ALABAMA, THE PLACE TO BE FOR CRIMINALS

This is a great time to be a criminal in Alabama. Law enforcement agencies
are going to be hard pressed for resources to catch lawbreakers. Courts
won't have the money to deal with the cases coming to trial. Crime labs are
too backlogged to handle evidence. And the state is too strapped to house
its prisoners. The icing on the cake is that Alabama has a scofflaw at the
head of its legal system. Though he's currently suspended for disobeying a
court order, he's expected to be right back in his old job soon.

So welcome to Alabama, criminals. The state's shortly going to be rolling
out the red carpet for you.

As part of its open door policy, Gov. Bob Riley says/sAlabama will likely
release up to 6,000 inmates convicted of non-violent crimes. They haven't
served their terms but there's simply no place to house them. Voters
rejected Riley's proposal for new revenue for corrections, so building new
prisons is out of the question.

For the same reason, cutbacks are pending for an already seriously
understaffed state police force.The Alabama State Troopers are so short of
resources that they've tried using mannequins wearing uniforms to try to
slow down traffic. Twenty years ago, a study recommended hiring 926
troopers to patrol the state's 94,439 miles of roads. Yet today, there are
only 320 highway patrol officers statewide and that number is expected to
drop as state budgets are cut.

Attorney Gen. Bill Pryor said he expects more than 200 layoffs among the
1,200 employees in his office and county district attorneys' offices. The
net effect will be to add a year to the time it takes a case to come to
trial, he said. State labs, already backlogged and facing new challenges
presented by a growing number of drug cases, may be forced by funding
shortages to cut some of the jobs of their 110 forensic scientists. That
would mean further delays in bringing cases to court. That setback may be
compounded by a seasonal shutdown of courts. Chief Justice Roy Moore '
suspended for disobeying a federal court order ' has warned that unless the
Alabama court system gets new revenue, it may be forced to shut down for
weeks at a time to save money. This scenario for a criminal's paradise is
speculative at this point. Until the Legislature actually decides how to
cut budgets, nothing is for sure.

Yet with a $675 million deficit, drastic action will be needed. The
prisoner release is being discussed seriously, as are the cuts for public
safety, courts and forensic sciences. Many departments will have to take
cuts in the range of 18 percent to balance the budget. Some of the people
who campaigned against Gov. Bob Riley's revenue and accountability package
are complaining that they're the ones who face punishment, not the
criminals, for opposing the governor's $1.2 billion tax plan. If this was a
state with a bloated budget, they might have a point. But it's not. We've
been struggling for years to make ends meet with the nation's lowest
property taxes. Riley and the lawmakers aren't being vindictive. Even with
the economies recommended by tax opponents, there will not be enough money
in Alabama to run an adequate prison system, lab network, state police
force or court system 'to say nothing of schools, health and welfare
services or cultural amenities.

And that is ' if we may say so ' nothing short of criminal.