As American states struggle with how to deal with prison overcrowding and the attendant budget problems, this WSJ article by Gabriel Kahn gives us a splendid example from across the pond on how not to do it:
Less than two years ago, Italy's prison system faced a crisis: Built to hold 43,000 inmates, it was straining to contain more than 60,000.
So the government crafted an emergency plan. It swung open the prison doors and let more than a third of the inmates go free.
Within months, bank robberies jumped by 20%. Kidnappings and fraud also rose, as did computer crime, arson and purse-snatchings. The prison population, however, fell so much that for awhile Italy had more prison guards than prisoners to guard.
Many in Italy just love to preach at us about the death penalty and feel that they are just wonderfully morally superior for their understanding, forgiving attitude toward criminals. There is nothing moral about unleashing predators to prey on the defenseless.
Of course, everyone knows that Europe has much lower crime rates than the United States and that their soft sentencing policies are the cause. If we could just be enlightened and tolerant like the Europeans, we would have lower crime rates, too, the wise ones tell us. However, "It isn't what we don't know that gets us in trouble. It's what we know for a fact that just ain't so." We will have more on this later.
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