Pubdate: Sun, 06 Apr 2003
Source: Montgomery Advertiser (AL)
Copyright: 2003sThe Advertiser Co.
Contact:  http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1088
Author: Mark Wilkerson
Note: Mark D. Wilkerson, an attorney practicing in Montgomery, serves on 
the board of directors of Prison Fellowship Ministries. He served on the 
Governor's Emergency Prison Task Force in 1993.

Alabama Voices

ALTERNATIVES MUST BE USED TO ADDRESS PRISONS

I thought I was pretty much immune to being shocked by news of
senseless crimes. However, when someone called to tell me someone had
tried to kill Dr. Cook, I was shaken.

In an area where 90 percent of the population lives below the poverty
level, Dr. Roseanne Cook is a godsend. Literally. Dr. Cook and Jane
Kelly, a nurse practitioner, are nuns who provide medical care to
Wilcox County residents, without regard to their patients' ability to
pay. Dr. Cook even makes house calls. Why would anyone harm her? Could
anything have been done to prevent it?

The answer to those questions lie at the root of the dilemma facing
Gov. Riley and lawmakers as they address Alabama's failing
correctional system.

Dr. Cook was assaulted after she pulled over on a country road to help
a stranded motorist. Unknown to Dr. Cook, one of the occupants of the
car was on parole after recently being released from Alabama's prison
system. Dr. Cook was brutally beaten, bound, thrown in the trunk of
her car and told she was going to die. Miraculously, the gunshots
fired point blank into the trunk only grazed her face. She survived.

The story of Dr. Cook's assault brought to mind the 1996 murder of
Montgomery Police Sgt. J.R. Ward by a fleeing robbery suspect. Like
one of Dr. Cook's assailants, Sgt. Ward's killer had a history of
violence, having been convicted at age 19 of shooting at two police
officers following another burglary. He was warehoused for 40 months
in Alabama's prison system. He returned to society with no strings
attached, probably more dangerous than when he entered prison.

These two stories aren't unique. Offenders convicted of violent crimes
are often released into the community inadequately prepared and
without appropriate supervision, due to chronically overcrowded
prisons and a criminal justice system that is simply overwhelmed by
the number of offenders. With county jails also filled to capacity,
there is often no room to hold dangerous offenders awaiting trial or
transfer them to the state prison system.

Overworked parole and probation officers, each responsible for
hundreds of released offenders, simply cannot provide adequate
supervision. Judges who would like to sentence nonviolent offenders to
alternative punishment are hamstrung by the lack of funding for such
programs.

According to a recently released report from Alabama's Sentencing
Commission, over the past three decades Alabama's prison population
has grown by more than 600 percent. This explosion is due in large
part to increased incarceration of nonviolent offenders, who now
constitute 67 percent of those entering the state prison system. This
is absurd. Our prisons are built for people we are afraid of, yet we
are filling them with people we are simply mad at.

Alabama is now facing critical decisions, and the public safety hangs
in the balance. A federal judge recently described Tutwiler prison a
"ticking time bomb" because of overcrowding and understaffing and
ordered the state to come up with a solution. At the same time, the
Montgomery County Circuit Court has ordered the state to more swiftly
accept state inmates held in county jails. Meanwhile, the state is
facing the worst financial crunch in modern history.

There are encouraging signs that the current generation of state
leaders are willing to address the problem head-on. At the urging of
Attorney General Bill Pryor, the Legislature established the
Sentencing Commission to help make the crucial distinctions as to who
belongs in prison and who can be punished in the community without
risking public safety. The commission has made far-reaching
recommendations, including an increase in the dollar threshold for
felony property crimes and the statewide expansion of community
corrections programs.

Gov. Riley reacted quickly to the Tutwiler litigation by transferring
$1 million in emergency money to the Board of Pardons and Paroles to
hire 28 parole officers and to conduct special hearings to parole
nonviolent female inmates. At his request, the Legislature is also
moving forward with an additional $1.9 million to expand community
corrections programs so that judges have an alternative sanction for
low-risk offenders and also to add needed prison beds.

The legislation would also provide another $2.7 million for the state
to contract with out-of-state entities to house approximately 300
inmates as a last resort to deal with immediate overcrowding demands.

An expansion of community corrections is long overdue. In 1991, the
Legislature passed the Alabama Community Punishment and Corrections
Act of 1991, which allows the Department of Corrections to provide
grants for local alternative sentencing programs for nonviolent
offenders who would otherwise enter the state prison system. Despite
very limited funding, the act has helped local programs such as
Birmingham's successful TASC -- Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime
- -- program to supervise the punishment of qualified, nonviolent
offenders who would otherwise enter the state prison system.

In Montgomery, local judges have managed to sustain other programs,
such as a "drug court" in which qualifying participants are required
to take regular drug tests, pay restitution, work a full-time job, get
a driver's license, do 50 hours of community service work and pay
$1,700 in fees before they can graduate. With substance abuse playing
a role in the majority of criminal offenses, these types of programs
have enormous potential. Other volunteers have helped nonviolent
offenders to obtain employment, which allows them to pay restitution
and become productive members of society.

The state should also continue to encourage and facilitate involvement
by faith-based groups in providing programming and support for
prisoners and their families. Every day, scores of church volunteers
work in Alabama prisons to provide needed life skill training and
mentoring, in addition to religious programming. Through their work,
faith-based honor dorms have been created in many Alabama prisons,
providing a refuge for offenders seeking a new life. But much more
could be done.

Reserving scarce and expensive prison beds for dangerous offenders by
diverting nonviolent offenders into community punishment and taking
steps to reduce the recidivism rate are just two of many steps needed
to making our communities safer places to live. However, they are
steps we can't afford not to take if we are serious about protecting
the public.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake