You’ll recall that university Chancellor Jim Rogers raised the issue during the legislative session, mostly out of pique that jails were getting resources that he thought should go to education. He did a big TV special about it on his flagship station, KVBC Channel 3. After all, Rogers reasoned, if you give somebody an education, they can get a good job and become a productive member of society, thus avoid jail altogether. Why, that plan is just crazy enough to work!

But long before that, UNLV criminology Professor Randall Shelden (who we’re proud to note is a CityLife columnist) has been banging away at the issue, noting that Nevada locks up way, way too many people for way, way too long. We’re not talking violent offenders, here. Murders, robbers and rapists need to spend a goodly part of their lives behind bars. But drug users? Hookers? Check-kiters? Perhaps some other method could be found to deal with those people, something less expensive than the prison-industrial complex. (Shelden’s work can be found on his website, for those who are interested.)

Our point? This isn’t exactly new. But given that the R-J has decided to highlight the issue, what the hell? Let’s go with it! The story, by political reporter Molly Ball, reports Nevada’s prison population will boom from 13,000 inmates now to 22,000 by 2017. A Corrections Department operating budget of $539 million in the next two-year budget cycle will rise to $681 million by 2017, not counting the $1.6 billion to be spent on building new prisons.

Nevada Supreme Court Justice James Hardesty says he was shocked by the numbers, and ACLU of Nevada Executive Director Gary Peck said his pleas to lawmakers fell on deaf ears. Instead of creating more felonies for which people must be incarcerated, the state should be exploring treatment programs to keep low-level offenders out of jail, so the space we have now can be used for offenders who really deserve it. Why, that plan is just crazy enough to work!

But how? In the political environment we have now, voting against prisons (or even stupid ideas, like state Sen. Barbara Cegavske’s "video voyeurism" bill, the newest felony crime on the books) carries political consequences. As Democrat Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie told Ball, Democrats felt as if they had no choice but to support a higher prisons budget.

We’ve always marveled at how "fiscal conservatives" take the "lock ‘em up and throw away the key" approach to crime, when education, rehabilitation and diversion programs (such as drug courts) are so much cheaper, and provide superior results. But we’re not talking logic, reason or facts here, are we? We’re talking what can or cannot be sold in a 30-second ad. And that’s where we need to start addressing this problem.

» Do you think President George W. Bush gets tired of repeating the same lines, over and over again, even after everybody has stopped listening? His July 4 speech (to a friendly audience, of course) asked Americans for "more patience, more courage and more sacrifice." But how much patience does he think America has for what was a stupid idea in the first place?

"If we were to quit Iraq before the job is done, the terrorists we are fighting would not declare victory and lay down their arms. They would follow us here," Bush said. Oh, scary! Just like the ghosts at the end of the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland!

The only thing is, the terrorists are probably already here, just as they were already in Great Britain and Scotland, nurturing their hatred that springs from an evil ideology, i.e. fundamentalist Islam. And that means we’re probably always going to have to fight that ideology here, regardless of what happens in Iraq.

No, the real reason we need to get out of the war is that we are doing no good there, other than serving as targets and cannon fodder. A civil war is raging, and will undoubtedly rage after American troops leave. But we’re not going to solve thousands of years of sectarian hatred (or four years of resentment of the occupation) with more troops or more bullets. This, by the way, isn’t new information. It was available in 2003, when Bush decided to invade, had he cared to look. He didn’t, and now we are faced with bad choices and worse choices, but no rational adults left to make them.

It seems clear that Iraq is not home to the "dead enders," as Vice President Dick Cheney once called the insurgents. No, the dead enders are in the White House.