Pubdate: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 Source: Montgomery Advertiser (AL) Copyright: 2002sThe Advertiser Co. Contact: http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1088 CROWDING NEEDS LONG-RANGE FIX A threat by Montgomery Circuit Judge William Shashy to impose more than $2 million in fines against the state has caused the Siegelman administration to come forward with a short-term plan to address prison overcrowding. Now maybe the judge should consider a similar threat of fines against the Legislature and against his fellow judges, because a long-term solution will require the cooperative efforts of all three branches of government -- executive, legislative and judicial. To understand that the issue of overcrowded prisons is not something the executive branch can address alone, Alabamians must look at the history and the magnitude of the controversy. In 1971 when the overcrowding issue first went to court, the state had about 112 state inmates per 100,000 population. This year, that number is more than 600 per 100,000 population. In 2001, Alabama ranked fifth among the states in the percentage of its population in state prisons. In 1971, 3.44 million people lived in Alabama. The state then had 3,842 inmates in its prisons, and the Department of Corrections had a budget of $8.2 million (about $36 million in today's inflation-adjusted dollars). But after more than 30 years, while the state's population has increased by about one-third, to 4.4 million, the number of inmates has increased about sevenfold, to about 27,000 inmates. State spending on prisons also has risen about sevenfold, to $254 million. And there is still a backlog of 1,350 inmates in county jails awaiting transfer to state facilities with no place to put them. That backlog is what has the prison system back in court. The plan presented to Shashy last week by the Siegelman administration would reduce the number of backlogged inmates substantially over the short run by creating an additional 400 beds for inmates either at the Bullock County Correctional Facility in Union Springs or at a site in Marion County. The facility is expected to cost about $4 million, which will be taken from the state prison system's fiscal 2003 operating budget, which starts Oct. 1. The administration is banking on the Legislature replacing the money later. Those 400 new beds will be in addition to 200 additional beds at the Bullock County Correctional Facility and the Donaldson Correctional Facility. Those previously announced expansions would be financed from the $2.4 million that the prison system is receiving from the sale of prison land to the city of Atmore. While the proposal given to Shashy last week does show the administration is trying to deal with this problem, one part of the plan depends upon the Legislature allocating additional money and the other rests on one-time money from the sale of land. Similarly, the administration earlier said that it plans to take some of the money from the land sale to add 10 probation and parole officers so the state can start paroling more inmates and to expand community corrections programs. Both are good ideas, but does it make sense to start continuing programs with one time money when there is no guarantee that operating funds will be there in future years? Clearly, while the Siegelman administration may be doing all it can without getting additional revenue from the Legislature, over the long haul it won't be enough to make this problem go away. For that to happen, two things must first occur: 1-- The Alabama Legislature has to find a source of additional revenue to fund prisons and the state's probation and parole systems. Alabama's prison system is housing far too many prisoners in facilities designed for about half the present capacity, and is guarding them with far fewer corrections officers than is safe. In addition, parole and probation officers are carrying a far heavier caseload than they can adequately deal with. 2-- The Legislature has to change sentencing laws to put fewer nonviolent prisoners behind bars, and judges need to sentence nonviolent prisoners in ways that reserve most prison cells for the worst violent offenders. For years now, governors and prison commissioners have been saying that Alabama did not get into this prison overcrowding mess in a few years, so it can't be solved in a few years either. That may be true, but it does nothing to make things better. What is needed, and soon, is a long-range plan to eliminate the prison overcrowding problem over a matter of years, and to keep it eliminated. For such a plan to work, it will take the cooperation of all three branches of government. The administration has produced a short-range plan. Shashy should keep the heat on until a comprehensive long-range plan for reducing prison overcrowding is also on the table. - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart