REFORM SENTENCING AND PROTECT THE PUBLIC

I thought I was pretty much immune to being shocked by news of senseless
crimes. However, when someone called to tell me someone had tried to kill
Roseanne Cook, I was shaken.

In an area where 90 percent of the population lives below the poverty
level, Dr. Roseanne Cook is a godsend. Literally. Cook and Jane Kelly, a
nurse practitioner, are nuns who provide medical care to Wilcox County
residents, without regard to their ability to pay. Cook even makes house calls.

Why would anyone harm her? Could anything have been done to prevent it?

The answer to those questions lie at the root of the dilemma facing Gov.
Bob Riley and lawmakers as they address Alabama's failing correctional system.

Cook was assaulted after she pulled over on a country road to help a
stranded motorist. Unknown to Cook, one of the occupants of the car was on
parole after recently being released from Alabama's prison system. Cook was
brutally beaten, bound, thrown in the trunk of her car and told she was
going to die. Miraculously, the gunshots fired point blank into the trunk
only grazed her face. She survived.

The story of Cook's assault brought to mind the 1996 murder of Montgomery
Police Sgt. J.R. Ward by a fleeing robbery suspect. Like one of Cook's
assailants, Ward's killer had a history of violence, having been convicted
at age 19 of shooting at two police officers following another burglary. He
was warehoused for 40 months in Alabama's prison system. He returned to
society with no strings attached, probably more dangerous than when he entered.

Not unique:

These two stories aren't unique. Offenders convicted of violent crimes are
often released into the community inadequately prepared and without
appropriate supervision, due to chronically overcrowded prisons and a
criminal justice system that is simply overwhelmed by the number of
offenders. With county jails also filled to capacity, there is often no
room to hold dangerous offenders awaiting trial or transfer them to the
state prison system after conviction.

Overworked parole and probation officers, each responsible for hundreds of
released offenders, simply cannot provide adequate supervision. Judges who
would like to sentence nonviolent offenders to alternative punishment are
hamstrung by the lack of funding for such programs.

According to a recently released report from the Alabama Sentencing
Commission, over the past three decades Alabama's prison population has
grown by more than 600 percent. This explosion is due in large part to
increased incarceration of nonviolent offenders, who now constitute 67
percent of those entering the state prison system.

This is absurd. Our prisons are built for people we are afraid of, yet we
are filling them with people we are simply mad at.

History tells us that failure to take responsible steps to reduce pressure
on the state prison system can have disastrous results. Remember Polly
Klaas, the 12-year-old who was kidnapped at knifepoint from her California
bedroom in 1993 and whose case helped focus national attention to the
plight of missing children? The person convicted of her murder, Richard
Allen Davis, was a convicted kidnapper and robber who had been released
from prison after serving only half of a 16-year sentence.

Why was he on the street without adequate supervision? In the mid-1980s,
California's prisons were so overcrowded that the state faced the threat of
court-ordered mass releases. Instead of distinguishing the dangerous
offenders from the nonviolent ones, and finding alternative punishments for
the low-risk offenders, the Legislature took the easy, bureaucratic step of
simply increasing the "good time" credits from one-third to one-half of
each eligible inmate's sentence, which, in effect, cut most sentences in
half. Because of that, Davis walked and Polly Klaas is dead.

Like California in the 1980s, Alabama is now facing critical decisions, and
the public's safety hangs in the balance. A federal judge recently
described Tutwiler Prison for Women as a "ticking time bomb" because of
overcrowding and understaffing, and ordered the state to come up with a
solution. At the same time, the Montgomery County Circuit Court has ordered
the state to more swiftly accept state inmates held in county jails.
Meanwhile, the state is facing the worst financial crunch in modern history.

There are encouraging signs that the current generation of state leaders is
willing to address the problem head on.

At the urging of Attorney General Bill Pryor, the Alabama Legislature
established the Sentencing Commission to help make the crucial distinctions
as to who belongs in prison and who can be punished in the community
without risking public safety. The commission has made far-reaching
recommendations, including an increase in the dollar threshold for felony
property crimes and the statewide expansion of community corrections programs.

Gov. Riley reacted quickly to the Tutwiler litigation by transferring $1
million in emergency money to the Board of Pardons and Paroles to hire 28
parole officers and to conduct special hearings to parole nonviolent female
inmates. At his request, the Legislature is also moving forward with an
additional $1.9 million to expand community corrections programs so that
judges have an alternative sanction for low-risk offenders and also to add
needed prison beds. The legislation would also provide another $2.7 million
for the state to contract with out-of-state entities to house approximately
300 inmates as a last resort to deal with immediate overcrowding demands.

The governor also took the extraordinary step of spending a day touring a
state prison, to see firsthand the conditions.

An expansion of community corrections is long overdue. In 1991, the
Legislature passed the "Alabama Community Punishment and Corrections Act of
1991," which allows the Department of Corrections to provide grants for
local alternative sentencing programs for nonviolent offenders who would
otherwise enter the state prison system. Despite very limited funding, the
act has helped local programs, such as Birmingham's successful Treatment
Alternatives to Street Crime program, to supervise the punishment of
qualified, nonviolent offenders who would otherwise enter the state prison
system.

Faith-based groups:

The state should also continue to encourage and facilitate involvement by
faith-based groups in providing programming and support for prisoners and
their families. Every day, scores of church volunteers work in Alabama
prisons to provide needed life skill training and mentoring, in addition to
religious programming. Through their work, faith-based honor dorms have
been created in many Alabama prisons, providing a refuge for offenders
seeking a new life. But much more could be done.

The Criminal Justice Policy Council in Texas recently released an
evaluation of the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, in which a Christian
organization, Prison Fellowship, works with local church volunteers in a
Texas prison wing to provide comprehensive programming to those inmates who
wish to participate. According to the report, only 8 percent of those who
completed the Texas IFI program returned to prison within two years,
compared to a recidivism rate of more than 50 percent for the general
prison population, and a 22 percent return rate for inmates who were
eligible for the program but did not participate.

Similar programs are now operating in three other states. By slashing the
recidivism rate, these types of programs could save the state millions over
the long run, while freeing up prison beds for violent offenders.

Reserving scarce and expensive prison beds for dangerous offenders by
diverting nonviolent offenders into community punishment and taking steps
to reduce the recidivism rate are just two of many steps needed to make our
communities safer places to live. However, they are steps we can't afford
not to take if we are serious about protecting the public. Mark D.
Wilkerson is a Montgomery attorney who serves of the Board of Directors of
Prison Fellowship Ministries. He served on the Governor's Emergency Prison
Task Force in 1993. His e-mail address is mark@brantleywilkerson.com.