Pubdate: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 Source: Palm Beach Post, The (FL) Copyright: 2008 The Palm Beach Post Contact: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/333 Note: Does not publish letters from writers outside area Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) FEWER ADDICTS, LESS CRIME The savings state legislators are seeking from cuts to the Florida Department of Corrections budget are not worth the threats to public safety they would produce. The Florida Parole Commission has proposed more than $362 million in savings by allowing some chronically ill and nonviolent offenders to get out of prison early, allowing some youthful offenders to be paroled and cutting prison terms for offenders under supervision as they recover from addiction. In addition, Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, chairman of the Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee, asked Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil to cut 10 percent of his budget - nearly $215 million. Among the harmful potential cuts: ending substance-abuse treatment for prisoners ($26 million) and ending transitional release programs that help inmates reenter society. Florida already has too many ex-offenders re-offending; 43 percent of prisoners were incarcerated before or had violated their probation. As a 2006 task force that examined the re-offender problem concluded, cutting money for drug courts, pretrial intervention and other effective programs that steer addicts to rehabilitation only will result in more repeat offenders. Sixty-five percent of the state's inmates and 57 percent of the offenders on probation have drug problems. Said Mr. McNeil: "It's the same people coming back into our system over and over again. If we don't do something different, we're never going to get anything different." He urged legislators to support Gov. Crist's budget proposal, which would fully finance substance-abuse treatment over the next five years, diverting 7,000 from prison, and reducing the need for 2,900 new prison beds. The proposed short-term cost savings to the state would force a long-term cost dump onto counties, which would need more probation officers, more community-based supervision programs and more local drug- and alcohol-abuse treatment, as the state orders the counties to cut their budgets. For a long-term reduction in the number of prison beds, Florida must consider who's being sent to prison in the first place, and why. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D