FOR SMART JUSTICE

Gov. Charlie Crist recently signed a bill that gives the state the
option of exporting inmates to out-of-state prisons in the event that
Florida's own penal system gets too crowded.

Call it the out-of-sight, out-of-mind bill.

Whatever you call it, it's a terrible idea. It diffuses state
accountability and it hinders rehabilitation by removing prisoners
ever further from the possibility of contact with family members.

Here's a better idea.

Stop investing in new prison cells and start investing in things that
will keep people out of prisons: Job training, mental health
counseling, substance abuse treatment and the like.

This week an impressive coalition of criminal justice professionals
wrote a letter to Gov. Charlie Crist calling for a "bold and serious
conversation about justice reform."

Among those who signed the letter were three former Florida attorneys
general; Jim Smith, Bob Butterworth and Richard Doran, as well as
former corrections chief James McDonough. The group asked Crist to
activate a Correctional Policy Advisory Council (already authorized by
law) to examine ways to reduce the state's prison population by
employing a variety of treatment and rehabilitation programs.

"At a time when Florida is in serious recession and facing a deep
state budget crisis, the $2 billion-plus (corrections) budget ...has
grown larger; and without reform that budget will continue to grow at
a pace that crowds out other mission-critical state services such as
education, human service needs and environmental protection," the
letter from the group, which has dubbed itself the Coalition for Smart
Justice, stated. It warned that failing to act will result in "too
many non-violent individuals being incarcerated, too many prisons
needing to be built at astounding public cost, too many young people
moving from the juvenile justice system into the adult justice system."

Former Monroe County Sheriff J. Allison DeFoor II, a member of the
coalition, told the Miami Herald this week: "I can flatly tell you
that 75 percent of the people in the system - probably more than that
- - have substance abuse and psychological problems."

Butterworth put it even more succinctly: Spending billions to
incarcerate drug addicts and mental health patients is "nuts," he told
the Herald. "There's just got to be a better way."

Corrections remains one of Florida's few "growth industries," but it
is ultimately an unsustainable one. The fact that the state has now
given itself the option of exporting surplus prisoners elsewhere is a
damning admission that the state's "lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key"
mind-set toward criminal justice is doomed to failure.

The Coalition for Smart Justice has challenged Gov. Crist and the
Florida Legislature to find another way. Will Tallahassee accept that
challenge?