PRISONS FULL, BUT NOT OF DRUG OFFENDERS

Debunking the myth that the state's prisons are overflowing with first-time
petty drug offenders, a new study has found that the greatest number of
inmates have been jailed for violent crimes.

The report, which will be released by the Boston-based nonpartisan think
tank MassINC today, says two violent offenders are put behind bars for every
drug offender.

''Simply put, based on the best available data, there is no reason to
believe that our prisons are full of people who don't belong there,'' the
report says.

Instead, the study suggests that the Commonwealth's prisons remain
chronically overcrowded, running at 25 percent above capacity despite a
decade of expansion, because the state has been unable to convert its felons
into law-abiding citizens.

While acknowledging that another generation of prisons is inevitable,
MassINC said the state needs to radically alter its approach to ensure that
crooks don't come back as repeat offenders.

The group says the state needs to change its prison philosophy from one that
simply adds beds on the back end to a graduated approach that guides
prisoners from lockups to expanded rehabilitation programs and pre-release
centers before returning them to the street.

''So you don't send them to crime school but prepare them to be
crime-free,'' said Michael B. Gritton, MassINC's policy director.

A spokesman for the Department of Correction said yesterday that
Commissioner Michael Maloney would withhold comment until he has read the
report.

A representative of the American Friends Service Committee, a Cambridge
human rights agency, said she is skeptical of the study's assertion that
half the new offenders are violent.

While she applauded MassINC's call for more treatment programs, she said
that issuing statements such as ''Prisons are not full of people who don't
belong there'' severely undermines that effort.

''People tend to justify poor treatment for violent prisoners - they get
what they deserve,'' said Jamie Suarez-Potts, American Friends' criminal
justice coordinator.

Flying in the face of critics who say the way to cut the state's prison
population is by reducing mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, the
MassINC study found:

* If all the drug offenders were set free tomorrow, the prison population
would still be 1,000 inmates above capacity.

* Inmates serving mandatory sentences for drug crimes in 1997 were not
first-time felons, but had been arraigned on an average of 22.5 charges as
adults, and had been convicted of half those charges.

The report urges the state to adopt full-fledged sentencing guidelines to
reduce judicial discretion and mete out punishment more consistently by
increasing prison terms for repeat violent offenders. It also recommends
imposing intermediate sanctions on lesser lawbreakers and calls for the
parole board to take a greater role in supervising ex-offenders.

Yet, from mandatory sentencing to maximum security jail cells, MassINC found
that a criminal justice system that seems to promote public safety may
undercut that crusade in the long run.

For example, the report calls for revamping mandatory minimum sentences for
drug offenders by hitting them with requisite hard time, but allowing them
to earn good time by participating in drug and alcohol treatment pre release
programs.

With a state prison population doubling to more than 10,000 since 1985,
MassINC says there needs to be an expansion of transitional programs, from
anger management training to supervised contact with the ''free world.''

As it stands now, only 150 men at a time out of 10,000 are being prepared
for life on the outside in pre-release programs.

Fewer than 300 offenders graduate from pre release each year. Meanwhile,
1,000 go directly from a cell to the street.

''Every week,'' the report warns, ''more than 20 felons are put back on the
street with little preparation for a crime-free life.''