LOW-LEVEL OFFENDERS WASTE PRISON SPACE

Throughout the 1980s and '90s, Georgia's political leaders railed against
violent crime and vowed to get tough on criminals. And, indeed, they did.

Georgia has led the nation in building prisons and filling them up. And
violent criminals are serving longer sentences --- two-thirds longer since
the "two strikes and you're out" era of the mid-'90s.

That's the good news.

The bad news is our prisons are full. We don't have room for the violent
felons who will be convicted next year or the year after that. And if
Georgia builds still more prisons, there will be little money left for
better schools, new roads or parks and Little League fields.

So maybe the state should take a look at whether we've put too many people
especially nonviolent offenders --- behind bars. In our desire to
punish, we are sending nonviolent criminals, often first-time drug
offenders, to prison for too long.

The Governor's Commission on Certainty in Sentencing is working to produce
sentencing guidelines that not only ensure fairness throughout the criminal
justice system but also safe streets for law-abiding residents. Those
guidelines, if adopted, would free up maximum-security prison beds for
violent thugs while offering the opportunity to place nonviolent offenders
on probation or in other facilities.

Such alternatives would range from intensive supervised probation to
diversion centers or residential drug centers. Coupled with twice-weekly
drug testing and the real threat of a trip to the pen for continued drug
use or other violations, such alternatives could prove a win-win situation
for the state: enough beds for violent offenders, and punishment for
low-level drug offenders that also offers them a chance at breaking the cycle.

Ironically, nonviolent offenders --- mostly drug offenders --- occupy about
20 percent of the beds in the state prison system. Because Georgia insists
on putting lesser offenders behind bars, some violent criminals still don't
serve as long as they should. Violent offenders in Georgia serve only about
65 percent of their sentence, or 4.1 years on average for sentences of 6.3
years.

(And the arbitrariness of the criminal justice system produces some odd
results, such as this: First-time offenders sentenced for possessing less
than a pound of marijuana get an average sentence of 3.4 years in prison,
while those sentenced for selling marijuana, presumably a more serious
offense, get an average sentence of 2.4 years.)

Many judges and prison officials are questioning whether it makes sense to
send nonviolent offenders to prison at all --- especially when more
cost-effective punishments are available. Clearly, drug offenders' high
rate of recidivism --- the rate at which they return to prison --- suggests
the state didn't do much to rehabilitate them while it retained custody.

In Georgia, half of drug offenders under age 20 return to prison within 3
1/2 years. Half of all male prisoners identified with a substance abuse
problem return to prison within five years of release.

The state cannot afford to build enough prisons for all of those offenders
the really dangerous ones, plus the nonviolent drug offenders who keep
cycling back into the system. While lawmakers, judges and prosecutors all
like to take public stances that are tough on crime, the simple truth is
that Georgians will not be safer if every penny-ante offender is sent to
prison.

But we will be poorer. It takes a lot of money --- about $20,000 a year per
offender --- to keep an inmate in a Georgia prison. But putting nonviolent
offenders in a setting where they could both work and get either drug
treatment or job training not only saves taxpayers money but also increases
the chance that they will not return to crime.

So the reasonable solution is to adopt sentencing guidelines that keep the
public safe from violent criminals while offering the chance to break the
cycle to nonviolent drug offenders. Those guidelines would make justice in
Georgia not only fairer but perhaps less expensive, too. PRISON NUMBERS
GROW In 1999, 2000 and 2001, Georgia led the nation in adding prison beds.
14,000 drug offenders each year represent 35 percent of felony convictions.
About 2,600 inmates in state prisons are serving time for possession of
cocaine. Department of Corrections budget Fiscal year '99...... $783
million Fiscal year '03...... $948 million .... (Increase $165 million)