Pubdate: Fri, 21 Jan 2005
Source: Birmingham News, The (AL)
Copyright: 2005 The Birmingham News
Contact:  http://al.com/birminghamnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/45
Author: Carla Crowder, News Staff Writer

PRISON SENTENCE REFORMS URGED

Commissoner Seeks Doubled Budget, Alternative Programs

MONTGOMERY - Corrections Commissioner Donal Campbell's request for
$580 million - more than double this year's budget for prisons -
spawned calls for sentencing reform and more community corrections
projects during a budget hearing Thursday.

The biggest chunk of new money would be $151 million to build two
2,000-bed prisons, one each for men and women. A further $15 million
would pay for more expensive medical care, legal fees and court
monitors required in a series of lawsuits settled this year.

"Something has to be done in this state to relieve the problems we
face in corrections," said Rep. John Knight, D-Montgomery, who chairs
the House of Representatives' committee that handles the General Fund
and state operating budget. He said Campbell's $580 million request
was "not in the picture."

Alabama has the fifth-highest incarceration rate in the country,
housing more than 26,000 prisoners in space for 12,000.

"I don't believe that Alabama is any safer than our surrounding
states, yet we have a higher incarceration rate," said Roy Johnson,
Alabama's two-year college chancellor, who proposed an increase in
short-term, intensive programs to teach prisoners skills such as
welding. "There's a humane aspect to this, whether we warehouse these
people, throw them into the scrap heap of society, or we rehabilitate
them."

For another solution, Joe Mahoney, who runs community corrections
programs in Mobile, showed that community programs cost $9 per inmate
per day, compared with prison costs of $26 per day. Community
rehabilitation programs saved the state $4.9 million last year, he
said.

Campbell's budget asks for $2.1 million more for community
corrections, but he said more community corrections program will not
solve his problem.

"The biggest part of it, we're going to have to change some of the
sentencing laws in this state," Campbell said.

Legislators discussed possibilities such as geriatric parole, more
drug treatment, and parole for some of the 6,000 prisoners ordered to
serve part of their sentences in prison and part on probation. Those
inmates are banned from parole now.

Some of these proposals have been brought up in the Legislature before
but have not passed.

Instead, lawmakers have passed bills calling for longer sentences, but
without allocating money to pay for them. Knight vowed to put a stop
to that.

He said every bill this session that calls for more prison time must
come with a funding stream. "It's easy to get up and demagogue on
`tough on crime,' but you're not tough on crime if you don't come up
with the funding," he said. 
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