MAKING MORE ROOM IN PRISONS

THE ISSUE Prison budgets

Points of Debate

The Department of Correction web page shows that over the past year,
13,913 men and women have been sent to prison for non-violent crimes,
such as worthless checks, DWI, traffic violations, habitual felons
and drug charges

The Star's View

We'd Like to See Lawmakers Start Moving Away From Throwing People in
Prison for Non-Violent Crimes

Word comes down that legislatures across America are considering ways
to save dollars on their prison budget as the economic slowdown
starts affecting revenue figures in state capitals. They're
considering alternative sentencing methods as a way to free up
millions of dollars in spending. While one's first hunch might be to
not be surprised that prisons might get shortchanged when money gets
tight, we can also look at this as an opportunity for states,
including North Carolina, to change the way that they decide who is
going to prison.

We'd like to see the General Assembly rethink its recent trend of
increasingly adding active sentence time to a lot of crimes. And, in
particular, we'd like to see lawmakers start moving away from
throwing people in prison for non-violent crimes.

A quick scan of the Department of Correction web page shows that
39,100 people are incarcerated in North Carolina's prisons. A check
on the web site also reveals that over the past year, more than 5,989
men and women were incarcerated for drug charges.

Add to that other non-violent crimes, such as worthless checks, DWI,
other traffic violations and habitual felons, and you get 13,913 who
have been sent to prison for non-violent crimes. That doesn't even
include property crimes and other non-violent offenses such as
forgery and fraud. Just recently, we learned of concerns that
legislators had about increasing penalties for people who commit
crimes as a result of gang-related activity. Such proposals would
require the state to build space to house an estimated 385 more
inmates at a cost of $26.2 million. It would cost between $5 million
and $11.9 million a year to house those inmates. If instead, we'd
change our sentencing code so that fewer non-violent offenders
weren't put in prison, we wouldn't even need to build more prisons to
house them.

We're all for making those who violate our freedoms and commit
offenses against us pay for our crimes. That's especially true of
those who commit violent crimes.

North Carolina can set a new trend by taking the lead in changing
prison sentencing policy so that people who don't pose a threat to
society aren't incarcerated. That would leave plenty of room in
prison for those who do.