COMMUNITY CORRECTIONS IS VIABLE ALTERNATIVE TO BUILDING MORE PRISONS

Crime rates in America are down, according to an Associated Press
account of a Justice Department report. They haven't been this low
since the keeping of national records on property and violent crimes
began in 1973.

The reason? Experts differ, but what seems clear in the welter of
speculation and counterspeculation is that law enforcement has
improved in both prevention and the capture of lawbreakers, and that
sending record numbers of people to prison for lengthy sentences has
been effective. After all, if you are behind bars, you are not on the
street committing dozens of crimes a year.

There should be continued efforts to find substitute means of dealing
with the least dangerous lawbreakers. An extra incentive in this cause
is money. Prisons are expensive, and many states now have
near-hopeless budgets.

Two years ago, the West Virginia Legislature created a community
corrections concept designed to relieve crowding in the state's penal
institutions.

So far, four counties are working with the idea and others are eyeing
the prospects, with Fayette County likely to apply for criminal
justice grant money by the end of the year.

Look for more counties to probe the potentials of the law, which
simply allows for certain non-violent, non-felony offenders to be
dealt with locally, rather than send them to regional jails.

Work-release programs backed up with day report centers are one
option, home confinement another; work-release could benefit the
counties when offenders are put to work on upgrading and beautifying
public lands.

The judicial community will have to sign off on the idea, but it is
doubtful many snags loom in that direction.

Earlier this year, Fayette Sheriff Bill Laird officially presented his
thoughts to that county's commissioners, noting that since the
Southern Regional Jail opened in 1994, per diem inmate costs had risen
from $35 to $45.

Laird also noted that for seven years, Fayette spent on average less
than $470,000 a year, but for the past two years costs nearly doubled,
to $787,000 a year.

In any operation - governmental or private business - cost containment
and paring expenditures are just about the only fiscal alternatives
available in this flat economy.

West Virginia cannot afford to keep building prisons, nor can counties
afford the rising cost of housing inmates in the regional jails.

Obviously, violent criminals cannot be placed on home confinement or
community work-release, but Laird's figures indicated the county could
have managed some 6,000 "non-violent, non-felony" inmates last year
and saved a quarter of a million dollars.

Dealing with lawbreakers is a necessary evil in society, but it need
not cost taxpayers an arm and a leg.

The community corrections avenue is one counties should energetically
pursue.