TOUGH-ON-CRIME COUNTIES LIKE HOUSTON CONTRIBUTE TO PRISON CROWDING

David Whetstone, district attorney of Baldwin County, likes to tell
about the time he was a visiting prosecutor in Dothan, a southeast
Alabama city known for its low tolerance of crime.

When he rose to give his closing argument, calling for conviction of a
male defendant, a juror told him not to bother.

"He said, 'Mr. Whetstone, if you'll sit down, we think we've got this
thing figured out,'" Whetstone recalled. "So I sat down, and they went
back to the jury room and convicted him."

For years, Houston County -- where Dothan is county seat -- has been a
per capita leader in convicting people and sending them to the Alabama
Department of Corrections.

But that means it has been a star contributor to prison overcrowding
in Alabama. The state's swelling inmate population has yielded not
only lawsuits but the prospect of taxpayers spending hundreds of
millions of dollars to build new prisons and hire more guards.

"It's an unequal use of state resources" for Houston and a handful of
other Alabama counties to claim far more than their share of prison
beds, said Allen L. Tapley, executive director of The Sentencing
Institute, a Montgomery nonprofit group that advocates sentencing
alternatives for nonviolent offenders as a means of alleviating prison
overcrowding.

But Doug Valeska, longtime district attorney of Houston County and
neighboring Henry County, makes no apologies for overachieving.

"This is the Bible Belt here," he said. "They want law and justice
more here than they do in other parts of the state."

Houston County has about 89,000 residents, which places it 12th in
population among Alabama's 67 counties. But in recent years, it has
usually ranked sixth in the number of inmates sent to the state prison
system, DOC statistics show.

From 1998 to 2002, Houston County contributed 1,571 inmate
"admissions" to the prison system, according to The Sentencing
Institute, which analyzes DOC data. (The admissions numbers include
first-time prisoners but also repeat offenders and those who have
their parole revoked.)

By contrast, northwest Alabama's Lauderdale County -- home to the city
of Florence and only slightly smaller in population than Houston --
was responsible for just 546 admissions to DOC over that same period,
the institute found.

Several Alabama counties have significantly higher populations than
Houston but contribute fewer people to the prison system in a typical
year.

In 2001, for example, Baldwin County had 307 DOC admissions. Houston
County, with 57,000 fewer residents, had 373.

That same year, Russell, Coosa and Clay counties all had high rates of
incarceration. But Houston County's rate of admitting inmates to DOC
was the highest of Alabama's counties and was nearly double the state
average, according to an institute study.

"We are known to be tough, but Houston is tougher than Baldwin, as
districts go," Whetstone said. "Across the state, I would say district
attorneys are pretty tough on violent crime. In Houston, they're tough
on all types of crime."

More Crime in Dothan?:

Whether Houston County has more crime than most parts of the state
remains an open question.

Dothan is a commercial hub and the largest population center in the
area, which leads even some local defense lawyers to assert that it's
crime central in southeast Alabama. But FBI statistics suggest Dothan
is fairly typical of medium-size Alabama cities in reported crime,
both property and violent.

For sure, Dothan and Houston County have a long tradition of tough
prosecutors, judges and jurors.

"We're a white-collar town, set in the middle of a large Protestant
area, with numerous churches, and we're very conservative," said Jim
Parkman, a Dothan attorney. "With that comes a conservative approach
to sentencing and punishment."

In Houston County, Parkman and other lawyers say, plea bargain offers
from prosecutors are less generous than in other parts of the state,
even for nonviolent crimes.

"As a defense attorney, I'm at a loss sometimes to explain to my
clients and my clients' families why this criminal justice system down
here is so hard on defendants," said Thomas K. Brantley, another
Dothan lawyer. "The explanation has to lie with who Mr. Valeska is.
He's just an avid, dedicated, hard-nosed prosecutor. If I could
compare coaches to prosecutors, he'd be a Bear Bryant or Woody Hayes
or Bobby Knight."

Tough-Guy Image:

Valeska, a Democrat nearing the end of his third term as Houston
County district attorney and eagerly planning to run for a fourth, is
comfortable with tough-guy characterizations. In a phone interview, he
described himself as a "yeller and a screamer" in jury trials --
particularly those where women and children were victims of violence.

