• Virginia already has some of the toughest sentencing

Virginia already has some of the toughest sentencing laws in the country’. In terms of the number incarcerated compared to population, the Old Dominion ranks higher than 36 other states.

• But 42 percent of those behind bars are repeat offenders, raising the question of just how effective the Virginia system may be.

The statistics also show that if the politicians want still tougher sentencing, it will cost their constituents a pretty penny.

• At the present rate, there are 16,000 adults in Virginia’s prisons. Ten years ago there were 9,000. Space for 4,200 more will be built in the 1980s, but that will still be 3,000 short of the 23.000 which will be needed by 1990 at the present rate of incarceration.

• New prisons are expensive. They cost $50,000 per cell to build, and it costs $12,000 per year to keep a convict behind bars.

• Since 1980, Virginia’s correctional costs have increased by 28 percent, or more than twice the rate of increase of the total budget.

• By 1990, Gov. Chuck Robb estimates that the biennial cost of running the system could exceed $1 billion. That is about double the present outlay.

The asembly, to be sure, did not advocate any relaxation of the war on crime. It did, however, propose a more rational approach to the sentencing process and a thorough study of the entire corrections system.

But the point here is to note that unless our “law ’n' order" politicians are willing to pay the piper and support the tax increases necessary to build more jails and prisons, the talk of new and tougher penalties for lawbreakers is, to put it bluntly, so much baloney.

It may be good politics, but it does no good to be a tough guy—or gal—in talking to voters about the crime problem, and then turning into a wimp when it comes to telling them that the tough measures proposed will smack them squarely—and hard—in their wallets.