Back tomorrow. This piece originally ran in 2005.

RALEIGH – Back in 1990, working at the newly formed John Locke Foundation, I had a revealing exchange with a well-known “expert” on crime at UNC-Chapel Hill. We disagreed about a study by a researcher affiliated with the U.S. Department of Justice. It concerned whether building prisons saved the taxpayers more money than it costs.

The researcher said yes. He based his analysis on an estimate of how much it cost to house the average prisoner, the average number of crimes committed by those later arrested, and an estimate of the direct and indirect costs of crime: the victims’ lost goods and wages, expenditures on security systems and the like, and the larger economic consequences of living in crime-ridden neighborhoods.

My interlocutor at UNC-Chapel Hill disagreed. For one thing, he said, the research had assumed more than 100 crimes committed by the average criminal, which was far too high for this kind of analysis. He suggested the use of a median number of 15. I agreed, but then pointed out that he should “do the math” with his lower number. Multiplying the 15 crimes by a generally recognized estimate of crime costs, I said, the cost of not incarcerating criminals still appeared to remain greater than the cost of imprisoning them.

I’ll never forget the gist of his response: it isn’t reasonable to assume that incapacitating a criminal will eliminate all his costly crimes, since his “place” will simply be taken up by another criminal. The UNC-CH expert went on to argue for social programs and other interventions to address the “root causes” of crime . . . well, you know the rest of that tired old song.

There is something about crime policy that makes many people lose their common sense. In this case, a noted “expert” appeared to be under the impression that criminals form lines. Pick off the guy in front, and someone else takes his place. That TV is inevitably going to be stolen. It only remains to determine whose set of hands will grasp it.

Another example of lost common sense on crime is what some commentators have termed the “Fox Butterfield Syndrome.” Butterfield, a writer for the New York Times, wrote basically the same story each year. He’d note that prison populations were high “even though” crime rates were falling. Uh, couldn’t crime rates be falling because prisons were housing more of the criminals? Butterfield seemed never to have considered the possibility.

The Raleigh News & Observer had two Fox Butterfields in its Sept. 26 issue. In an Associated Press story about falling crime rates, the reporter properly noted that the incapacitation and deterrence effects of imprisonment were one possible explanation. Then he included this odd paragraph: “The Justice Policy Institute, which advocates alternatives to incarceration, said the report offers good news and further reason to “begin investing in community-based policing and local organizations that succeed in increasing public safety.”

Huh? Why should governments change their strategy if crime rates are falling?

Then, in an editorial, the N&O argued for “cheaper and smarter” alternatives to prison. “Despite falling crime rates in the state and the building of new prisons year after year, the legislature stubbornly resisted passing a sensible bill that would cut sentences for certain low-level felonies and non-victim drug crimes,” it noted.

I’m not saying that drug penalties shouldn’t be changed. But why should a drop in crime and a rise in prison construction be seen as inconsistent or unsustainable trends?

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.