PRISON SPENDING DOUBLES

Inmates Spend More Time Behind Bars

In the last decade, West Virginia saw its prison population and budget
double without seeing an increase in crime or population.

Today, three advocacy groups will release a report that says the state can
cap its prison population, limit its spending on prisons, and spend the
savings on higher education and social services without putting citizens at
risk.

"What we're trying to say is you've got a system that's just not working
and it is costing the state an arm and leg," said Si Kahn of Grassroots
Leadership, a Charlotte, N.C., group that produced the report with the
Appalachian Institute at Wheeling Jesuit University and the West Virginia
Council of Churches. "Put that money into early-childhood programs, put it
into social services, put it into early childhood development, put it into
business development."

These groups are the latest to call for a change in the way the state puts
people in prison.

Recently, policymakers, judges and corrections officials have become
concerned about the growth of the state's prisons. In the last decade, the
state's prison system has been the fastest-growing in the South, ballooning
from a nearly $50 million operation housing nearly 2,500 inmates to a $103
million operation housing more than 5,000.

Lawmakers are currently focusing their efforts on cutting the number of
nonviolent offenders sent to prison. Gov. Joe Manchin, for instance, wants
to expand a community corrections program that has helped nonviolent
offenders in the Northern Panhandle avoid prison, learn job skills and get
drug treatment.

The Appalachian Institute, the Council of Churches and Grassroots
Leadership say they support Manchin's call for more community corrections
programs. They also hope to urge lawmakers to look at other facets of the
criminal justice system, including sentencing and parole.

The state's prison population has grown in the last decade for two reasons,
according to the report: Judges in West Virginia hand out longer sentences
than their colleagues for armed robbery and a few other crimes. As a
result, the state's prison population is graying. The Parole Board rejects
a larger proportion of parole applications now than it did in 1990. The
percentage of paroles granted by the board dropped from about 66 percent in
1990 to 32.5 percent in 2004. In a 2002 report to the state Supreme Court,
the Division of Corrections, state Regional Jail Authority and Kanawha
County Public Defender's office said this drop in the parole rate "is one
of the most important influences on West Virginia's growing inmate population."

For a long time, the number of people going into prisons each year has
outstripped the number who were freed. In 2003, for instance, 2,242 people
were sent to state prisons. Only 1,851 were released.

The Appalachian Center, the Council of Churches and Grassroots Leadership
say lawmakers should consider revamping sentencing laws and telling the
parole board to grant more paroles.

They argue that sentences more in line with national norms and paroling
more people would "be valuable in lessening funds devoted to imprisonment"
and increasing money spent on higher education and other "programs aimed at
helping citizens mired in poverty."

"Slowing investment on corrections will lead to increasing investment in
the development of a productive 21st Century West Virginian population,"
the groups wrote in the report.

They also urge lawmakers to cap the state prison population at its current
level of 5,032 inmates.

"It's time for the state to take advantage of the fact that they can use
the money elsewhere and still do a good jobs on corrections," said Dennis
Sparks of the West Virginia Council of Churches. "But in many cases for the
nonviolent offenders, we're not doing ourselves or our society any good by
putting them in prison instead of putting them in work programs and
education programs."

It is unclear how the groups' recommendations will be received.

Some of the state's corrections officials have been talking about revamping
the state's sentencing system for years.

"The question the legislators have to ask themselves is, 'Is West Virginia
safer because of these longer sentences or are West Virginian's a bit
poorer because we spend an extra $20,000 a year to keep an old person in
prison a few more years?'" said Steve Canterbury, the head of the state
Regional Jail Authority. "Is it just additional costs that don't have any
rehabilitative benefit or policy benefit? That's the question when they
attempt to get the heart of some of these issues."

They may have a tough time convincing the parole board to change its ways.

"The parole board doesn't base their decisions on inmate population," said
Benita Murphy, chairwoman of the state Parole Board. "We base our decision
on public safety and timely integration of these offenders into society."

Doug Stump, the Parole Board's chairman from 2000 to 2003, said he is not
convinced that the state's prison population would drop if more inmates won
parole.

"Look at the recidivism rate," he said. "If you grant high [numbers of
paroles], you're going to have more come back. You've got to look at net
success."