM.