STATE PRISON PROBLEM BIGGER THAN EGGS, VISITS

Legislature Cannot Afford Its Crime Policy

State Corrections Department director Jon Ozmint is sending strong
signals that his department's budget problems need quick attention by
the legislature next year. Ozmint is throwing out ideas right and left
to raise revenue and cut expenditures. Two of the most recent ones
sound like clunkers: cutting in half the time families can visit
inmates and increasing the prison system's production of eggs from
10,000 to 100,000 a day.

It may be a privilege, not a right, for prisoners to get visits from
home, as Ozmint says. But families and friends counter that the
cutback will hurt morale and rehabilitation. It's hard to see the
cutback producing enough gains to overcome those downsides.

And putting the state prison system into the wholesale egg business,
with an eye toward expanding into the dairy business, is questionable.
It is not new for the prison system to offer entrepreneurial services,
but some of it has already been challenged by the private sector.

It is easy to see why Ozmint is searching for answers.

Over the past three years, the department's budget has been cut by $72
million, yet demand rises constantly. The department has lost 1,500
workers, down to 5,500 from 7,000. And it ran a $27 million deficit in
the last fiscal year.

Meanwhile, the state's 29 prisons are at capacity with 23,500 inmates.
And the inmate population is growing each year by 5 percent. The
department is simultaneously slashing expenses while taking in 1,200
additional prisoners each year.

The math on that adds up to a disaster.

The easy way out is to blame "government fat." All any agency has to
do to survive is "cut the fat," according to old cliches.

But in the case of the South Carolina prison system, there is more to
the problem than that, and to Ozmint's credit he is putting the issue
on the table. South Carolina needs alternative sentences for
nonviolent prisoners. To have room for violent criminals, others must
go. Almost half the state's prisoners are behind bars for nonviolent
crimes.

Ozmint is not suggesting a jailbreak, but he is putting out there a
policy issue that the legislature must address.

Legislators who live in fear of being called "soft on crime" have
erred by being soft on common sense. "Tough" mandatory sentences,
which don't even allow model prisoners to earn early release, are
something this state cannot afford.

The legislature must do better at anticipating the financial
commitments needed to carry out its laws, whether it is mandatory
sentencing or school accountability. And the legislature is going to
have to learn that it cannot have its cake and eat it too. It cannot
pass high standards and then leave a system $27 million in the red.

Each criminal case is based on a unique set of facts. Judges, in
conjunction with prosecutors, defense attorneys and victims of crime,
need more flexibility in sentencing. The "get tough" ideas from
legislators are impractical, and the state cannot afford them.

House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, said he can see a need to
look at options for nonviolent criminals. He should use his trusted
conservative leadership to help the legislature work through the
prison overpopulation problem now on Ozmint's desk.