PREVENTION IS LONG-TERM STRATEGY TO SLOW PRISON GROWTH, GOVERNOR SAYS

Iowa leaders recognize that significant changes are needed to curb the
dramatic growth of Iowa's prison system, said Gov. Tom Vilsack.

Projections for continued steep increases in inmate population and
prison spending over the next decade prompted discussions earlier this
year between legislators and prison officials, Vilsack said in an
interview last week.

One of their findings was that about half of the inmates entering
Iowa's prisons have violated parole or probation, so more emphasis on
community corrections programs is needed, he said.

The Legislature has since approved an increase in spending for
community corrections, and there is short-term evidence that the
prison population is leveling off at about 7,300 inmates, Vilsack noted.

"Long-range, though, it will take a real commitment to a series of
services that state government will provide in partnership with local
government and the private sector," he said. "We have to start with a
better educational system statewide."

If Iowans are serious about preventing people from going to prison,
they must prevent them from becoming alienated from society at an
early age, Vilsack said. Those efforts should include parental
education, early childhood education and reducing class sizes so
"youngsters are not marginalized by the education system."

The governor said he is particularly interested in recent brain
research involving children. Such research has found that children who
are abused or who live in constant fear have overdevelopment of the
primal parts of their brains. Such children have a "much more
sensitive fight-or-flight mechanism," he said. In school, these
children are unable to concentrate as well as others, he said.

"You are constantly being stimulated in the wrong way. You become
aggressive, a discipline problem, and the cycle which ultimately leads
to prison begins," he said.

Vilsack, a Democrat, also said he is willing to work with Republican
legislators on criminal sentencing issues. A state commission is
expected to make recommendations for changes in sentencing laws to the
session of the Iowa Legislature that convenes in January.

"I think it is pretty clear as it relates to nonviolent criminals that
there are a wide variety of additional sanctions and ways that they
can be held responsible without the necessity of using a very
expensive prison bed. We are looking at those," Vilsack said.

Those types of sanctions can range from stiff fines to community
service work programs to restitution to many other options.

State leaders also should consider the types of people in prison, the
governor added. He said he is concerned that many men and women in
prison have had addictions or mental health problems in the past.

Vilsack said he plans to look for ways to use some of the state's
share of money from a legal settlement with the tobacco industry to
improve health care so that fewer people enter prison because of such
problems.

He also said he is committed to strong education programs and
substance-abuse treatment inside Iowa's prisons.

"It doesn't do a whole lot of good to imprison somebody and then let
them out five years later without any education or skill," he said.
"You have to give them the tools to succeed."