CORRECTIONS STILL CHALLENGED

Even With a Tiny Increase in Funds, Our State Prisons Suffer Beneath Recent
Cuts and a Staffing Shortfall.

In a break from three years of substantial budget cuts, the
Legislature has given our state prisons a small boost in funding.
Although the $6 million increase will do little to remedy the major
problems within the state Department of Corrections, it is encouraging
to see lawmakers finally conclude that prisons cannot continue to bear
a disproportionate burden of state budget cuts.

Cuts totaling $72 million over three years have forced Corrections to
survive with 500 fewer guards, a narrowing of rehabilitative programs
and an increase in violent incidents that can be traced to
insufficient staffing. Further cuts would make these problems worse.

Realistically, the Legislature had little choice other than to give
Corrections more funding. There was little left to cut, and the
department's needs were genuinely pressing. What could be of greater
impact is the promised pursuit of significant reforms next session.

Lawmakers have committed to exploring solutions to those problems
created by Correction's growing inmate population and this state's
shrinking revenues. A series of meetings, which will take place this
summer, should focus on remaking the way our state prison system
operates and determining whether the state has reached its limit on
the number of people it can afford to incarcerate.

Tougher sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimums have delivered on
the promise of locking up inmates for longer periods. But the cost of
those sentencing guidelines is a prison system increasingly defined by
overcrowding and all the problems that stem from insufficient space
and staffing.

The goal for South Carolina should be shaping Corrections' services
and the inmate population around this state's limited means in the
future. Therefore, both the agency and our criminal justice system
need review, especially sentencing guidelines.

Our state prison population is, to the detriment of state coffers,
growing. Jon Ozmint, director of prisons, says preliminary figures say
the prison population could swell by 1,200 inmates this year. That
would only exacerbate the overcrowding problem prisons have flirted
with for the past three years. In that time, the state has operated at
or slightly over its 22,000-inmate capacity. The budget crisis has
halted the department's construction schedule, which means a pair of
256-bed expansions the agency committed to build during Jim Hodges'
administration remain on hold.

South Carolina will again struggle to keep up with the cost of
incarcerating so many of its citizens without major reforms. The
escalating cost to imprison, which is nearly $350 million annually, is
already impacting other necessary services. Our state budget has
nothing to spare. So lawmakers must implement change that makes
Corrections run in the best interests of both our pocketbooks and
public safety.