PRISON POPULATION SWELLS

FRANKFORT - Harsher sentencing for violent criminals and a crack down on
drug offenders has meant that Kentucky's inmate population has more than
doubled in the last 10 years.

The number of people incarcerated in federal, state and local prisons and
jails in Kentucky jumped from 13,948 in 1990 to 28,388 in 2000, according
to Census figures released this week.

More prisoners doesn't necessarily mean crime rates have risen in the last
decade, corrections officials say.

An increase in the general population does mean more crimes are committed,
said Pamela Trautner, spokeswoman for the state Corrections Department. But
the spike in inmate population can more likely be explained by recent laws
that strictly penalize offenders, she said.

A 1998 law passed in Kentucky requires violent offenders to serve at least
85 percent of their sentences before becoming eligible for parole. Before
the law was passed, prisoners had to serve just half of their sentences to
become eligible for parole.

"So basically that means that people are in for a longer period of time,"
Ms. Trautner said.

The state's 1998 crime bill also put more drug laws on the books, as well
as requiring those who commit a Class D felony, such as fourth-offense
drunk driving, to spend time in a county jail.

'There are more laws and many more people are serving time for offenses
that before, weren't prosecuted," Ms. Trautner said.

The state Parole Board has contributed to the number of inmates remaining
in prison by granting fewer and fewer paroles. A philosophical shift by the
board in the 1990s led it to defer or deny parole in more cases, Ms.
Trautner said.

The inmate population also has increased because there is more available
prison space in Kentucky today then when the 1990 Census was taken.

"They have built more prisons. And if you build prisons, then you have to
fill them up," said Ron Crouch of the Kentucky State Data Center.

The Corrections Department estimates it will need to accommodate about
20,000 state prisoner s in 2009, Ms. Trautner said. Currently, there are
about 15,000 state prisoners housed in state facilities or county jails.

Kentucky's increase in prison population is not a unique situation,
officials said.

"It's consistent with what's occurring nationwide," said Kentucky Public
Advocate Ernie Lewis.

But, he said, more stringent laws and sentences aren't necessarily a good
thing.

"We are incarcerating a lot more people in this country than we used to,"
he said. "We're incarcerating more people than we need to."

Lewis said he would prefer a system that punishes those who need punishing
but helps those who need treatment, like drug addicts.

"We aren't reserving incarceration for the most serious offender," he said.

"You don't have to incarcerate everybody who possesses a fourth of a gram
of cocaine. There are things that are more sensible that will lead to his
being a productive member of the community."

The census figures showed that 35 percent of jail and prison inmates in
2000 were black - a n umber five times the proportion of blacks in the state.

Lewis attributes the disproportionate number of African-Americans behind
bars to the rise of crack cocaine use in the 1980s and to the practice of
racial profiling.

Police, he said, target poor, black neighborhoods, where crack cocaine use
is rampant.

And, he said, the juvenile justice and circuit court systems treat
minorities differently fro m whites.

"When you look at numbers of detention, more children of color are detained
than white child ren for the same crime," he said.

(SIDEBAR)

Numbers climbing

Since 1990, thousands of inmate beds have been added in Kentucky, with more
on the way:

The Federal Correctional Institution in Manchester, one of three federal
institutions in the state, opened in 1992 and currently houses about 1,500
inmates.

Two of the 12 state prisons now operating were built in the early 1990s,
and other facilities have been expanded over the last decade.

The state will break ground on a new prison in Elliott County this fall,
with plans to open it in 2004.