FEW GUARDS, BIG TROUBLE

Overcrowded, poorly funded prisons need reforms to operate safely and
within the state's limited means. The results of a new survey should
shock no one: South Carolina has the highest vacancy rate for prison
guards and the most attempted escapes among 16 Southern states.

The state's 627 assaults on guards over the past year also ranks
fourth among the 16. South Carolina prisons are less sound and less
safe because funding cuts have reduced the ability of the system to
work properly.

Already running on a $40 million deficit, the state Department of
Corrections is suffering from $51 million in budget cuts over three
budget cycles that have forced drastic program cuts and the layoff of
hundreds of employees, including guards. The result: Inmates are more
frequently idle and less supervised.

These cuts come at a time the prison population has swelled by more
than one-third. According to the survey by the Southern Legislative
Conference, in the decade between 1993 and 2003 the inmate population
in this state has increased 34.6 percent.

But things are about to get much worse without either the funding to
build more prisons and hire more personnel, or reforms to reduce the
prison population to more fiscally manageable levels.

Truth-in-sentencing laws are mainly to blame for projections that
estimate the state's prison population will grow another 32 percent by
2008. The effect of those laws will be felt beginning in 2007, when
they begin keeping inmates historically eligible for release in prison.

The bill due will be staggering. In September, Corrections director
Jon Ozmint told a state Senate task force looking into prison reforms
that growing the inmate population by one-third would obligate the
state to spend $327 million in prison construction alone. The prison
system is already about 1,000 inmates over capacity.

The Legislature must produce some comprehensive reforms for prisons
beginning in the upcoming session. The current level of funding cannot
house, feed, clothe, educate, medically treat and rehabilitate the
inmates under state authority.

Furthermore, the state must do more to protect prison staffers.
Corrections will continue to have trouble attracting guards so long as
the pay is modest and the perception is that the job's risks are escalating.

To avoid the pending train wreck in the prison system, the state is
going to have to adopt one of two politically unpopular strategies:
either implement early release for nonviolent offenders or repeal its
prison-busting truth-in-sentencing laws. Not only will these laws
create overcrowding, the penal community fears these laws will remove
needed incentives for inmates to behave or take rehabilitation seriously.

But mostly the state simply can't afford the cost.