INMATE REDUCTION WILL SAVE MONEY

Budget cuts have provoked 25 states to scale back mandatory minimum
sentences, largely affecting drug offenders. This reform includes reduced
sentences and less-stringent parole oversight for low-risk criminals.

Keeping these low-risk criminals in prison cells or paying for numerous
strict parole meetings is costly and wasteful.

Many states face overcrowded prisons, resulting in a need for the addition
of new buildings in order to accommodate the growing number of inmates.

There are now 2.1 million Americans in jail or prison - quadruple the
number in 1980. Virginia drug initiatives have resulted in mandatory
minimum sentences opposing reasonable thinking.

According to the Department of Justice, drug-related sentences represented
more than 45 percent of all federal sentences in Virginia in 2000, compared
with 40 percent nationally. Is it that Virginia has more criminals than the
rest of the nation?

Virginia's strict laws against drug offenders were spearheaded by Gov. Jim
Gilmore in the late 1990s, and included increasing the mandatory minimum
from five to ten years.

Much of his legislation was not adopted by Congress, but set a precedent
for strict laws against drug offenders.

These minimum sentences do not take into account the severity of the crime.
Drug offenders should serve time corresponding to their crime. Implementing
a more standard sentence for specific crimes would help reduce the
sometimes outrageous disparities among similar cases.

Most drug offenders need rehabilitation, not incarceration, to prevent
repeat offenses. Spending money on a year of rehabilitation would cost less
than supporting an inmate for his or her five to ten year sentence. Kansas
legislators faced the need to build $15 million worth of prisons. To
alleviate this economic burden, the legislature passed a law this year
mandating treatment instead of incarceration for first-time drug offenders
who did not commit a crime involving violence. Out of Kansas' 9,000
inmates, the law is expected to divert 1,400 offenders a year.

In 2000, Virginia experienced 23,335 drug-related arrests. One quarter of
all incarcerations in the Virginia Department of Corrections in 1998 were
for drug-related crimes.

Decreasing these sentences and providing treatment options would save state
money and reduce prison populations.

With all of the budget cuts that Virginia faces, it cannot afford to throw
all drug offenders into unnecessary jail sentences.