ACT NOW ON PRISON REFORM

Alternatives move nonviolent offenders, juveniles out of jail.

On a proportional basis, Louisiana still is locking up more people than any
other state, a report last week from USA Today shows.

Louisiana is historically opposed to prison reform. A "hard-line" on
justice is required. But there is evidence the state is rethinking its
approach to sentencing.

For example, on March 9, 2002, the respected television show 60 Minutes
aired a positive program on the Louisiana criminal justice system. In
Louisiana, 60 Minutes said, the expensive policy of locking up petty
criminals for long terms - even life - for repeated nonviolent petty acts
was being reversed under laws that remove mandatory drug sentences for
certain nonviolent crimes and cut in half many drug sentences.

Under the old policy, Louisiana's prison population had tripled along with
costs. Prisons were overcrowded and courts clogged. Addicts needing help
because of addiction became neglected inmates and inevitable repeat offenders.

Ideally under new laws, Louisiana judges would be sentencing more low-level
and property offenders to home arrest or community programs. But, as the
most recent figures demonstrate, new statutes have not slowed Louisiana's
incarceration rate nor unclogged court dockets.

These reforms were needed. But incarceration will not significantly
decrease until some of Louisiana's inmates are moved out of prison and into
alternative programs that gradually ease them back into society.

Alternative programs will not compromise public safety since half the
Department of Corrections adult population is made up of those nonviolent
drug and property offenders - people sentenced more harshly because of
mandatory minimums still in place.

But the most urgent argument going for prison reform is most kids locked up
in Louisiana (80 percent) have not committed a violent crime. We say
transfer juveniles out of the state prisons where revenge, not
rehabilitation is the mission. For delinquents, prison only provides an
education on crime.

The notorious Tallulah prison is this week - and again - under judicial
scrutiny that may force the state to turn the facility over to Federal
authorities. The prison for youthful offenders is teeming with allegations
of rape and guard abuse.The Feds should step in.

State Rep. Mitch Landrieu, a New Orleans Democrat, heads a special
committee on juvenile justice that would transfer delinquents out of the
Louisiana prison system. It's a step other states are taking.

Advocates of prison reform are often accused of being "soft on crime" - a
deadly political sin in Louisiana. But any family dealing with a child drug
problem knows justice should be tempered with mercy for juvenile,
nonviolent offenders if the real war on crime is to be won before the state
becomes a gulag.