NEW SENTENCING PROGRAM WORTH A TRY

We at the American Press continue to share ideas for cutting the state's
budget after voters rejected an income tax increase that would have meant
more pay for teachers. Today, we want lawmakers to consider a proposal that
would cut the amount Louisiana spends to keep prisoners behind bars.

Louisiana's incarceration rate leads the nation. The state has 736 inmates
per 100,000 people, compared with the national average of 434. The
corrections budget has grown 71 percent in the last six years to more than
$615 million annually.

Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Leon Cannizzaro doubts that
throwing more people in jail has made our state safer.

"Locking people up and throwing away the key doesn't work," said
Cannizzaro, who was a prosecutor before he was elected to the bench.

He is a proponent of alternative sentencing programs in Orleans Parish that
have become a model for the nation. Among the programs is intensive
probation, in which nonviolent first-time offenders report to court once a
week, undergo regular drug testing, work toward a GED and bring pay stubs
to prove they are working.

Cannizzaro told a state Senate committee last month that the recidivism
rate for first-time drug offenders has been less than 10 percent when they
go to treatment under intensive probation rather than to prison.

Magistrate Judge Gerard Hansen told the committee that it costs about
$2,000 to monitor a defendant on intensive probation, compared with $36,000
per year to keep an inmate behind bars.

Saves money, cuts crime. Good idea, right? Legislators cut the special
courts' $400,000 budget in the last session. The Orleans programs are now
surviving on federal grants that end in February and on local funding that
may not be renewed.

Cannizzaro and Hansen asked lawmakers not only to restore the $400,000, but
to increase the budget to expand the programs in Orleans Parish and spread
them around Louisiana.

Others outside Orleans have the same idea. California voters approved
Proposition 36, which calls for drug treatment and probation rather than
jail time for first- and second-time nonviolent drug offenders. Those who
make or sell drugs would be sent to jail. The estimate is that the plan
could save California $250 million in incarceration costs.

We like these ideas. We believe money can be saved while achieving the
goals of public safety and rehabilitation.