He said he would rather take a case to a jury than settle it for a
lesser punishment, and he touts the number of criminal trials that
occur annually in Henry and Houston counties.

Administrative Office of Courts records confirm that those counties
together had more criminal trials in fiscal year 2002 than either
Madison or Montgomery counties, which are far more populous.

"My philosophy is that we're not here to make deals but to try cases
and protect the community," Valeska said.

But Tapley, of The Sentencing Institute, is among those who argue that
judges and prosecutors all over the state need to be ever mindful of
the effects their decisions have on prison overcrowding.

"We're in the throes of a mess," said Tapley, who was Alabama's state
court administrator from 1977 to 1991.

Since 1980, Alabama's prison population has grown from 7,600 to more
than 28,000. Nearly all Alabama prisons hold far more inmates than
they were built to handle. About 1,300 state inmates are in county
jails because there isn't enough prison space.

County officials, frustrated at the expense and trouble of coping with
the inmate backlog, have a long-standing lawsuit against DOC. Last
year, some sheriff's departments -- including Houston County's -- made
unscheduled dumps of inmates at state prison gates.

Last year also saw a prisoners' rights group file suit against DOC in
federal court, alleging desperate living conditions and grossly
inadequate medical care at jam-packed Tutwiler Prison for Women, near
Montgomery. After investigating, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson
called Tutwiler a "ticking time bomb," and ordered the state to come
up with a plan to relieve overcrowding there.

Since then, Gov. Bob Riley has used emergency funds to pay for a
speeded-up parole docket and has allowed DOC to move some women
prisoners to a private prison in Louisiana.

But if DOC's population continues its recent growth of 100 inmates a
month, long-term solutions likely will require building more prisons
and spending millions more annually to provide adequate guard staffs
and improved medical care for inmates. Commissioner Donal Campbell has
asked the Legislature for an extra $125 million next year to pay for a
new women's prison and address other infrastructure and staffing needs.

The state Sentencing Commission has recommended legislation aimed at
reforming Alabama's criminal statutes and giving judges voluntary
sentencing guidelines. The effort is dual, to provide more "truth in
sentencing" but also to correct for widely varying sentencing
practices by judges, something Tapley and others believe has
contributed to prison overcrowding.

But those reforms, assuming they pass, would have only a gradual
effect. Given the extreme stress DOC is under, Tapley said, all
jurisdictions need to follow the lead of Mobile, Madison and other
counties that have aggressively pursued "community corrections." In
Madison County, which includes Huntsville, judges have long had the
option of putting nonviolent offenders into a local work release
program, where they hold day jobs but spend the nights in a guarded
facility.

"Over the years, there have been hundreds and hundreds of people kept
out of the state penitentiary because of the work release program,"
said Madison Circuit Judge Thomas Younger, who though retired still
presides over cases when needed. The program pays for itself, he
added, through fees deducted from offenders' pay.

One reason Lauderdale County's DOC admission numbers are relatively
low is because it too has a work release program, as well as home
detention and drug treatment programs. Eligible offenders include
those convicted of theft of property, forgery and drug possession,
said Steve Graham, district attorney.

He added that judges in his circuit are always thinking about
overcrowding in state prisons, in part because they fear the early
release of violent offenders.

"I've heard many judges through the years say to defendants, 'If I put
you in, I don't know who will come out,'" Graham said.

Lack of Programs:

But in many jurisdictions, community corrections programs are
non-existent or just getting started. One of the newcomers is Houston
County, which initiated a work release program last November.

Since then, about 60 nonviolent offenders who otherwise would have
been sent to state prisons have been kept in Houston County, said
program director Gary Knight.

"Our judges and our district attorney have accepted the fact that we
have a valid program," Knight said.

Valeska confirmed that he supports work release in Houston County. But
he said he's doing so more because he believes some first-time
nonviolent offenders deserve a chance to avoid prison, not because DOC
needs a break from Houston County.

"It's not my problem that prisons are overcrowded," he
said.