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. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth