BUILDING MORE PRISONS IN FLORIDA ISN'T THE ANSWER

As the number of inmates increases, Florida will have to build 10 more
prisons in five years just to keep up. The bulging prisons are a
result of criminal justice policies that get passed in a virtual
information vacuum. Legislators adopt new criminal laws and enhance
penalties on existing ones without considering how their handiwork
impacts the system as a whole. Two years ago there was an unsuccessful
attempt to create a fact-finding panel to comprehensively study the
state's sentencing policies. Now lawmakers should try again to get a
better view of the entire system.

Florida spends more than $20,000 to keep someone in prison for a year,
and the prison population exceeds 100,000. The state incarcerates a
higher proportion of nonviolent offenders than it did 15 years ago,
and the costs outweigh the benefits.

Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe and Pinellas-Pasco Public
Defender Bob Dillinger both point to the same change in law that
greatly increased their workload. When the Legislature enhanced the
penalties for the crime of driving on a suspended license from a
misdemeanor to a felony upon a third offense, the number of defendants
facing incarceration shot up. McCabe says he saw 70 new felonies a
month in Pinellas County and no new funding to meet the extra demands.
In 2008, more people were sentenced to county jail in Florida for that
driving offense than any other except drugs or theft. It's an
unjustifiable drain on resources.

Had the Sentencing Policy Advisory Council passed by the Senate two
years ago been established, it could be pointing out anomalies like
this. The panel was to take a holistic approach, issuing findings and
recommendations on all manner of sentencing and incarceration
policies. But the House refused to go along. The compromise was the
establishment of a Correctional Policy Advisory Council that would
look at what the prison system is doing and the effectiveness of
various Department of Corrections programs. Yet the council has never
met and is scheduled to be abolished next year. There is no money for
staff to do the work.

Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice
Appropriations Committee, wants to prod the council to start meeting.
He and Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, who chairs the Committee on
Criminal Justice, should also push to expand the panel's mission to
look more like the original sentencing council.

There seems to be a spreading acceptance among Republicans that the
state can no longer afford its lock-'em-up approach to criminal
justice. In his $2.5 billion budget proposal for corrections, Gov.
Charlie Crist is supporting expanded re-entry programs as a way to
reduce recidivism. The programs operate with work-release centers,
assisting inmates with job training and services to help them re-enter
society upon release. A second look is also being given to a bill to
give youthful offenders a chance to have a lengthy sentence reduced.

Florida's prison population has doubled since 1993. There are ways to
sensibly slow this growth, and some ideas will be explored during the
coming session. But without better information, there is no way for
lawmakers to make educated judgments.

Building more prisons shouldn't be Florida's primary criminal justice
strategy. It appears some of the state's leaders are finally starting
to agree.