SENTENCING STUDY MERITS APPROVAL

Unless legislators are confident that taxpayers will be content to
underwrite 700 new prison beds every year in the near future, it
behooves them to re-evaluate the sentencing policies that have led to
more than doubling the prison population since 1984.

The vehicle for such a review, which we emphasize does not foreshadow
heinous felons being turned loose on the streets, can be found in
House Bill 4426.

As approved by the House Committee on Criminal Justice and Corrections
- -- no soft-on-crime lot -- HB 4426 would direct the Sentencing
Guidelines Commission to determine whether sentencing policies are in
line with what the Legislature intended with the Sentencing Reform Act
of 1981. Violent offenders must be confined but it's increasingly
apparent that their non-violent counterparts are occupying expensive
beds alongside them, instead of being supervised in the community.

The two-year study, at a cost of about $160,000, isn't an attempt to
empty prisons nor to fill them up; it isn't front-loaded with
preconceived judgments. To ensure that, judges, prosecutors, defense
attorneys, law enforcement and crime victims will be consulted.

A raft of statistics compiled by the Department of Corrections suggest
this review is imperative, lest each of the 39 counties in the state
eventually become home to a prison.

Beginning in 1988, the state's inmate population began growing at a
faster rate than the state population; that's due not only to
legislators stiffening sentences but to citizens initiatives like Hard
Time for Armed Crime and Three Strikes and You're Out.

However appealing these initiatives were, the bottom line is
irrefutable: It costs the state about $30,000 annually to house each
medium- and maximum-security prisoner. Over 30 years taxpayers spend
nearly $1 million for every prison bed.

Locking away non-violent criminals is inordinately expensive and
drains resources that are more appropriately devoted to education,
transportation, social services and the environment -- especially in
the era of Initiatives 601 and 695.

Although there's less than a month left in this year's short session,
legislators must put HB 4426 on the fast track to Gov. Gary Locke.
This review is warranted to help them determine how we can live safely
with fewer prison beds.