PRISON BILL TRIGGERS DRUG DEBATE AGAIN

TALLAHASSEE - When Florida lawmakers were asked last month to make an
emergency $65 million appropriation for prison construction, it
rekindled an old debate over how the criminal justice system deals
with drug offenders.

Finding the money in a sputtering economy was no easy task for
legislators who earlier were forced to whittle social services and
other government programs to deliver a no-new-taxes state budget to
Gov. Jeb Bush. To many, the emergency prison allocation represents
money that could have been spent on schools, health care or any number
of other services feeling the pinch as Florida's population continues
to soar.

"We weren't happy about having to do it but, unfortunately, after
reviewing the facts, it became evident it was necessary," said state
Sen. Victor Crist, a Tampa Republican who chairs the appropriations
subcommittee on criminal justice.

The facts were these: 2,823 offenders were sentenced to prison in
June, the highest number of monthly admissions since 1992. During the
previous 11 months, 25,234 people were sentenced to Florida prisons,
4.1 percent more than state planners expected. Hillsborough's 36.7
percent increase this year was second highest in the state.

Those increases forced state planners to boost earlier projections.
That triggered the emergency plea for legislative help in paying for
construction and expansion of prisons. The alternative, lawmakers and
state prison officials said, was to free prisoners early.

At some facilities, such as Apalachee Correctional Institute in the
North Florida community of Sneads, prison officials dusted off
expansion plans they had shelved earlier. Warden Al Solomon is using
inmate labor to help construct a new 240-bed dormitory at the
facility. He said Friday it is the second dorm of its size to be built
there since 2001.

Drug Crimes Drive Increase

Drug cases led all other offenses in the surge of new prison
admissions. There were 1,000 additional prison admissions for drug
offenses in the fiscal year that ended June 30. The majority of those
were for crimes that did not rise to the level of trafficking, which
carries mandatory prison time.

Prison reformers and other critics cited the statistics as evidence
the state's approach to drug crimes is neither cost-effective nor
rehabilitative. They say the state continues to build costly prisons
to house nonviolent offenders while cutting drug rehabilitation
programs that could keep those offenders out of jail.

"We're definitely doing it wrong," said Robert Batey, a criminal law
professor at Stetson University and member of the sentencing reform
group, Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

"If our money was spent on drug treatment programs as diversionary
efforts in trial rather than sending all our problems to prison, we
could get more bang for our buck," he said.

Batey says the Legislature's eagerness to build prisons and pass tough
sentencing laws is a consequence of ties between lawmakers and the
"prison industrial complex." Prison industries use campaign
contributions and promises of economic development to gain support
from lawmakers, Batey said. Those ties are especially strong with
legislators from rural, economically depressed areas where prisons are
welcome for the jobs they create.

"That's one of the reasons we have more and more people going to
prison even when crime is declining," he said.

Crist, who has dealt with criminal justice matters for 10 years in the
Legislature, called Batey's theory "baloney."

"We're building more prisons because that's what's driving crime
down," Crist said.

To pay for prison construction, lawmakers are using an unexpected
increase in tax collections.

How Many Chances?

The question of how to deal with drug offenses is complex. Like Crist,
court officials and law enforcement authorities credit tougher
sentencing laws and massive prison construction in the 1990s with
driving down crime rates.

At the same time, there is a growing consensus that more money needs
to be allocated to drug courts, which provide treatment and
supervision to nonviolent substance abusers.

"There is no debate that the drug court model works," said
Hillsborough Circuit Judge Kevin Carey, one of two drug court judges
in the county.

"The issue is are you prepared to fund that model," Carey said.
"That's a question of priorities and that question depends on what
they decide in Tallahassee."

Carey and other Hillsborough judges sent 100 drug offenders to prison
in June, the highest number of any county in the state. Although
Hillsborough judges make every effort to divert substance abusers from
prison, Carey said, some addicts can't or won't be helped.

Circuit Judge Denise Pomponio, Carey's colleague in drug court, handed
out 20 prison sentences to drug offenders in June, more than any
Hillsborough judge. Like Carey, Pomponio said she had no choice but to
incarcerate backsliders who weren't being helped by treatment.

"I had people in front of me that had been given four or five
chances," Pomponio said. "They had continued to violate [probation].
Drug court was not the place for them."

The Department of Corrections made much the same point in a report to
Bush. The department reported that 84 percent of drug offenders sent
to prison during the last half of fiscal year 2002-03 had at least one
prior term of imprisonment or probation.

And more than 70 percent of the drug offenders admitted to prison in
the previous 10 months had scored enough points for crimes or
probation violations to go to prison under sentencing guidelines.

"Both of these facts seem to indicate those offenders being admitted
to prison for drug offense have an extensive criminal history and have
usually been given a fair opportunity to comply with the law," the
prison department said in the report.

Some Say Prison Is Not Answer

Still, there is a feeling among many in the court system that building
more prisons to house nonviolent drug offenders is not the answer.

John Skye, assistant public defender for Hillsborough County, blames
the Legislature for creating "draconian" laws that tie the hands of
judges and prosecutors and keep feeding the prison treadmill.

"My personal feeling," Skye said, "is there ought to be a way to
deal with these social problems rather then just the knee-jerk
reaction of throwing everybody in prison." Crist, who sponsored some
of the tough sentencing laws Skye referred to, conceded it may be time
to take a look at how drug offenders are sentenced.

"Merely locking up somebody because he's a substance abuser doesn't
seem to be a prudent thing to do," Crist said. "But if it's a
substance abuser that refuses to reform, when do you cut your losses
and move on?"