CROWDING NEEDS LONG-RANGE FIX

A threat by Montgomery Circuit Judge William Shashy to impose more than $2
million in fines against the state has caused the Siegelman administration
to come forward with a short-term plan to address prison overcrowding.

Now maybe the judge should consider a similar threat of fines against the
Legislature and against his fellow judges, because a long-term solution
will require the cooperative efforts of all three branches of government --
executive, legislative and judicial.

To understand that the issue of overcrowded prisons is not something the
executive branch can address alone, Alabamians must look at the history and
the magnitude of the controversy.

In 1971 when the overcrowding issue first went to court, the state had
about 112 state inmates per 100,000 population. This year, that number is
more than 600 per 100,000 population. In 2001, Alabama ranked fifth among
the states in the percentage of its population in state prisons.

In 1971, 3.44 million people lived in Alabama. The state then had 3,842
inmates in its prisons, and the Department of Corrections had a budget of
$8.2 million (about $36 million in today's inflation-adjusted dollars).

But after more than 30 years, while the state's population has increased by
about one-third, to 4.4 million, the number of inmates has increased about
sevenfold, to about 27,000 inmates. State spending on prisons also has
risen about sevenfold, to $254 million.

And there is still a backlog of 1,350 inmates in county jails awaiting
transfer to state facilities with no place to put them. That backlog is
what has the prison system back in court.

The plan presented to Shashy last week by the Siegelman administration
would reduce the number of backlogged inmates substantially over the short
run by creating an additional 400 beds for inmates either at the Bullock
County Correctional Facility in Union Springs or at a site in Marion County.

The facility is expected to cost about $4 million, which will be taken from
the state prison system's fiscal 2003 operating budget, which starts Oct.
1. The administration is banking on the Legislature replacing the money later.

Those 400 new beds will be in addition to 200 additional beds at the
Bullock County Correctional Facility and the Donaldson Correctional
Facility. Those previously announced expansions would be financed from the
$2.4 million that the prison system is receiving from the sale of prison
land to the city of Atmore.

While the proposal given to Shashy last week does show the administration
is trying to deal with this problem, one part of the plan depends upon the
Legislature allocating additional money and the other rests on one-time
money from the sale of land.

Similarly, the administration earlier said that it plans to take some of
the money from the land sale to add 10 probation and parole officers so the
state can start paroling more inmates and to expand community corrections
programs. Both are good ideas, but does it make sense to start continuing
programs with one time money when there is no guarantee that operating
funds will be there in future years?

Clearly, while the Siegelman administration may be doing all it can without
getting additional revenue from the Legislature, over the long haul it
won't be enough to make this problem go away.

For that to happen, two things must first occur:

1-- The Alabama Legislature has to find a source of additional revenue to
fund prisons and the state's probation and parole systems.

Alabama's prison system is housing far too many prisoners in facilities
designed for about half the present capacity, and is guarding them with far
fewer corrections officers than is safe. In addition, parole and probation
officers are carrying a far heavier caseload than they can adequately deal
with.

2-- The Legislature has to change sentencing laws to put fewer nonviolent
prisoners behind bars, and judges need to sentence nonviolent prisoners in
ways that reserve most prison cells for the worst violent offenders.

For years now, governors and prison commissioners have been saying that
Alabama did not get into this prison overcrowding mess in a few years, so
it can't be solved in a few years either. That may be true, but it does
nothing to make things better.

What is needed, and soon, is a long-range plan to eliminate the prison
overcrowding problem over a matter of years, and to keep it eliminated. For
such a plan to work, it will take the cooperation of all three branches of
government.

The administration has produced a short-range plan. Shashy should keep the
heat on until a comprehensive long-range plan for reducing prison
overcrowding is also on the table.