PRISON BUDGET: PROCEED CAUTIOUSLY

As a candidate, Florida Gov.-elect Rick Scott proposed cutting the
state's $2.4 billion prisons budget by about $1 billion.

And while the slash sounds good to those who want to see state
government tighten its belt, the implications on public safety aren't
so clear cut.

What would such cuts mean to crime rates and the safety of our streets
and neighborhoods, especially in a county like Duval that typically
leads the state in murder and violence rates?

As Scott and the Legislature focus on their next moves, they should
revisit a March report from the Florida Office of Program Policy
Analysis and Government Accountability, the research arm of the state
Legislature.

OPPAGA evaluated options for reducing prison costs through alternative
sanctions for non-violent offenders. Those include diversion into
probation and restitution centers, community residential substance
abuse treatment and community supervision with electronic monitoring.

After considering Florida's prison landscape and what some other
states have done to reduce costs, OPPAGA suggested the state balance
pilot programs to prison with new prison bed construction for
dangerous offenders and others who failed in diversion programs.

That's a more reasonable approach than using a meat
ax.

The Coming Wave

In just five years, Florida's prison population is expected to add
15,000 inmates, enough to require nine new prisons that cost more than
$862 million overall, OPPAGA's report notes.

Each prison that houses 1,335 inmates costs about $95 million. But
that's just the beginning of the expense for taxpayers.

The Florida Department of Corrections says housing one inmate in a
state prison for a year costs $20,414, and each new prison brought
online adds $27 million a year in operations costs.

Some states, such as Texas, have tried to reserve prison beds for the
most dangerous criminals and divert the non-violent - particularly
drug offenders - into treatment and other programs.

In 2007, Texas took $241 million that would have gone for new prison
construction and operations and poured it into short-term residential
treatment facilities and expanded mental health and drug treatment.

The move translated into an inmate population that grew by 529 inmates
in a year rather than the projected 5,141, OPPAGA reports.

Potential For Florida

The OPPAGA analysis of the state's prison population in August 2009
indicated that 40 percent of state prisoners had been convicted of
non-violent offenses, with half of those being drug offenses.

At least 61 percent of the non-violent prisoners at that time did not
have prior convictions for violent offenses, and 14 percent of them
had no past convictions at all.

The state could save millions by channeling non-violent offenders away
from prison and into alternatives, depending on the type.

For instance, supervision with GPS monitoring costs $15,000 less per
year than housing a state prisoner and would translate into more than
$1.2 million in savings a year for each 100 offenders involved.

Residential drug treatment, day reporting and probation and
restitution centers are much cheaper than traditional prison lock-ups.

Trade-Offs

People in secure prisons won't be out-and-about with the opportunity
to commit new crimes and create new victims.

OPPAGA estimates that 25 percent of offenders with electronic
monitoring violate supervision rules and are sent back to prison.

All but 4 percent likely would have technical violations - such as
moving without permission - rather than committing crimes.

Those numbers go up depending on the approach applied.

The OPPAGA report says the completion rate for offenders assigned to
probation and restitution centers reached only 31.5 percent in
2008-09, which state corrections officials attributed to a lack of
rehabilitative efforts.

Different approaches also involve specialty costs for more
supervision, service centers or service contracts with private
companies that run facilities, which OPPAGA tried to factor into its
cost scenarios.

Expanding diversion alternatives to prison for non-violent offenders
involves coordinating and monitoring many moving parts.

Aside from the governor, Legislature and state agencies being on
board, it would also involve much cooperation from judges, prosecutors
and public defenders.

Depending on their circumstances, not all non-violent offenders should
be considered for diversion programs - and those involve individual
judgment calls by people in the system.

The OPPAGA report sheds light on some promising possibilities and
opportunities - all of which require thoughtful approaches.

Saving money is important, but public safety must come
first.

Reasonable approaches have already been tested elsewhere, as in Texas,
hardly a soft-on-crime state.

Scott and the Legislature should keep that in mind as they look for
new approaches.

And they should reach for a scalpel before grabbing a
hatchet.

Sidebar:

Reducing costs, safely

- - Prison building boom: Projections hold, the state would need nine
new prisons at a cost of more than $862 million to provide for the
15,000 additional state prisoners expected by 2015.

- - Imprison violent offenders: The state could reduce its prison costs
by saving beds for the most dangerous criminals and trying more
alternatives for non-violent offenders.

- - Diversions: Alternatives include diverting some low-risk offenders
into community supervision with electronic monitoring, probation and
restitution centers, community residential substance abuse treatment and
day reporting centers.

- - Prisons for dangerous: The state should balance those alternatives
with building new prisons for the most dangerous offenders.

Source: Florida Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government
Accountability report from March