OFFICIAL: CROWDED, UNDERSTAFFED PRISONS PUT PUBLIC AT SAFETY RISK

MONTGOMERY -- Alabama's crowded, understaffed prisons are a threat to
public safety, Prison Commissioner Donal Campbell told the state Sentencing
Commission Friday.

"We're on the verge of breaking down. It's broken," Campbell said. The
prison system has 28,142 inmates in facilities designed for half that many.

There are so few officers on duty in Alabama prisons that "when inmates
decide to come out of there" there will be no way to stop them, Campbell said.

One prison with nearly 2,000 inmates has only 22 officers on duty between
10 p.m. and 6 a.m. and only one officer on duty in a gymnasium with 250
inmates, Campbell said.

"We're doing a lot of things right, but we're doing it without an adequate
number of staff ... at great risk to our employees, and at a great threat
to the public," Campbell said.

Only two of the prison system's more than a dozen major prisons can be
locked down securely in case of a major riot or outbreak, Campbell said.
"The Department of Corrections picture is ugly," he said.

American Correctional Association figures for 2002 show that Alabama
prisons have 10.5 inmates per officer, compared with 7.9 in Mississippi,
6.0 in South Carolina, 5.5 in Georgia and 5.0 in Florida. Campbell said the
inmate-to-officer ratio now is almost 12 to 1.

Prison kitchens, dining halls and wastewater facilities designed for 500
inmates are serving 1,500 to 2,000. Meals must be served in shifts around
the clock, Campbell said.

He has sent 1,423 male inmates to Mississippi at a cost of $27.50 a day and
310 female inmates to Louisiana at a cost of $24 a day because there is no
room left in the prisons, Campbell said.

Bill Segrest, executive director of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles,
told the Sentencing Commission Friday that his agency cannot solve the
prison system's crowding problems but is willing to parole many more
nonviolent inmates if they can be properly supervised.

The board has paroled 361 women and 951 men since Gov. Bob Riley made $1
million available in February to hire more parole officers.

More than 100 additional parole officers would have to be hired before the
board could safely parole the 5,000 to 6,000 inmates that Riley has
mentioned releasing, Segrest said later in an interview.

Riley has recommended a prison budget for next year of $250 million, which
Campbell said is about $16 million more than this year.

About $10 million of the increase will cover higher prison medical costs,
$3 million will cover the costs of a settlement in a federal court suit on
behalf of mentally ill inmates, and the other $3 million will pay for
housing inmates, primarily men, out of state.