RILEY'S BIG HEADACHE: THE PRISONS

Of the headaches Bob Riley will inherit when he takes over as Alabama's
governor on Jan. 20, perhaps the one most likely to become a migraine is
the state's underfunded and overcrowded prison system.

"The whole system is broken, from one end to the other, and not because
people who are working in it aren't doing the best they can," said Rosa H.
Davis, Alabama's chief assistant attorney general.

Across the state, roughly 1,600 inmates have been in county jails more than
a month, awaiting the next available prison bed. Frustrated sheriffs --
facing expensive and dangerously crowded conditions in their own facilities
- -- have lately resumed taking busloads of inmates and simply leaving them
at Kilby Correctional Facility near Montgomery, first stop for most of
those entering the state prison system.

Montgomery County Circuit Judge William Shashy said Thursday that the
unscheduled dumping of inmates must stop, but allowed sheriffs to bring an
extra 100 inmates a week to Kilby beyond what the Department of Corrections
has authorized, as long as there is notice and the transfer is "orderly."
Prison officials aren't sure where they'll put the new prisoners.

Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson has called Tutwiler Prison
for Women near Montgomery a "ticking time bomb" because of overcrowding.
Responding to a lawsuit brought by inmates, he has set a Dec. 30 deadline
for the state to deliver an improvement plan for Tutwiler, where nearly
1,000 women occupy an old, crumbling facility designed for 400.

Other lawsuits are gnawing at the state Department of Corrections,
alleging, among other things, unconstitutional neglect of prisoners'
medical care. Law enforcement officials worry openly about the possibility
of prison riots because of overcrowding and a shortage of correctional
officers.

At a time when state government is particularly hard up, Mike Haley, the
prison commissioner, believes Alabama must spend an extra $144 million a
year to meet basic staffing and infrastructure needs of its prisons.

"We're finally having to pay the piper for 30-plus years of neglect of the
Alabama prison system," he said in a phone interview.

Haley's budget increase would pay for nearly doubling the number of
correctional officers, to meet the national inmate-to-officer ratio. But it
wouldn't cover a new women's prison and a new maximum security prison -- at
a minimum of $60 million each -- that he and others say Alabama needs to
alleviate overcrowding.

"You need to beef up the Pardons and Paroles Board, expand community
corrections programs throughout the state, and the sentencing laws need to
be changed. And if you do all that, you're still going to need two more
prisons," said Buddy Sharpless, executive director of the Association of
County Commissions of Alabama, which has been in litigation with the state
for years over the backlog of inmates in county jails.

The fundamental problem, according to Sharpless, Haley and others, is that
Alabama long ago fell in love with get-tough sentencing but has been loathe
to pay for the prison system such a philosophy requires.

Since the early 1980s, Alabama's inmate population has grown from under
8,000 to more than 27,000. That 264 percent gain occurred as the state
population grew just 14 percent.

The soaring inmate total owes in part to long mandatory sentences for
repeat offenders. But legislators have also toughened penalties for drug
crimes. Last year, more people went to Alabama prisons for unlawful
possession of a controlled substance and felony DUI than for any other
offenses.

Hamp Baxley, a criminal defense lawyer in Dothan, recalled a client who was
on probation after serving time for robbery. The man, whom he would not
name, had a $20-an-hour mechanic's job, and was supporting a wife and
children. Then one night he got picked up for DUI. Because of Alabama's
strict probation requirements, he ended up going back into the state prison
system, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves.

"That's one bed I'd rather see go to a violent offender," Baxley said. "He
made a mistake, so take away his license and make him go to alcohol rehab.
But he needs to be home working."

Annual appropriations for the Department of Corrections have increased from
$62 million to $200 million in the last two decades. But Alabama still
ranks 50th among states in per inmate spending, badly trailing its
neighbors. Tennessee devotes $500 million a year to its prison system,
which has 9,000 fewer inmates than Alabama's.

Legislators acknowledge the need for more spending, but also the political
realities in a conservative, low-tax state where education and other public
services are also desperately in need of funds.

"As far as my constituents coming up to me and saying we need to do
something about prisons, I rarely hear it, except from sheriffs and people
in the courthouse," said state Sen. Jack Biddle, R-Gardendale, and a member
of the Legislature's prison oversight panel. "But something has got to be
done."

Two obvious and related consequences of corrections-on-the-cheap are
deferred maintenance and overcrowding.

"Tutwiler is literally falling apart, and it's indicative of the whole
system," said Sharpless. "There has been absolutely zero attention paid to
the infrastructure at the state Department of Corrections."

Virtually every one of Alabama's prisons exceeds the number of beds for
which it was designed. Tutwiler has gotten the most attention, but several
men's prisons rate higher on the system's "overcrowding index." Kilby, for
example, was designed for 440 inmates but according to DOC's October report
held about 1,300.

