Pubdate: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 Source: Boston Globe (MA) Copyright: 1999 Globe Newspaper Company. Contact: http://www.boston.com/globe/ Author: Ric Kahn, Globe Staff PRISONS FULL, BUT NOT OF DRUG OFFENDERS Debunking the myth that the state's prisons are overflowing with first-time petty drug offenders, a new study has found that the greatest number of inmates have been jailed for violent crimes. The report, which will be released by the Boston-based nonpartisan think tank MassINC today, says two violent offenders are put behind bars for every drug offender. ''Simply put, based on the best available data, there is no reason to believe that our prisons are full of people who don't belong there,'' the report says. Instead, the study suggests that the Commonwealth's prisons remain chronically overcrowded, running at 25 percent above capacity despite a decade of expansion, because the state has been unable to convert its felons into law-abiding citizens. While acknowledging that another generation of prisons is inevitable, MassINC said the state needs to radically alter its approach to ensure that crooks don't come back as repeat offenders. The group says the state needs to change its prison philosophy from one that simply adds beds on the back end to a graduated approach that guides prisoners from lockups to expanded rehabilitation programs and pre-release centers before returning them to the street. ''So you don't send them to crime school but prepare them to be crime-free,'' said Michael B. Gritton, MassINC's policy director. A spokesman for the Department of Correction said yesterday that Commissioner Michael Maloney would withhold comment until he has read the report. A representative of the American Friends Service Committee, a Cambridge human rights agency, said she is skeptical of the study's assertion that half the new offenders are violent. While she applauded MassINC's call for more treatment programs, she said that issuing statements such as ''Prisons are not full of people who don't belong there'' severely undermines that effort. ''People tend to justify poor treatment for violent prisoners - they get what they deserve,'' said Jamie Suarez-Potts, American Friends' criminal justice coordinator. Flying in the face of critics who say the way to cut the state's prison population is by reducing mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, the MassINC study found: * If all the drug offenders were set free tomorrow, the prison population would still be 1,000 inmates above capacity. * Inmates serving mandatory sentences for drug crimes in 1997 were not first-time felons, but had been arraigned on an average of 22.5 charges as adults, and had been convicted of half those charges. The report urges the state to adopt full-fledged sentencing guidelines to reduce judicial discretion and mete out punishment more consistently by increasing prison terms for repeat violent offenders. It also recommends imposing intermediate sanctions on lesser lawbreakers and calls for the parole board to take a greater role in supervising ex-offenders. Yet, from mandatory sentencing to maximum security jail cells, MassINC found that a criminal justice system that seems to promote public safety may undercut that crusade in the long run. For example, the report calls for revamping mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders by hitting them with requisite hard time, but allowing them to earn good time by participating in drug and alcohol treatment pre release programs. With a state prison population doubling to more than 10,000 since 1985, MassINC says there needs to be an expansion of transitional programs, from anger management training to supervised contact with the ''free world.'' As it stands now, only 150 men at a time out of 10,000 are being prepared for life on the outside in pre-release programs. Fewer than 300 offenders graduate from pre release each year. Meanwhile, 1,000 go directly from a cell to the street. ''Every week,'' the report warns, ''more than 20 felons are put back on the street with little preparation for a crime-free life.'' - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck