STATE CAN'T AFFORD TO DITCH ALTERNATIVE PUNISHMENTS

The state of Georgia is facing a serious budget crisis, and many worthwhile
programs will inevitably be cut. Nevertheless, Gov. Sonny Perdue should do
everything possible to avoid shutting down alternative-to-prison programs.
Using those programs and building others to keep nonviolent offenders out of
expensive medium- and maximum-security prisons will save the state millions of
dollars in the future.

Indeed, to achieve a much saner long-term approach to corrections in this state
- where the convict population has doubled to more than 50,000 since 1992 -
Perdue should resurrect the sentencing guidelines he sidelined this year. They
were the recommendations of a task force appointed by former Gov. Roy Barnes
after a year of studying how to avoid prison overcrowding in the wake of much
tougher sentencing laws and policies passed in the 1990s.

The guidelines include putting most nonviolent offenders into alternative
programs run by the Corrections department. Those alternatives range from
intensively supervised probation, with immediate incarceration for violations,
to diversion centers, where felons can work during the day and report in at
night. According to the sentencing task force, such alternatives can
dramatically cut the cost of dealing with nonviolent offenders, including the
drug felons who now make up 17 percent of the prison population.

For example, an offender sentenced to four-plus years for possession of cocaine
who might spend 20 months locked up and 31 months on parole --- costs the
state $32,864. If he violates his parole and has to be reincarcerated, the
number jumps to $40,547.

But if that same offender receives an alternative sentence, serving six months
at a diversion center and 30 months under intensive probation supervision, the
state's cost is just $11,538. If a nine-month residential drug treatment
program is thrown in, the cost goes up to $16,972. And the probability of
recidivism goes down because the offender can keep a job, housing and family
ties that make him less likely to return to drugs and crime.

It will take time to realize savings from changing how nonviolent offenders are
handled, and Perdue is dealing with an immediate budget crisis. Nonetheless,
the governor must have the guts to lead the state where he knows it needs to
go.

The sentencing guidelines are currently tied up in the work group Perdue
appointed to review what the previous task force had already done. The governor
should direct his staff to go ahead and implement them. He should keep the
existing diversion centers open, create more, and begin immediately to craft a
probation system to work with the centers. The sooner he does it, the quicker
the savings materialize.

Shutting down the alternative programs may be easy to do politically, but it
would be the essence of penny-wise, pound-foolish thinking.