Pubdate: Mon, 30 Sep 2002
Source: Herald-Dispatch, The (WV)
Copyright: 2002 The Herald-Dispatch
Contact: http://www.herald-dispatch.com/hdinfo/letters.html
Website: http://www.hdonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1454

W.VA. IS FACING TOUGH CHOICES ABOUT PRISONS

State officials cut the ribbon last week on the new $24 million Lakin 
Correction Center for Women. The prison is the first in West Virginia 
designed exclusively for female inmates.

No one seems to know exactly why, but West Virginia's judges are finding 
female offenders coming before them in increasing numbers. Thus, the new 
240-bed facility won't lack for guests.

But Wednesday's dedication ceremony was overshadowed by release of a new 
report that paints a grim picture of the state's future prison needs. The 
study, commissioned by the state Supreme Court, predicts the number of 
offenders soon will overwhelm the state's capacity to house them.

As a consequence, the report warns, the state faces a difficult choice. It 
can spend millions of dollars to construct more prison cells. It can cut 
the prison population by reconsidering the life-without-parole sentences 
handed some inmates. Or it can send some prisoners out of state. None of 
those options is appealing.

As the report notes, a provision in the state Constitution that prohibits 
"banishment" could be interpreted as barring the transfer of prisoners out 
of state.

The idea of paroling murderers and other violent criminals, even though 
they may have spent long stretches behind bars, clearly isn't going to play 
well with the public.

That leaves expensive new prison construction as seemingly inevitable. 
Those costs might be trimmed if home confinement and other alternative 
sentencing measures were more widely used.

One way or another, however, there's no escaping the fact that the rising 
tide of prison inmates is going to challenge the state as never before.
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