FIRST impressions of Parchman, the Mississippi state prison sprawling across 16,000 acres of drained swampland north of Jackson, are beguiling. A prisoner waters a flowerbed, conspicuous in his convict's striped pyjamas (green stripes for harmless, black stripes for the more worrisome, red stripes for Do Not Approach). Farther along, other prisoners whistle as they mow the lawns of whitewashed staff houses. Children of the guards mill around on bicycles. It is only on Death Row, where a grim constellation of cell blocks is dotted across the horizon, that the carefree mood dissolves. Parchman is full to bursting.

America's rates of incarceration are among the world's highest; and Mississippi's are among the highest in America. Around 15,000 people, out of a population of less than 3m, are in prison, with another 14,000 on probation or parole. A Mississippian is four times more likely to end up in the slammer than a Canadian, and twice as likely as his cousin in New England.

Although most crime in Mississippi is falling, as it is everywhere in the United States these days, the prison population continues to be pushed up by drug-related crime and tougher sentencing. The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) predicts that its prison population will reach 31,000 by 2005, and the number of offenders inside for drug-related crimes is expected to treble. Since crack cocaine appeared in the state, the prison population has grown by 130%; and, although crack has loosened its grip on other places, it still rules in Mississippi. Parchman now houses 5,500 prisoners, up from only 1,200 in the 1970s. A sobering 80% of the prisoners are inside for drug-or alcohol-related crimes. Three-quarters of them are black.

Drugs may bring many of the criminals to prison, but it is Mississippi's “Truth in Sentencing” law (under which all criminals, no matter how saintly their conduct while inside, must serve out 85% of their sentence) which keeps inmates there. Parole is a dying institution. In their endless quest for more cell-space, Mississippi's legislators have turned to private corporations to provide new prisons away from Parchman. At first the idea caused uproar, but now poorer Mississippi counties crave a prison of their own. “They finally worked out it is a recession-proof industry,” says John Grubbs, the deputy boss of the MDOC, “and they all want a piece of the pie.”

The plantation elegance of the governor's mansion in Jackson feels a long way from the slop-out queue in Parchman. “The source of our crime problem is unsupported, unwanted children,” the Republican governor, Kirk Fordice, told The Economist. “Children should be conceived out of love, not hormones in a car back seat.” Mr Fordice is a firm believer in privatising almost everything, including the prisons. He wants parents to return to Judeo-Christian values; he particularly aims at a reduction of teenage pregnancies and a clampdown on deadbeat fathers. “I brought back striped uniforms for prisoners to teach them some shame,” he says.

Most Mississippians say that the amorality of street life is part of the problem. Predictably, there is disagreement on how to instil a sense of right and wrong. In its worst form, failure helps to create the “super-predators”—violent teenagers who do not fear death and express no remorse for their crimes—who have been responsible for most of the 45 fatal shootings in Jackson in the past two years. Most of these young men, say local policemen, will never be rehabilitated; and there will be more of them.

Parchman tries to educate its prisoners; the prison's vocational school offers certificates in everything from welding to catfish-farming. But it starts from a desperately low level. “I'm ecstatic if an inmate comes to me with the education of a 14-year-old,” says Mike Corbin, the school's director. “Most of the inmates have the education of a nine-year-old.” Even so, Mr Corbin's programme gets results. A recent study showed a recidivism rate of only 7% for his graduates, against 30% for inmates generally.

Yet, as everyone concedes, catching children before they fall into crime is cheaper than rehabilitating a prisoner. (It costs Mississippi $15,000 a year to keep a prisoner, three times more than tuition fees at the University of Mississippi.) Although there is little political support for pre-school education, which experts say is the best way to reach children at risk, other help is at hand. An organisation called 1 0n 1 aims to get 6,000 people in Jackson to volunteer as mentors, teaching deprived children basic reading and writing and providing “a positive role model to kids who lack one.”

There have been successes: a choir from one of Jackson's toughest high schools, supported by those mentors, has toured opera houses around the world. Yet even the most attentive mentor cannot match the omnipresence of gangs, or their familial closeness. “Kids don't join gangs to kill,” says Robert Johnson, the chief of police in Jackson. “They join to belong.” And although Mississippi is changing, with casinos now casting a gaudy red and gold sheen on the Mississippi river, there is little work here for young people to do, especially in rural districts. “There's nothing left here for weak minds and strong backs,” sighs William Winter, a former governor.

In the end, the economics of crack cocaine remain more persuasive in Mississippi than the best mentoring programmes or, indeed, the threat of prison. Barely literate young men with few positive role-models and even fewer prospects are given a simple choice. They can earn $1,000 a week pushing crack, and gain the respect of their gang brothers, or they can earn their money the honest way at $5 an hour mopping out the local Burger King. Until the financial temptation of crack cocaine is removed, Mississippi's prisons will continue to be a recession-proof industry.