SENATE LEADERS: CRIME, PUNISHMENT NEED ATTENTION

MONTPELIER - Painting a bleak portrait of the state's criminal justice
system, Senate leaders on Thursday pledged to devote their efforts in the
coming session to finding ways to combat prison overcrowding and the
growing number of young offenders.

"We feel this needs diligent attention," said Senate President Pro Tempore
Peter Shumlin.

Shumlin, Lt. Gov. Douglas Racine and key senators announced a new
initiative that would put the Judiciary and Appropriations committees in
charge of taking a comprehensive look at the criminal justice system.

The Democrats set forth no solutions to halt the trends that result in more
money being spent to put more Vermonters in jail. They spoke generally of
finding ways to reach offenders before they broke into the court system,
rather than a rush to erect new jails to accommodate them.

"It's clear that we can't build our way out of this problem," said Sen.
Richard Sears, D-Bennington, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Even with the 350-bed prison in Springfield set to open in 2003, the state
would be short 700 beds by 2005, Sears said. That deficit would require
spending upwards of $40 million on another prison and allocating $20
million annually after that to keep the facilities operating.

"The question is, do we want to put that $20 million there or elsewhere?"
he said.

The state sends a little more than 400 inmates to jails in Virginia and New
Jersey because of a lack of capacity. While the population is expected to
increase - statistics show that every month 15 more Vermonters are sent to
prison than there are released - Corrections Commissioner John Gorczyk said
he had not added any new money in his budget to send more inmates out of
state in the future.

"We just can't sustain the growth in budget," he said. "We're working hard
to move offenders through system in a more efficient way."

Gorczyk said he was pleased with the Democratic leadership's decision to
focus attention on the problems, particularly the attention on prevention
of the behavior that sets young people on the path to prison.

Sears, who runs a residential program for troubled youth, echoed that
sentiment earlier in the day, noting that the trends he has seen in his
work have alarmed him for years. He and Sen. Susan Bartlett, chairwoman of
the Appropriations Committee, both have backgrounds working with at-risk
youth and embraced the project.

"If we don't have this conversation now and we don't come up with a
strategy now, it's never going to change," she said.

The announcement from the Democratic leadership in the Senate comes a week
after Gov. Howard Dean made a public pitch for more law enforcement and
stricter penalties for drug dealers. He has proposed $230,000 for local
police departments to hire officers to help fight the expansion of heroin
in the state.

Dean said he thought the Senate's effort was a step in the right direction,
but stood behind his earlier call for longer sentences for drug dealers. "I
think it sounds like a good idea, but is not for dealers," he said. "If
somebody is caught dealing heroin, they should be locked up for as long as
possible."

Senate leaders warned that money to boost one facet of the system, be it
law enforcement or more jails, would not produce long-term results.

"The system doesn't have to operate in a vacuum," Sears said. "You just
can't put it (money) in one area and expect it not to bulge someplace else."