LAWMAKERS CONSIDER BILLS TO CUT PRISON SENTENCES

State lawmakers who talk tough on crime are being asked this year to
pair their rhetoric with reforms.

Pennsylvania wants to steer more nonviolent state prisoners into
rehabilitation and other programs designed to cut their jail time and
keep them from returning.

Reformers have been complaining for years that get-tough policies --
while popular with voters -- don't address crowding, escalating costs
and other issues, such as providing inmates the life skills needed to
stay out of jail when their sentences end.

Now, with incarceration costs climbing toward $2 billion each year,
policy-makers may be ready for change, and are taking a comprehensive
look at how to get the most out of their prison dollars.

"There's a lot of unhappiness on the part of legislators who'd prefer
to be putting money into roads and schools and things for which they'd
forever be esteemed," said Bill DiMascio, executive director of the
Pennsylvania Prison Society, a reform group. "It's gotten to the
tipping point."

Legislation backed by Gov. Ed Rendell, House Speaker Dennis M.
O'Brien, R- Philadelphia, and Sen. Shirley Kitchen, D-Philadelphia,
and other lawmakers would do four things:

First, it would put more people in the underused "Intermediate
Punishment" program, which trims sentences an average of 2.5 years.
Nonviolent offenders could participate provided their prosecutors
agree. The new programs would only apply to inmates who enter the
prison system after the bills become law.

Second, the bills would allow less serious offenders to earn so-
called "risk-reduction" credits on their sentences if they
successfully complete all their prescribed programs, behave and get
good performance reports. This incentive would reduce by 25 percent
the minimum sentence for someone serving three years or less, and by
17 percent for those serving a minimum of more than three years.

Third, the bills would allow qualified inmates to be paroled by their
minimum sentence dates if they've completed treatment programs,
maintained contact with parole officials and come up with an
acceptable plan for their time outside jail. State officials say this
would result in a 25 percent to 30 percent reduction in incarceration
time.

Fourth, less-serious offenders who comply with their parole terms for
a year after being released would be placed on "administrative
parole," which requires less frequent contact with parole officers
and may reduce recidivism.

All told, the changes would reduce the state prison population by
2,042 inmates by 2012, state Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard told
the Senate Appropriations Committee last week. Corrections officials
also estimate that the state could save as much as $71.5 million over
five years.

Beard said the initiatives would ease the strain on a system operating
beyond capacity by 4,400 prisoners and delay the need for new prisons.

O'Brien, who is sponsoring the House portion of the bills, said the
state is trying to be smart with spending, not soft on crime.

"We're looking at the entire system," said O'Brien, who formerly led
the House Judiciary Committee -- the main conduit for the get-tough
legislation that boosted penalties and jacked up sentences. "If this
were a business, we'd be looking at outcomes and try to find a better
way to do it."

Nonviolent offenders comprised nearly two-thirds of 10,000 prisoners
admitted into the prison system last year, Beard said. They include
such offenders as drug addicts who steal to feed their habits and low-
level dealers with no firearms upon arrest.

Those covered could be convicted in 17 categories, including burglary,
robbery, theft, DUI, forgery and fraud. Most would be sentenced to
three years or less.

The new bills are intended to give inmates "the tools to re-enter
society," O'Brien said, so they don't offend again.

Roughly one in four state prisoners returns to jail within a year of
release, figures show. Nearly one-half return within three years.
Property offenders are most likely to come back.

The bills have the backing of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys
Association, the state's victims' advocate community and the
Pennsylvania County Commissioners Association.

"You've got to provide the nonviolent prisoners with the opportunity
to do some rehabilitation while they're in jail to deal with the
threshold issues that got them there," Lehigh County District
Attorney James Martin said.

Jennifer Storm, the head of Dauphin County's victims' advocate office,
said she supports treatment for nonviolent inmates as long as close
tabs are kept on them and on their progress. "I'm a big advocate for
those who need treatment getting treatment," she said.

The new proposals are modeled on laws on the books in New York since
1997. Through the end of 2007, some 27,057 nonviolent offenders have
passed through New York's Merit Time program, shaving an average of
6.4 months off sentences.

That's freed up nearly 1,800 beds in the New York prison system, said
Erik Kriss, a spokesman for New York's Department of Corrections Services.

In addition, those reforms have prompted plans to close four state
prisons this year, Kriss said. New York officials have closed several
facilities over the last seven years. The changes have also resulted
in fewer inmates returning to prison after they're released. Eleven
percent of prisoners released on parole through New York's Merit Time
program returned to prison within a year, compared to the 18 percent
of so-called "first releases" who did not go through the program,
data showed.

"Our population is way down," Kriss said. "It's because of programs
to get nonviolent offenders out earlier."

As of Feb. 26, New York's prison system housed 62,250 prisoners, down
from 62,743 in 2005. As of the 2005-2006 budget year, the most recent
for which data was available, New York paid $32,425 per inmate. The
same year, Pennsylvania, which had a smaller inmate population, paid
$31,029, according to data compiled by the Pew Charitable Trusts. In
2006-07, Pennsylvania spent $32,032 per inmate.

Plans in Pennsylvania call for the construction of three prisons and
the addition of 10,000 beds across the state prison system.

Each prison costs $200 million to build and $50 million a year to
maintain. Adopting the reform proposals would eliminate the need for
at least one new prison, reduce the demand for new beds from 10,000 to
8,000 and allow the state, after 2012, to delay the construction of
additional lockups, Corrections Secretary Beard said.

"It's really the cost-avoidance that we're looking at that's
important," said Beard, who, like others interviewed for this story,
stressed that the proposals wouldn't result in an outpouring of
criminals onto Pennsylvania's streets.

The House bills could come to a vote this spring, a spokesman for
O'Brien said. The Senate bills are pending in the chamber's Judiciary
and Appropriations committees.

In the House, Republicans have questions about which inmates would be
affected by the bills, but "are not closing the door on them," said
Steve Miskin, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Sam Smith, R- Jefferson.

Asked why it had taken so long for Pennsylvania to catch up to such
practices, the Prison Society's DiMascio cited the state's
historically conservative character and the political risk involved in
seeming soft on crime.

"I think there's a general reluctance to get out in front on this
stuff," he said. "This is Pennsylvania."