PRISONS WILL COST MORE IF PROBLEMS UNSOLVED

Alabama taxpayers could be contributing an additional $16 million to the
state's prison system next year -- a total of an estimated $250 million --
but unless a significant change in policy accompanies the money, a serious,
avoidable risk to public safety will continue.

With state prisons holding more than twice as many prisoners as they were
designed to house and with a shortage of guards, each correctional facility
remains a powder keg set to blow at the slightest provocation.

Corrections Commissioner Donal Campbell set the cards on the table when he
told the Sentencing Commission recently that "when inmates decide to come
out of there," there will be no way to stop them. That has to be
frightening to the outnumbered guards and to the folks who live in the
neighborhoods just outside the gates. Irresponsibly, state officials have
allowed the situation to deteriorate despite years of warnings -- and
repeated federal lawsuits.

Sending inmates to prisons out of state, which is being done, can alleviate
short-term crises, but it's expensive and offers no long-term solution.
Moreover, building more prisons would be prohibitively expensive ? and
foolish for a state that doesn't have the money to adequately fund
education and other basic services. A new prison would cost about $40
million to build, and about $12 million a year to operate. And to solve the
overcrowding by building new prisons, the state would need several.

One better response would be the early release of non-violent inmates. Gov.
Bob Riley suggests that up to 6,000 inmates could be let go. It's not soft
on crime to let them out. It's good sense. Alabama locks up too many
non-violent offenders. On a per-capita basis, our state has one of the
highest rates of incarceration in the nation.

For its part, the Board of Pardons and Paroles appears ready to give early
release to some prisoners if given another 100 probation officers. The
Legislature should move quickly to provide funding for such accelerated
releases and creating community-based facilities and programs. In the long
term, non-violent offenders can be sentenced to house arrest, drug and
alcohol rehabilitation programs, work-release, and other community-based
programs. Then, prisons would have room to keep violent criminals locked up
for their full sentences.

In fact, reducing the prison population can ease at least three of the
system's chronic problems: overcrowding, understaffing and high health-care
costs.

Alabama prisons now hold 28,142 inmates. From sleeping to eating, too many
are crammed into too little space. At one facility, 250 inmates sleep in a
gymnasium, watched over by only one guard. Meals are served in shifts
around the clock. Only two prisons can be locked down.

Moreover, the ratio of prisoners to guards is 12-to-1, according to
officials. In Florida, the inmate-to-officer ratio is a more reasonable
5.0; in Georgia 5.5.

Additionally, health care in Alabama prisons will cost $10 million more
next year, and the cost will continue to go up as long as the inmate
population expands.

Commissioner Campbell calls the prison picture "ugly." It is that, and
more. Reflecting decades of neglect by the Legislature, the situation
unconscionably puts the lives of inmates, guards and the public in danger,
and must be corrected soon.