BURSTING AT THE SEAMS

As Corrections Spending Balloons, Officials Look At Alternatives To
Locking Up Nonviolent Offenders

Overlooked amid the discussion of the state's dire transportation
needs and pressing issues on the health care and energy fronts is
that spending on corrections is bursting at the seams.

Corrections is the third largest expenditure in the state budget,
after education and public welfare. Taxpayers are footing the $500
million bill for three new prisons that will be filled in less than
five years, given current inmate population trends.

That's on top of state prisons operating at 110.4 percent of capacity
as of July 31, according to the Department of Corrections. State
budget projections are that each of the 45,625 inmates will cost
taxpayers $34,012 to house this fiscal year, plus $4,497 per inmate
for health care.

It's not much better on the county level, most of which are operating
close to capacity. Just ask the Cumberland County commissioners, who
are looking at possibly having to raise taxes to pay for a $31
million expansion of a prison that was just built in 1985.

Many of these inmates, particularly those in state prisons, are doing
hard time for violent crimes and sex offenses, and deservedly so. But
there are also large numbers of nonviolent offenders caught up in the
now three-decades-old War on Drugs or who encountered elected
officials and judges who ran for office on get-tough-on-crime platforms.

That philosophy appears to be changing. What have amounted to
patchwork attempts at alternative sentencing and early release
programs for those committing nonviolent crimes are being joined on a
statewide level.

Gov. Ed Rendell is advocating sentencing reforms and has picked up
support from key lawmakers of both parties, district attorneys and
county commissioners. The proposals discussed so far include a heavy
emphasis on drug and alcohol treatment or other rehabilitation
programs to make some inmates with good behavior eligible for early
release, or allowing other people to avoid conventional prison terms
altogether.

One variation is so-called "intermediate punishment," in which a
nonviolent offender would receive rehabilitation treatment while in
prison and progress to less secure settings closer to their homes.

Some of this is unlikely to sit well with those with a tough
law-and-order philosophy, who believe the threat of jail time is the
only real deterrent. But the inmate statistics in state and county
prisons suggest otherwise.