Alabama would need at least two average-size prisons to accommodate the
state inmates awaiting transfer from county jails. The prison system agreed
in 1998 to take inmates within 30 days of conviction, but has routinely
been out of compliance because of lack of space.

"Everybody, all the counties and sheriffs, have been extremely lenient and
thoughtful and accommodating for all these years. Now they're getting tired
of it," Sharpless said.

He predicted that sheriffs will continue to move inmates to Kilby whether
DOC is ready for them or not, and will continue litigation against the
department. The suit filed by counties and sheriffs because of the inmate
backlog goes back to 1992.

Other litigation against the prison system looms, much of it dealing with
inmate health care, where Alabama also spends far less than most states.

Currently, Alabama devotes about $35 million a year, with most of that
going to a for-profit Birmingham firm, NaphCare Inc., which is under
contract to provide necessary treatment. Georgia spends four times as much
on an inmate population that is one-and-a-half times larger than Alabama's.

A Tuscaloosa attorney, William Murray, is trying to get class-action status
in federal court for a suit he filed claiming DOC and NaphCare have been
slow and in many cases unwilling to treat serious illnesses and injuries.
The alleged neglect amounts to "cruel and unusual punishment" forbidden by
the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Murray said in his suit and
an interview.

Another suit claims DOC and NaphCare have been specifically negligent of
Alabama prisoners with HIV. The women prisoners' suit over conditions at
Tutwiler has lately been amended to include complaints about inadequate
medical care.

Earlier this year, a separate lawsuit forced DOC and NaphCare to agree to
improve medical care for inmates handling hazardous waste at a prison
recycling center at the Elmore Correctional Facility near Montgomery. Just
last week, a Montgomery County judge gave DOC a deadline for making sure
NaphCare abides by the agreement.

NaphCare has defended itself in court, but company officials did not
respond to requests by the Mobile Register for comment about the pending suits.

Haley said he is not qualified to comment on the quality of NaphCare's
work, but noted that an outside consultant has been monitoring the company
for DOC. He would not release reports filed by the consultant, Jacqueline
Moore and Associates of Chicago.

"Because of ongoing litigation, our legal staff is of the opinion that this
is, for the time being, protected information," Haley said.

Representing inmates in the Tutwiler suit and two others pending against
DOC is the Southern Center for Human Rights, an Atlanta-based prisoners'
advocacy group. Tamara Serwer, an attorney there, said the Southern Center
is not picking on Alabama, but merely responding to problems caused by
overcrowding and under funding.

"I'm not aware of another state that is in as much of a crisis with its
prisons as Alabama," she said. "And at a time when incarceration rates are
dropping in much of the country, Alabama's are still rising."

Law enforcement officials are, if anything, more dire in their assessments
of Alabama's prison system than prisoner rights' groups.

"We're at the Titanic stage right now," said Bobby Timmons, executive
director of the Alabama Sheriffs Association. "We're fixing to tip and go
down."

Timmons worries openly about jail and prison riots. He and others also
speak of the possibility of sweeping, federal court-ordered reforms,
something that happened in the late 1970s under the late U.S. District
Judge Frank Johnson of Montgomery.

The overcrowding problem could be eased by increased paroles, more
community corrections programs and sentencing reforms, said Allen Tapley,
executive director of the Sentencing Institute, a nonprofit prison study
group affiliated with Auburn University Montgomery.

Tapley praised Mobile, which has a drug court and community corrections
program, as setting an example for how to keep at least some non-violent
offenders out of state prison. And he noted that the rate of increase of
the inmate population dropped markedly for a few months last year, thanks
in part to an extra parole board docket funded by a temporary grant.

But Tapley agreed that Alabama must at least build a new women's prison,
and must also spend significantly more money to find safe ways of
suppressing the prison population.

"We just don't have an adequate probation and parole system," he said.
"We've got 175 cases per (probation) officer. You can't accomplish public
safety with that number."

The prisons issue caused barely a murmur in the governor's race between
Riley and incumbent Democrat Don Siegelman. Riley's "Plan for Change"
floated the possibility of paying other states to take Alabama's overflow
of inmates, an idea Siegelman publicly entertained but never
followed-through on.

Riley has committed to no specific reforms or promises of new prisons. But
he is aware of the severity of DOC's problems, said spokesman David Azbell.
Choosing a DOC commissioner -- Haley has asked to stay on -- is a priority,
he added.

"DOC is not only on the radar, it's very close to being directly in the
sights. It's a critical position that has to be filled," Azbell said.

But he added that Riley is unlikely to do what some have suggested and call
a special session of the Legislature early next year to address prison
conditions.

Special session or not, Riley will have to grapple with DOC's problems
soon, said Sharpless.

"He ain't going to have much time to think or do studies."