Last week’s short escape and recapture of six hardened Iowa criminals in Texas will likely bring renewed cries for more prisons.

“Lock ’em up,” they’ll say. “Ball and chains; that will teach ’em.”

It’s already started. Governor Brandstad is now under fire for vetoing funding a short time ago for a prison with even more security precautions than Iowa’s toughest institution in Fort Madison.

As if another penal institution could have prevented an escape two states south.

But the fundamental issue is still there: Will more prisons really “teach ’em?”

The sad truth is no.

More walls to house criminals simply doesn’t translate into a less criminal activity.

Housing the criminals the state currently has in custody is one thing.

They’ve got to go somewhere, and asking the local sheriff to bring them home with him or her is probably not in the job description.

As a society, however, we need to look beyond the immediate solution of putting up walls.

History tells us everyday that prison is not a successful deterrent to crime.

We either have to make it so, or find something that is.

Or better yet, let’s make a serious effort to dig up the root causes of crime.

We simply must come up with alternative punishments to prison and push to make criminal activity less desirable.

Crime is a problem that won’t fix itself. To continually cater to it — to keep building more prisons without asking why — only makes the grave deeper.

And sooner, rather than later, we’ll be far too deep to crawl back out.