INMATE OFFERS COST-CUTTING IDEA

Tim Kalich, Editor Corrections Chairman Bunky Huggins wants to
implement the suggestion to make lesser minimum sentence
retroactive.

Bunky Huggins gets lots of letters from inmates. The chairman of the
Senate Corrections Committee doesn't answer them, but he reads them
all.

Most of the letters complain about prison conditions or the alleged
injustice which put the inmates behind bars.

One recent prison correspondent, however, has given Huggins an idea
about how the state can trim the corrections budget without seriously
compromising the public's safety.

First some history.

During the 1980s, when Mississippi lawmakers were in a
get-tough-on-drugs mood, they enacted a 20-year mandatory sentence for
certain drug offenses. A few years ago, feeling the pressure of an
exploding inmate population, they reduced the minimum sentence to five
years.

They failed, however, to make the reduced penalty retroactive.
According to the inmate's letter, of the 21,100 persons presently
behind bars on state convictions, more than 1,200, or better than 5
percent, would be eligible for release if the five-year sentencing
guideline were applied to them. Huggins has shared those numbers with
officials in the Department of Corrections. No one, he says, has
indicated that they are wrong.

At an average incarceration cost of $37 a day, the state is spending
better than $16 million a year to keep these 1,200 drug offenders
behind bars, many of whom have already been there for a decade or so.

Gov. Haley Barbour was asked to commute these inmates' sentences last
year, but the governor has said he wants legislation before acting,
according to Huggins.

The Greenwood senator, serving his fourth stint as corrections
chairman in 33 years in the Legislature, understands why his fellow
Republican would be reluctant to act without the Legislature's cover.
Politically, it's dangerous to be considered soft on crime, even when
the hard-case approach is more expensive than the state can afford.

Corrections has been one of the fastest-growing expense items in the
state budget, more than doubling over the past decade. This year, the
Legislature allocated $266 million to the Department of Corrections.
Barbour's streamlining plan - moving inmates to cheaper private
prisons and cutting corrections staff - has only made a modest dent.
The agency estimates that it needs $11 million more just to make it
through the last six months of this fiscal year. For the year that
begins July 1, 2005, it is seeking $303 million.

With the state facing a huge shortfall next year, corrections is
unlikely to get the extra money.

The pinch has forced lawmakers out of necessity to reconsider their
lock-'em-up approach.

Huggins believes, for instance, it's too expensive to keep terminally
ill inmates incarcerated. Because of their high medical expenses,
these inmates cost about five times more to imprison than able-bodied
offenders.

"We need to send those people home. ... They're not going to do
anything, so why not let them go home and die at home," he says.

In addition to early release, another way to bring down corrections
costs is to use punishments other than prison time more liberally.

House arrest, for instance, is a great alternative in punishing
non-violent, first offenders.

In the abstract, it's easy to see the benefits of house arrest.
Current technology makes it possible to restrict the offenders'
movements. House arrest saves a bundle of money, costing only about $8
a day. It allows the offender to get a job so that he can provide for
his family and make restitution to his victims.

There are, though, always going to be individual cases where the
victims think that nothing less than prison time will suffice.

For instance, some are upset that the father-and-daughter team that
embezzled more than $84,000 from the Mississippi Firefighters'
Memorial Burn Association in Greenville is going to spend the bulk of
their sentences under house arrest.

My initial reaction was that pair needed to stay behind real bars. On
reflection, however, they seem perfect candidates for house arrest.

Sandy Johnson and Tisha Cole pose no real danger to society. Sure,
they'll be able to sleep in their own beds and watch TV until their
eyeballs fall out. They won't, though, have their freedom. They can't
leave their homes except to do court-ordered community service or, if
they find employment, to go to work. That's not exactly Shangri-La.

House arrest will save the taxpayers almost $900 a month on each,
while allowing them to start paying back more quickly the money they
stole.

It's a smart solution.