SPEND SMARTER ON STATE PRISONS

Alabama's prisons hold far more inmates than is safe for inmates,
corrections officers or the public. Unless the state wants to dramatically
increase what it spends on prisons, it needs to find smarter ways to spend
what already goes to prisons.

The Alabama Sentencing Commission has issued a sweeping report on the
state's prison crisis. In it the commission recommends two short-term and
two long-term solutions to prison overcrowding.

The short-term proposals are:

. Address inconsistencies in criminal sentencing laws and raise the dollar
thresholds that determine the level of sentencing. Alabama laws for such
crimes as theft and receiving stolen property that have amounts built in to
them that determine the potential length of sentences have not been
adjusted in more than a decade. Inflation has made them outdated.

Currently, 41 states have higher thresholds for a crime being considered a
felony.

The commission recommends adjusting these thresholds upwards to make them
more consistent with other states and to reflect the effects of inflation.

The commission expects this change would reduce the growth of inmates in
future years by 9 percent, with virtually all of the reduction coming from
a reduction in nonviolent inmates.

. Encourage every county to develop a community corrections program to
provide alternatives to prisons for nonviolent inmates, thereby reserving
prison bed space for the most violent and repeat offenders. Currently only
21 of Alabama's 67 counties have community corrections programs.

The commission also recommends increased funding for probation and parole
officers and for substance abuse treatment.

The long-term proposals are:

. Provide a "continuum of punishment options." To effectively address
punishment, the courts need more alternatives. To develop such options, the
commission would consolidate state administration of community-based
punishment programs to eliminate duplication, increase funding for
community corrections, and provide a system of community programs that
allow "overnight incarceration as both a sentencing option and a re-entry
option."

. Develop true "truth in sentencing" standards and reduce inconsistency in
sentences. Currently sentences imposed by judges for similar crimes vary
greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and sometimes from judge to
judge within the same jurisdiction. In addition, the sentences meted out by
the courts often have little relationship to the actual time served.

Both issues make it difficult to track the effects of sentencing on prison
populations.

The commission recommends the state develop a system of voluntary standards
to address both the disparity in sentencing and to make sentences more
accurately reflect time served.

Will these proposals solve the overcrowding crisis? No, but they could make
the problems of prison space and funding much more manageable.

The Legislature should adopt the Sentencing Commission recommendations, or
something very close to them. Otherwise, the state will keep sinking an
increasing proportion of available funds into prisons, which will either
force huge tax increases or a dramatic reduction in other state services.