NO QUICK FIX

State Needs to Take Balanced Approach to Solve Current Corrections
Problems

The Alabama prisoner population and associated budget have exploded
during the past 20 years. In 1980, there were 6,368 state prisoners in
Alabama. Today, there are 28,338 - more prisoners than in Canada, a
country of more than 30 million people.

Obviously, many don't need to be there. Now, at the expense of
children's education and health care, nursing home beds and
medications for poor people, the governor and Legislature scramble to
address the problem.

In their defense, Alabama's prison overcrowding crisis and budget
crisis are real. But the governor and Legislature should not fall
victim to the seemingly quick fix of only expanding the function of
parole. Instead, Alabama should support its expanding community
corrections programs, which are ultimately more effective and less
expensive.

There are two basic options available to address Alabama's corrections
crisis. The first, which is more progressive and in line with
sentencing reform efforts, is to change Draconian sentencing laws and
provide judges community-based alternatives under the Community
Corrections Act. The second is to continue to sentence nonviolent
offenders to the penitentiary and to expensive out-of-state prisons
($17 million) and then have the governor's appointees change sentences
administratively and release offenders on parole.

The first option stops the problem of overcrowding at its root and
efficiently moves the state forward in line with the work done by the
Sentencing Commission. The second doesn't address the flow of
lower-risk offenders into our prisons and doesn't change the system,
which has brought us to this dismal point.

The first option is efficient, builds public confidence in the system
and invests in the future. The second option, which is the only option
on the table, does not.

Eggs in One Basket:

Regrettably, Gov. Bob Riley has elected to put all his eggs in the
broken basket of corrections and parole. His budget doubles the size
of the parole board and its supporting cast and totally ignores
investing in permanent solutions to the problem.

True, an expanded parole board is one of several mechanisms available
to release offenders who really don't need to be there, and parole
supervision needs to be improved and augmented with re-entry services.
But doubling the size of the parole system alone without looking at
other immediate solutions or investing in any long-term solutions is
simplistic and extremely unwise.

Alabama can provide a more thoughtful and comprehensive solution to
its prison and fiscal crisis than the Band-Aid of out-of-state private
prisons and massive parole expansion. The Department of Corrections
could expand the SIR program through Community Corrections to reassign
offenders to community custody. Existing probation and parole
caseloads could be trimmed by review and judicial or parole board
concurrence. Split sentences could be reviewed. Thousands of offenders
waiting to get drug treatment could be diverted to community treatment
programs.

The Legislature just amended the Community Corrections act to allow it
to more easily expand beyond the current 27 counties. However, the
$5.5 million recommended by Alabama's Sentencing Commission and agreed
to by the Legislature is not included in the governor's budget. This
is in spite of the recently completed 10-year master plan prepared for
the Department of Corrections by Carter Goble and Associates, which
estimates that a minimum of 2,100 state prisoners could be safely
diverted from prisons to community corrections without hiring new
state employees.

The governor's proposal also fails to provide the level of services
that many of these returning offenders need. According to the
Sentencing Commission, more than 5,000 nonviolent offenders are
sitting in prison awaiting drug treatment. Most will return to
caseload supervision without available drug treatment, although most
Community Corrections programs provide drug testing and treatment.
These released offenders need multiple services in the context of
their supervision. Without services, 56.3 percent of those paroled
(Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics) will simply
recycle back into the prison system. State-sponsored supervision
without critical services has been proven to be inadequate.

The current approach is at odds with Riley's position during the
campaign. In his "Plan For Change," the governor said, "We must also
be innovative in the way we approach the rehabilitation of nonviolent
offenders. Around the state, faith-based and community-based programs
for juvenile delinquents and drug offenders have consistently shown
low recidivism rates and a record of success in treating addicts and
reforming youths. Programs often treat and rehabilitate offenders at a
lesser cost than we now spend on housing prisoners. Accordingly, I
will support utilizing community and faith-based efforts to
rehabilitate certain nonviolent offenders."

Apparently, this vision has not been passed along.

Backward Looking:

Finally, the governor's proposal looks backward for answers rather
than forward. It doubles the size of a parole system that the
Sentencing Commission recommended be phased out in favor of "truth in
sentencing." Having judges' decisions administratively overturned,
wholesale, by political appointees does not advance the cause of
fixing a broken criminal justice system, nor does it restore the
public's faith.

The public will support a balanced approach that keeps nonviolent
offenders in the community if they make restitution, work and quit
using drugs. The public supports structured alternatives to
incarceration, which involve local communities in the system of
justice. The public will support judges who divert offenders from
prison to drug treatment (drug courts) or mental health services
(mental health court). And the public will support lower probation and
parole caseloads and adequate supervision and services for offenders
returning from prison.

The governor should involve the Sentencing Commission, attorney
general, judges, county community corrections boards, mental health
and faith-based groups to build a balanced plan to efficiently reduce
Alabama's prison population. The current plan as reflected in his
budget is not the balanced approach we should expect for $10 million.