SENATE BILL SEEKS TO HALT PRISON CONSTRUCTION, CHANGE SENTENCING

For the second time, a bill has been introduced in the Colorado Senate that
would halt new prison construction and force the state to reevaluate drug
sentencing laws.

Introduced by Senator Dorothy Rupert (D-Boulder), the "Prison Moratorium
Bill" (SB-104) would prohibit the state from spending any money on new
prisons until July 2003, and would establish a 17-member task force to
reevaluate current drug laws, including mandatory minimums. The task force
would explore the cost and effectiveness of alternatives to incarceration
such as prevention and treatment, and would study minority
over-representation in prisons and the impact on children of the
incarceration of parents.

The bill would also prohibit the Department of Corrections from issuing new
requests for proposals for the privatization of correctional facilities or
the expansion of existing contracts with private prisons.

Sen. Rupert believes that such a measure is necessary because spending on
prisons has increased more than 600 percent in the last decade, while
spending on schools has decreased 11 percent. "No society can sustain that
kind of misguided expenditures," Rupert said.

She said the bill comes from "a really deep fear of our continuing in this
direction of starving schools, taking money away from prevention,
intervention and education to put into punishment - locking people up with
little or no rehabilitation and putting them back in society without skills
and very angry."

Since Colorado law limits increases in state spending to 6 percent a year,
supporters of the Prison Moratorium Bill draw a direct correlation between
prison expansions and school budgets. They say prison expenditure is one
reason Colorado ranks 49th in the nation for public school funding, and
they also argue that lower education leads to increased crime, since 78
percent of prisoners are functionally illiterate.

More than $3 billion has been spent on incarcerating prisoners in Colorado
since 1984, with $500 million budgeted for this year. Non-violent drug
offenders make up the largest and fastest-growing class of felony
convictions - up 476 percent in the last decade.

Statistics for 1999 indicate that one in three women and one in five men
sentenced to prison were convicted of a non-violent drug offense.

"Even though most Americans view addiction as a disease and overwhelmingly
support treatment instead of incarceration, our government continues to
pour money into prison construction and maintenance, despite the fact that
very few people will receive treatment while incarcerated," states a press
release from the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, a Boulder-based
group lobbying for the Prison Moratorium Bill.

Another problem with the current system, according to the bill's
supporters, is the effect of incarceration on the children of prisoners,
especially those with a mother in prison. Studies have shown that children
with a parent in prison are five to six time more likely to end up in jail
themselves.

The bill's supporters also say that people of color make up a
disproportionate majority of prisoners in Colorado. According to a recent
Colorado Legislative Council report, African-Americans are 10 times more
likely than Anglos, and Latinos are four times more likely to be
incarcerated in Colorado. People of color make up 57 percent of the
state's prison population, although they make up only 21 percent of the
Colorado population.

In early February, the Prison Moratorium Bill is expected to go before the
Senate Judiciary Committee, which is made up of three Democrats and five
Republicans.

Last year, a nearly identical bill introduced by Rupert passed in this
committee but was killed by the Senate Appropriations Committee. One change
in this year's version of the bill is that the creation of the task force
and the prison moratorium can be voted on separately.

Should the bill fail to pass in the Colorado legislature, the Rocky
Mountain Peace and Justice Center and other groups are considering
petitioning for a citizen's initiative, possibly in time for the November
2000 election that would be modeled after an initiative passed by voters in
Arizona in 1996.

The Arizona initiative mandates intensive supervised probation, education
and treatment for first and second-time non-violent drug and alcohol
offenders, and is funded by a liquor tax. According to a May 1999 report by
the Arizona Supreme Court, the program has so far been successful and the
state has saved millions of dollars.

In Colorado, law enforcement and conservatives are opposing the Prison
Moratorium Bill and will likely try to get the bill killed in committee,
but Rupert and her supporters will not give up.

"The problem is that we're just having a horrible time getting people to
talk about it or even think about it. The instinct is to just get rid of
(law-breakers), get them out of my sight, put them away and then never
think about the 90 percent of people we put away are going to come back
into our society. And I keep wondering at what point are we going to have
more people locked up than we have on the outside trying to make enough
money to keep them there," Rupert said. "We're hurting people with this
continuing saga."