RATHER THAN INCREASING JAIL SPACE, CHARLESTON COUNTY SHOULD CONSIDER
REDUCING INMATES

Within limitations, the recent ad hoc Jail Overcrowding Study Committee
found multiple ways to reduce the inmate population over the next nine
months at the Charleston County Detention Center. The committee also
recommended expanding the jail at a cost of $38 million for construction,
plus $14 million a year to staff and operate the new wings. The proposed
new jail would be full the day it opens, four to five years after
construction begins. At the May 1 Charleston County Council meeting,
Councilman Charles Wallace predicted a tax hike would be needed to pay for
the expansion, and that the new jail would be the largest in the state
(although our current jail may already be). I attended all committee
meetings except the first. My interest was that of both taxpayer and member
of South Carolinians for Drug Law Reform. At the meetings, selected
representatives of our local judicial system and jail staff offered many
ideas to streamline the judicial process and find alternatives to jail for
some non-violent offenders. My organization was not permitted to comment,
nor was the public.

I believe the study committee's investigation was seriously shortsighted.
The hearings addressed how to maximize the supply of jail space, but paid
little attention to reducing basic demand for that space. The committee did
not focus on reducing jail recidivism to any significant extent, except
among deadbeat parents; in any case, the jail does not keep recidivism
statistics.

The committee did address one of the main reasons people go to jail o
failure to pay child support. Family Court Chief Administrative Judge F.P.
Segars-Andrews proposed that the council increase resources for the
effective Father to Father and Project Restore programs, which now can
accept only a few people convicted of non-support. She also suggested
making treatment for substance abuse available to those who fail the
programs because of substance addiction, and she proposed that a broad new
juvenile drug offender program be created.

But other than that, I heard no mention made of the huge role substance
abuse plays in most crimes for which inmates now cram the jail.

The jail's roster of inmates and charges for April 2, a typical day, one
would think, shows the chief charge was illegal drugs. There were 286
inmates with at least one illegal drug count, and 249 with at least one
count of failure to pay child support. Some inmates were charged with both.
There is no telling how many other crimes, violent and non-violent, also
had illegal drug or alcohol components. A public defender told me that
nearly all the charges he defends, including probation violations, involve
drugs or alcohol.

The jail currently offers a very successful drug treatment program run by
the Charleston Center. However, the program is limited to 120 inmates per
year due to lack of money and space. The need for treatment at the jail far
exceeds the resources provided. One judicial administrator I phoned
suggested that all judges might compel every appropriate inmate to enroll
in this program, if the program could be expanded to accept all who need
it. The jail study committee did not make this recommendation.

Current drug courts keep people out of jail, off drugs and crime-free, but
the courts can handle only a limited number of cases (our adult drug court
has graduated just 62 participants) because they have limited funds for
treatment. The jail study committee did not recommend increasing the funding.

The jail has no effective educational programs that teach illiterate
inmates to read or school dropouts to get a General Equivalency Diploma.
The jail's current GED program, greatly in demand by inmates, is so
severely limited as to be useless. The jail study committee did not address
this need.

Programs such as Project Return, which pioneered in New Orleans, are very
successful at reducing prison recidivism and have been adopted by a few
jails. They do this through GED programs, addiction treatment, job training
and placement, and community building. (Information about Project Return is
online at www.projectreturn.com.) The jail study committee did not address
this kind of adult program.

South Carolinians for Drug Law Reform wants to see money we now spend on
punitive and futile drug prohibition put into programs that work. One study
by the conservative Rand think tank found drug treatment 15 times more
effective than incarceration, dollar for dollar, in reducing serious
drug-related crime. A poll of 600 South Carolinians last March by the
Global Strategy Group showed that 71 percent of surveyed voters believe it
is better to attack the problem of drug use through treatment instead of
imprisonment.

The overcrowding at our jail now offers the council an opportunity to
address many root causes of the jail's situation. I believe the taxpayers
deserve this much before being asked to foot the bill for a new jail.