PROGRESS ON PRISONS

Despite Its Money Woes, The State Is Easing Some Old Problems

Although squeezed between a money shortage and a slew of federal
lawsuits, the Alabama Department of Corrections, responsible for the
state's 27,000 prison inmates, has taken serious steps toward solving
the penal system's chronic problems.

This week, Corrections Commissioner Donal Campbell told a legislative
committee that within 90 days his department will bring back more than
1,400 male inmates it transferred to a private prison in Mississippi
last year.

The transfer was necessary to relieve crowded conditions. At the time,
Gov. Bob Riley and others said the use of private prisons out of state
was only temporary, and they apparently meant it.

The state has been paying the Corrections Corp. of America $27.50 per
day for each prisoner. (Alabama exported the prisoners to ease a space
crunch, not to save money.)

Should the state rely more heavily on private prisons, the cost would
inevitably increase. And it only makes sense to keep inmates near
their homes and families. Such ties are important when those inmates
are finally released. In addition, people who have committed crimes
should serve their sentences in the state where the acts occurred.

Campbell told legislators that the prisoners can be returned to
Alabama because space has become available. Some of that space may be
the result of an expanded parole process put into place late last year.

Meanwhile, the state is moving to correct conditions for AIDS inmates
at the Limestone Correctional Facility near Athens. Those prisoners
have been moved out of a dormitory into two-man cells. Starting next
week, they will have access to educational and job-training programs.
The changes are in response to a lawsuit.

Prison officials are seeking a $94 million increase in prison funding,
but Gov. Riley has made no decision on that request. The corrections
department is also looking at mental health centers slated to be
closed to determine whether they could be used to house and treat
inmates with alcohol and drug problems.

Common sense and will

More work is still needed. The state cannot yet bring back from
Louisiana the 274 female inmates sent there last year. Alabama's only
prison for women, Tutwiler, has been seriously overcrowded for years.
A long-term solution is needed.

Even so, Alabama's long-standing problems in its prisons -
overcrowding, underfunding, arbitrary policies - seem finally to be
yielding to common sense and a measure of political will.

If Alabamians want inmates locked up, and apparently they do, they
must someday face up to the fact that such an approach costs money and
requires compromises. We're not yet where we need to be, but we're
making progress.