PRISON PROPOSAL IS WAVE OF THE FUTURE

When City Council members revisit the idea of a privately run prison in
Paso Robles in November, they will consider jumping into a larger effort to
ease overcrowded state facilities.

Requests from two Bakersfield corporations to build minimum-security prison
in the city were part of a failed attempt to nearly double the capacity of
privately run prisons in the state. Sixteen similar prisons are currently
in operation in California, housing more than 6,000 inmates.

Authorization for five 1,000-bed, privately run prisons was cut from this
year's state budget, but Department of Corrections officials and
corporations have both said the concept of housing low-risk inmates in
private prisons will continue to grow.

Alex Edillor, project planner with Alternative Programs Inc., which runs a
private prison in Bakersfield, said those small, minimum-security
facilities are a quick and necessary long-term answer to handle the growing
California prison population.

"The situation in California is such that voters have decided they want
these criminals off the street," Edillor said. "California prisons are
already the most populous in the nation and the projections are for a D-Day
early in the year 2000."

Kati Corsant, a Department of Corrections information officer, confirms
that in 2000 the number of inmates in state prisons is expected to reach
the maximum capacity of 179,000. The depart-ment's 33 facilities were built
to handle about 90,000 inmates in single-bed cells.

Corsant said California state prisons are now double-bunking about 157,000
prisoners, approximately 190 percent of the system's intended capacity.
Once every prison cell in the state houses two inmates, the system will
have hit maximum density, according to Corsant, and that, says Edillor, is
where the idea of community correctional facilities comes in.

"We are the quickest and most efficient answer in this situation," Edillor
said. "We have a system that is bursting at the seams. To get a new state
prison up and running, you are looking at three to five years. With state
authorization to build, we can be in operation in the next fiscal year."

State regulatoins require that community prisons hold only nonviolent
offcenders and parole violators. But Edillor stressed that those inmates
make up more than 50 percent of the state prison population.

"We are looking at taking care of the low-risk offenders that are gumming
up the system," Edillor said. "If we can pick up the slack, that frees the
state prisons up to take care of the violent criminals."

But Corsant said it will only temporarily fix the over-crowding problem,
precisely because the community facilities can hold only certain types of
inmates.

"If we put in another 5,000 beds in community correctional facilities, that
will take some of the pressure off," Corsant said. "But not all of the
prisoners can be there. We just can't rely on that type of facility to meet
all of our needs."

Still, Corsant said there are no plans on the horizon for any new state
prisons, and Corcoran State Prison, a 1,170-bed facility that opened one
year ago, did little to ease the inmate clog.

Privately owned prisons are one possible solution. Corrections Corp. of
America, the largest private prison company in the nation, is currently
building its own self-financed facility in California City without state
contracts. CCA has no inmates to fill the 2,300-bed prison, but the company
hopes to approach the state with a contrac to ship California prisoners to
the facility once its finished.

Meanwhile, smaller corporations, such as Alternative Programs, are watching
CCA and the state Legislature with a close eye.

CCA hopes the state will see its new facility as another avenue to ease
pressure in state prisons, but, Corsant said the Department of Corrections
is not considering privately owned just yet. Instead, the department will
most likely continue financing community prisons and issuing contracts like
those with Alternative Programs Inc., and Maranatha Private Corrections.
Maranatha presented a proposal Tuesday to the Paso Robles City Council.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan