"Romantic" is exactly right, and the cultural change I described has made our argument totally irrelevant.

Washtenaw County is only a tiny portion of a state rapidly declining in economic and political importance. Judges and legislatures are certainly not going to reconsider draconian laws just because our county has a jail they regard as inadequate. If the nation were to abruptly come to its senses, a surplus of cells on Hogback Road (or elsewhere) is not going to be any bulwark against sanity.

What we do have some control over in our county is how people are treated. We can choose to recognize mental illness and provide help for those individuals. We can create workable alternatives to incarceration. But none of this can happen without the resources, without working within the criminal justice system we have, which insists on its own perceived needs being met.

To stand in defiance would seem heroic, but it would be self-defeating, and have a significant human cost. For one thing, the existing jail is not a humane place to keep people. For another, the jail is not the only issue of concern. If we allowed outsiders to intervene to force a new jail on us, we would also be allowing them to choose our fiscal priorities, and hence our public policy in many fields.

This "culture of incarceration" you seem to decry will be more difficult to reverse if we continue to quench our urge to "lock 'em up!" by building larger jails and prisons.

Draconian laws and sentencing will be more difficult to strike off the books if one of the resulting casualties is that a newly-constructed jail is no longer needed. The expense of unused jail/prison capacity would be a mistake that is too politically costly to admit. So it follows that "Liberal" legislation would succumb to political expediency, and the jail would remain full.

This is a significant argument against any jail/prison expansion to those of us who don't feel that we are any "safer" now with over 2 million americans locked up, than we were thirty years ago. With a vote for jail expansion, we would in effect be giving up on any hopes of law and sentencing reform and returning to our more "liberal" past. A romantic last ditch effort to resist the New World Order, if you will.

In your letter to the professor, you observed that even though crime rates have fallen over the years, prison construction and incarceration have increased. This brings to mind an ironic twist to the omniscient movie line, "If you build it, they will come."

Sure, the War on Drugs is one factor. And the fact that policymakers aren't interested in addressing it simply reflects that this is a democracy. The War on Drugs still enjoys overwhelming support from the electorate, and candidates who argue for alternatives get percentages in the single digits.

But consider this:

A generation ago, a five year prison sentence was seen as a pretty hefty penalty for any crime short of first degree murder. Indeed, the rest of the world outside the USA still sees it that way.

We have now shifted so far into harsher/longer punishment mode that mainstream Americans now see five years as a mere slap on the wrist. Nowadays, signs in construction zones, here in Michigan, promise FIFTEEN YEARS of imprisonment for an accident that injures a construction worker.

This cultural shift is huge and probably irreversible in our lifetimes. Even now, I hear people complaining about this or that offender not getting enough years in prison. And the abandonment of mental health services means that incarceration is getting to be the way we choose to house and feed the mentally ill. If the War on Drugs ended tomorrow morning, our jails and prisons would still be stuffed.

Larry, you seem hesitant to put a name on the reason for the population explosion in our prisons and jails over the last 3 decades, so I will do it for you.

That elephant in your living room is named:

"The War on Drugs"

This animal eat$ a lot, and is never satisfied.

But politically, no one would DARE question if this beast is really worth it all.

Not even a county clerk.....:-)