The May 22 Advertiser article about escalating American prison rates raises some disturbing issues about Hawai'i's prisons and criminal justice system.

The article might lead one to conclude that Hawai'i's prison rate (the number of prisoners per 100,000 population) is pretty much average. After all, Hawai'i's 2005 prison rate (447) is nearly one-third the nation's highest in Louisiana (1,138) and less than twice the lowest in Maine (273).

But let's look at these numbers another way. If Hawai'i's rate equaled Maine's, our prisons would house roughly half its current population of 6,000 inmates. That would immediately eliminate overcrowding. On the other hand, if we had the same rate as Louisiana's, our prisons would burst at the seams with roughly 18,000 inmates.

Can anyone imagine having more than 1 percent of Hawai'i's entire population in prison?

Even then, our current prison rate (447) is more than 10 times what it was in the early 1970s, when the rate hovered around 40. We never foresaw in the 1970s the enormous effect new get-tough legislation such as mandatory sentences (for which I admit I advocated in election campaign TV ads for Gov. George Ariyoshi and before the Legislature) would have on the size of our prison population. It actually grew by some 95 percent in the 1990s alone.

It is worth comparing Hawai'i's prison rate with its crime rate (number of crimes per 100,000 population). Some have argued that there is an inverse relationship between the crime rate and prison rate — that higher prison populations cause crime numbers to drop. Long-term trends seem to support that contention. Hawai'i's crime rate in the 1940s was at a low of around 1,100, while the prison rate was at an all-time high — over 130. As the prison rate plummeted in the 1950s to 1970s to about 40, the crime rate skyrocketed — reaching nearly 8,000 in 1980.

Then, as the new "tough on crime" mandatory sentence laws kicked in and the prison population began exploding, the crime rate plummeted by 25 percent to 6,000 today. That's still too high by historic numbers, but does indicate a direct correlation between the prison rate and crime rate.

The racial and gender make-up of our prison system is troubling. On the Mainland, 11.9 percent of blacks are in prison or jail, contrasting with 3.9 percent for Hispanics and 1.7 percent for Caucasians.

How about Hawai'i? Although ethnic Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians make up only about 12 percent of our population, they represent 39 percent of our housed prisoners. By contrast, while 17 percent of our state is Japanese, they represent 4 percent of our prison population.

Additionally, as in other states, men are far more likely to be incarcerated than women. Out of 6,000 inmates in Hawai'i prisons, 89 percent are male.

I am not suggesting, as some do, that our criminal justice system is racially or gender biased. The fact is that certain groups and young males account for a disproportionately higher number of crimes and, hence, arrests, convictions and ultimate prison sentences.

But what I am saying is that, as Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project pointed out in his article in The Advertiser, "It's not a sign of a healthy community when we've come to use incarceration at such rates."

I would add that it is similarly unhealthy to have a criminal justice system that fails to impose swift and sure punishment — which is the main way to safeguard a community not only from today's crimes, but those that will be committed in the future. It is also unhealthy to continue housing ever-greater numbers of nonviolent criminals for increasingly longer terms.

And it is finally unhealthy to have a system that fails to catch and punish so many criminals who repeatedly evade justice. There was an old saying when I was in law enforcement, "For every arrest, 10 got away."

In other words, crime pays. In some respects this is because punishment in Hawai'i, as it has become everywhere in the nation, is neither swift nor sure. But when it occurs, it sure is long and hard.

If we truly want to see the crime rate and the prison rate drop, a long-discussed and overdue comprehensive new Correctional Master Plan is desperately needed. A plan that takes into account every aspect of the criminal justice system and society. One that balances prevention, punishment and even rehabilitation. And one that recognizes that sure and swift punishment is a far more effective in controlling crime than long-term incarceration.

In the end we might have the best of both statistics — lower prison rates and crime rates — as well as a safer society.

Michael A. Lilly is a former Hawai'i attorney general. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.