REHAB PUSHED IN PRISON DEBATE

AUSTIN - Texas prisons are packed, and state
corrections officials are urging the Legislature to build three units.
But traditionally tough-on-crime lawmakers appear ready to take a
different approach - rehabilitation.

Legislators at the forefront of the debate say they can meet a
projected shortfall of 11,000 beds in 2011 by moving thousands of
low-level or parole-ready prison inmates into supervised community
programs and by bolstering substance-abuse programs to free up beds
held by minor drug and alcohol offenders.

Texas prisons already hold 151,000 inmates, and the state is short
3,500 corrections officers. Adding prisons isn't cost effective, these
lawmakers say, and doesn't get to the root of the problem.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice "has fewer and fewer allies
as the facts get out," said Sen. John Whitmire, the Houston Democrat
who chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. "We're at a
crossroads. There's a strong consensus to do things differently, to
continue being tough, but to be smart about inmates who need a
different kind of treatment." Corrections officials say they are
already working to bolster treatment programs and provide housing
alternatives for low-risk inmates. They want more money for in-house
substance abuse treatment facilities, halfway houses, mental health
services and local community supervision programs, some of which were
slashed in 2003 budget cuts.

But even with such solutions, the officials argue, new penitentiaries
are unavoidable. The state needs two new general-population prisons
and another emphasizing alcohol treatment to house a combined 5,000
inmates, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice says. "We're not just suggesting
building new prison units - we're looking for ways to transition them
back into society," said Michelle Lyons, an agency
spokeswoman.

A push to expand the state's prison system nearly a decade ago tripled
capacity to more than 150,000. Already, the state has more inmates
than it can manage and is contracting with county jails to house
inmates - the result of rising conviction rates, longer sentences and
declining parole approval rates in that time period, according to a
state Sunset Commission report on the prison system.

"It's not an ideal situation. We would like to be able to house the
inmates in our own custody," Ms. Lyons said. The new prisons, "coupled
with the expansions of existing programs, are what we're looking to do
to alleviate capacity issues."

Formidable opposition But corrections officials have a formidable -
and bipartisan - opposition. Rep. Jerry Madden, the Plano Republican
who serves as Mr. Whitmire's counterpart on the House Committee on
Corrections, jokes that the two unlikely bedfellows are an "allied
front - the compassionate Republican and the fiscally responsible Democrat."

Both say they fear pouring money into new prisons just to watch them
fill - what Mr. Madden calls the "build it and they will come"
phenomenon. They're ready to take a more progressive, preventive
approach, they say. Low-level, nonviolent inmates could be placed in
intensely monitored community probation programs, instead of left in
prison, Mr. Madden said. There are 900 inmates currently approved for
parole, he said, but not enough halfway houses to hold them.

"We need to think about what the alternatives are for people you and I
are not afraid of," he said. "That's giving them assistance to
straighten out their lives."

Another option? Getting imprisoned drunken drivers and other drug
offenders into treatment programs, Mr. Whitmire said, instead of
letting them take up general population prison beds. According to the
Sunset Commission report, nearly 60 percent of inmates have a chemical
dependency but only 5 percent are admitted to substance abuse programs
in prison. In some cases, they can't be released without finishing the
rehabilitation program - but the waiting lists are six months or longer.

There are about 5,500 inmates with drunken driving convictions "housed
with murderers and rapists," Mr. Whitmire said. "The easiest thing in
the world would be to just build another prison. You have a whole damn
prison you could release tomorrow."

Vowing to stay tough Corrections and parole officials say it's not
that cut-and-dried. Even with improvements in rehabilitation and
shorter waiting lists for programs, officials say, more prison space
will be needed within four years. And many of those inmates aren't
ready for supervised release into the community, they say - which is
why it hasn't happened yet. And in Texas, where criminal justice
trends have included tougher penalties and longer minimum sentences,
some experts say a more flexible parole and probation system might not
be politically palatable. But legislators say their proposals are
anything but a softie approach to criminal justice. When it comes to
murderers, rapists, child molesters, Mr. Madden said, "we'll lock them
up and throw away the key." But they firmly believe these efforts will
cut costs in the long run without jeopardizing safety. According to
the Sunset Commission report, a combination of in- and out-patient
rehabilitation programs could result in 2,000 fewer incarcerations a
year and save $31.9 million annually. It would also delay the need for
new prisons, the report says - which rack up hundreds of millions of
dollars in debt service bills and annual staffing and maintenance costs.

"The tragedy, during the buildup, was that we did not provide more
funds for rehabilitation," said Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas. "Now we
end up with prisoners who, upon their release, are no more skilled,
but meaner and tougher than when they entered."

Legislators say they plan to start working out the appropriations
details this month, as well as designing a bill to fix an ailing
parole and probation system. They're asking corrections officials to
reconsider their request for new prisons.

Ms. Lyons said the agency is ready to come to the table. They just
don't want to find themselves out of beds in 2011.

"Hopefully, we won't find ourselves in that situation," she said.
"Everyone in the game knows what the challenges are and realizes we
have a capacity issue."

DIFFERING VIEWS ON PRISON SOLUTION A quick look at the prison issue:

PROPOSAL
Influential Texas legislators want to solve overcrowding by getting
parole-ready inmates out of state beds and into treatment programs and
halfway houses - not by building more prisons.

OBSTACLE
State corrections officials say that even with those
improvements, they'll still need three new prisons or else they won't
have room for up to 11,000 inmates by 2011.

KEY PLAYERS
Rep. Jerry Madden, the Plano Republican who chairs the
House's Committee on Corrections and opposes building more prisons.
Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who agrees with Mr. Madden and
serves as chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.

PROSPECTS
With bipartisan opposition to building prisons and strong
support for overhauling the state's parole system, corrections
officials are facing an uphill battle. They won't get everything they
ask for.