BUDGET CRISIS MAY CLOSE PRISONS

Virginia's budget crisis is forcing lawmakers to conclude that the state no
longer can afford to keep thousands of unneeded prison cells open, waiting
for Virginians to fill them.

At the very least, key legislators say, a nearly new juvenile prison in
Culpeper is likely to be mothballed or converted and an adult boot camp in
Southampton County will be shuttered. Those facilities, which together
account for about 300 beds, may be the tip of the iceberg. If nothing else
is done, Virginia expects to be left with nearly 2,000 empty cells by July
2003 at a two-year cost to taxpayers of $63.4 million.

The Culpeper and Southampton facilities were targeted by former Republican
Gov. Jim Gilmore in December, when the state was anticipating a $3.2
billion shortfall over the next 2 1/2 years. Since then, the hole in the
budget has widened to an estimated $3.8 billion.

"Culpeper and the boot camp are just the beginning," said state Sen.
Kenneth Stolle, R-Virginia Beach. "That is not, by far, the end of the cuts."

A 20-year prison buildup crested during the 1994-98 administration of
Republican Gov. George Allen, now a U.S. senator, who ran on a
get-tough-on-crime platform. By the time Allen left office, Virginia had
nearly 4,500 surplus prison beds -- at an average construction cost of
$50,000 per bed, that amounts to about $225 million worth of unneeded
cells. The state and its localities have spent more than $1 billion
building prisons, jails and juvenile lockups since 1992.

Stolle, who chairs the State Crime Commission and the public safety
subcommittee of the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee, said he
expects budget woes will require closing at least one and perhaps two more
prisons in addition to the Culpeper and Southampton facilities.

Del. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, who sits on the corresponding panel of the
House Appropriations Committee, agreed.

"We are going to have to close some facilities. I don't think there's any
question about that," Jones said. ". . . We've got to make a lot of tough
decisions and none of them are pleasant."

Sen. Yvonne Miller, D-Norfolk, said the state's surplus of prison cells is
a result of skewed priorities.

"The money we invested in prisons we did not invest in schools and we did
not invest in infrastructure," Miller said. ". . . We used building prisons
as a way of generating jobs. There were other ways to generate jobs, but
people did not want to hear about those ways."

Lawmakers would not speculate on which additional facilities might be closed.

Ellen Qualls, a spokeswoman for Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner, said the
Department of Corrections has suggested some potential closures. She
declined to name the prisons because Warner has not signed off on them.

Larry Traylor, a Department of Corrections spokesman, also declined to
discuss potential closings.

"Everything is on the table right now," Traylor said.

In an effort to recoup its costs, since 1998 the state has been renting out
cells to the federal government and a half-dozen states. Of the roughly
35,000 inmates locked up in Virginia, about 3,400 are from out of state.

That number is expected to decline over the next few years, in part because
of new federal prisons opening.

Most recently, the Federal Bureau of Prisons notified the state that it
plans to move 1,200 District of Columbia inmates from Sussex II State
Prison in Waverly by July.

State budget planners estimate that the out-of-state inmate population will
dwindle to 1,577 by July 2003, resulting in a loss of $63.4 million in revenue.

The $20 million Culpeper Juvenile Correctional Center, which opened in
1999, is less than half full. Two of its four housing units, containing 112
beds, never have opened.

Fewer than 100 inmates live in the 225-bed facility, said Kelly Gargasz, a
spokeswoman for the Department of Juvenile Justice. Other juvenile
institutions have enough vacancies to accommodate them if the facility
closes, she said.

Budget planners estimate that closing the Culpeper facility would save $9.1
million over the next two years.

Stolle anticipates that it will be mothballed -- closed but staffed by a
small security force -- so that it could be reopened later if needed. Jones
said he hopes it can be converted to another use.

The boot camp, known formally as the Southampton Intensive Treatment
Center, typically houses fewer than 100 inmates up to age 24 in a
four-month program that features military-style training and discipline. It
was established in 1990 as one of several alternatives to traditional
incarceration for nonviolent offenders.

Closing the facility would save the state an estimated $4.2 million over
the next two years.

Stolle said the facility is a target for closure not only for economic
reasons but also because of questions about its effectiveness.

"Boot camps across the country have been recognized as a failed program,"
he said.

A report prepared for the National Institute of Justice by a team of
researchers at the University of Maryland in 1998 found that recidivism
among boot-camp graduates was no lower than among other ex-convicts -- and
in some instances it was higher.

Another cost-saving proposal calls for eliminating $2.9 million in annual
payments in lieu of taxes to localities with state prison facilities.
Stolle expressed skepticism that it would be approved.

Meanwhile, an unconventional proposal by two Virginia Beach lawmakers for
putting the state's empty cells to use doesn't seem to be getting any traction.

Dels. Leo Wardrup and Robert Tata, both Republicans, suggested that
Virginia make a bid to house federal terrorism suspects such as those
locked up at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

Traylor, the corrections spokesman, said he knows of no one in Richmond
pursuing that idea.