EXPANDING PRISONS MEAN MORE JOBS

RALEIGH - With the new state budget, lawmakers have approved more than
$30 million over the past two years to expand the state prison in
Scotland County, which opened just five years ago.

The prison is one of six that state lawmakers have approved since 2001
to address a dire need for prison space, and they are already being
expanded. When complete, the construction and expansions at all six
facilities will have cost more than $700million and operating costs
will top $100 million annually.

Projects like the one in Scotland have become a boon for rural,
economically distressed counties. Prison jobs bring added payroll,
boost housing markets and draw new retail customers to poor parts of
the state.

Scotland County's 1,000-bed prison was the first of the six new
facilities to be completed. The prison, just outside Laurinburg,
opened in 2003 at a cost of $90 million, and it quickly filled. Last
year, it became the first of those six new prisons to begin a 500-bed
expansion at a price of $19million. The $13 million approved by
lawmakers this year will go toward a 250-bed expansion. The expansions
will create an additional 174 jobs.

But the spending also has come under scrutiny, with some saying the
state spends too much on incarceration and not enough on substance
abuse programs or community monitoring that would reduce the demand
for prison space.

"Our inmate population grows 800 to 1,000 inmates a year," said Boyd
Bennett, the state director of prisons. "We're having to pretty much
build a new prison a year just to keep up."

Bennett said the inmate population is about 39,640 - nearly doubling
in the past 15 years - and there is a backlog of more than 350 inmates
scattered around the state's county jails who are waiting for a state
prison cell to open.

He said growth projections show the state needs to build an additional
7,000 prison beds to be ready for the inmate population in 2017.

The six newest prisons were built for "close security" inmates - those
who fall between maximum and medium security. Each one was built with
food and laundry services and infrastructure capable of accommodating
an additional 500 medium security beds and 250 minimum security beds.
The expansions are for cells only.

"While these new 1,000 bed prisons were being built, they were being
built with the intention to expand," Bennett said. "Since Scotland was
first, it was the first one to expand."

Both the state population and prison population grow about 2.2 percent
yearly, Bennett said. But the prison system faces a double whammy:
Prisoners already there are staying longer than they used to.

Inmates incarcerated since 1995 have been sentenced under mandatory
minimum guidelines called structured sentencing. No longer could
inmates receive an early parole.

In addition, lawmakers continue to create new criminal offenses and
make criminal penalties tougher, which increases the demand for prison
space.

Before lawmakers left Raleigh on Friday, they passed anti-gang
legislation that criminalizes gang-related activity. The new penalties
are predicted to add almost 180 inmates within a year, costing more
than $30million for space and expenses.

Lawmakers also increased penalties for sexual offenses this year,
potentially adding years to the sentence for raping a child.

Opponents of the prison boom say the state relies too heavily on
incarceration.

"There are many alternatives to prison that we could be doing in this
state," said Lao Rubert, policy director for the Carolina Justice
Policy Center, a Durham-based nonprofit that promotes sentencing
reform and community-based corrections.

"The ratio of spending is somewhere in the ballpark of 50 to 1 in
terms of prison expenses to community-based correction expenses. It's
not so much, 'Are we going to keep spending millions of millions on
building more prisons?' The question is, are we going to change that
ratio a little bit and provide more for community programs?''

Rubert said more funding for substance abuse and decriminalizing some
drug offenses would significantly reduce the demand for prison space.
Some states, she said, address drug abuse as a health issue rather
than send drug addicts to prison.

Job training, more intensive community monitoring, such as daily
reporting to a probation officer, and training to help newly released
prisoners transition into society are other programs that Rubert said
would ease prison crowding. She said some of the state's rural areas
offer limited support in those areas, but the services are
particularly lacking in rural areas.

She said lawmakers and corrections officials agree that community
corrections are a vital element in the state's overall solution to
crime and punishment. But the question, she said, is how best to
divide the resources.

"What do you get for your money if you spend $27,000 per year to put a
person in prison, and they come out with a recidivism rate that is at
worst the same as if they went through a community corrections program
for between $4,000 and $8,000?" Rubert asked. "Or, if their recidivism
is 50percent less, how would you want to spend your money?

"It's not a matter of being tough on crime, it's what's the best way
to spend your money," she said. "There's got to be a better mix."

Concerns vs. benefits But for towns like Laurinburg and Tabor City,
where the last of the six newest prisons is being built, the prisons
mean jobs and money for the local economy.

Belinda Graves, president of the Tabor City Chamber of Commerce, said
some residents at first were uneasy about a prison coming to town.

"There was some concern, and there was excitement," Graves said. "Some
people had concerns about the possibility of escaped inmates, but
those concerns have died down. Most people are excited about the jobs."

Graves has firsthand knowledge. The prison will provide about 600
jobs, easily becoming the biggest employer in the town of about 2,500
residents. And she has one - working as an inmate processing assistant
after the prison opens.

Graves said the prison also is expected to provide an economic boost
to restaurants, gas stations and other local businesses.

"People are always a little leery of anything new," Columbus County
Board of Commissioners Chairman James Prevatte said. "There were a few
reservations, you know, 'Can't we attract anything else new besides a
prison?' But like a lot of other areas in the state, our unemployment
is high. This is having a positive economic impact, and the Tabor City
area is real excited. They're seeing a lot of new homes going in."

The spin-off benefits were seen in Scotland County even before the
prison opened. The prison's construction provided jobs, and some
materials came from local suppliers.

"We view that prison as a positive," said J.D. Willis, chairman of the
Scotland County Board of Commissioners, who lobbied for the prison in
2000 and 2001 before the site was chosen. "We had to hold a public
hearing before it came here, and we had no negative comments
whatsoever."

The Scotland prison has a $16.9million annual payroll, Willis said,
and almost 200 of the prison's 410 jobs are filled by county
residents. The others, who come from Robeson, Hoke, Bladen and other
surrounding counties, dine and buy gas and other goods in Laurinburg.

Laurinburg Mayor Matthew Brock said Scotland County so badly needed a
lift that the prison was not seen as a dirty industry, unlike a large
landfill that was considered in the county until the plans were
scrapped last year.

"We have the No. 1 highest tax rate in the state," Brock said. "It's a
huge negative to be No. 1 in taxes. We're very desperate to increase
our tax base."

He said the prison has been a positive for the community.

"I haven't heard any negatives in terms of having the prison here,"
Brock said. "A lot of the reason is unemployment is so high. People
are obviously happy to have the opportunity for jobs."