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.
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