STATE HELD CAPTIVE BY NEED FOR PRISONS

RALEIGH - When it comes to building enough prison cells to hold the
state's inmates, North Carolina is barely treading water.

The state just opened one 1,000-cell prison in Scotland County, will
soon open another in Anson County and plans to open another in
Alexander County next spring. The state also has approved a new prison
in Greene County.

"Even with those ... we're still going to have more folks in our
system than we have bed capacity for," said Keith Acree, a spokesman
for the N.C. Department of Correction.

The new prisons will bring the inmate capacity up to 34,729, Acree
said, which is about 400 more than the current population of 34,314.

Under current sentencing laws and with the rapid increase in the
state's population, North Carolina will need space for 42,000 inmates
by 2012, he said.

Realizing the prison population crunch, the General Assembly this year
authorized building three new prisons -- housing about 1,000 each - to
be built in Bertie, Greene and Columbus counties. It will take about
two years to build those prisons, Acree said.

Those prisons should accommodate the state's prison population through
2007, he said.

What happens next has yet to be determined.

"Whether it's building more prisons or tinkering with the laws, that's
up to the Legislature," he said.

John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative
policy organization based in Raleigh, said that the state should set
its priorities and not skimp on prisons in order to expand social programs.

"The first thing we want the state government to do is arrest, convict
and incarcerate criminals," Hood said.

One proposal recommended by the states Sentencing and Policy Advisory
Commission that could ease the pressure on prison population is a
modification in the state's habitual felon law.

Basically the state's habitual felon law works like this. A defendant
must have been found guilty of three previous non-overlapping
felonies. Upon conviction of a fourth felony - and convicted of being
a habitual felon - the defendant would be sent to prison.

Under North Carolina's Structured Sentencing law, punishment is meted
out in levels that range from A to I according their severity. For
example, a person convicted of first-degree murder is guilty of a
Class A felony and could get either death or life without parole. A
person convicted of possessing tools for counterfeiting would be
guilty of a Class I felony and could be given a sentence ranging from
community service to 12 months in prison.

Other felonies fall somewhere in between.

However, under current law, a habitual felon would be punished as a
Class C felon, which could bring a maximum of 17 1/2 years in prison,
even if the felony was a non-violent crime. That punishment level is
usually given to people convicted of second-degree rape, maiming and
kidnapping.

Currently, there are 3,931 inmates in North Carolina classified as
habitual felons.

Under the proposed changes, a habitual felon would be sentenced three
levels above the crime that triggered the habitual felon statute.

For example, someone with three previous felony convictions found
guilty of possessing tools for counterfeiting would be sentenced under
Class F guidelines, which carry a maximum of 49 months in prison.

One group backing the proposed change is Families Against Mandatory
Minimums (FAMM).

"The options are very, very modest," said LaFonda Jones, FAMM's North
Carolina project director.

She said that such a modification could keep the state from having to
build 4,597 prison beds and save more than $1.3 billion over the next
decade.

Hood said that with limited prison space, the state should focus on
keeping the most dangerous criminals in prison.

"Limited prison space needs to be apportioned in a way that maximizes
the safety of North Carolinians," Hood said. For example, Hood said
that people convicted of violent crimes or burglary should be treated
more seriously than people convicted of larceny.

Jones said that the changes recommended by the commission would make
habitual felons serve time that is more proportionate to the
underlying offense.