CONSIDER APPROPRIATE ALTERNATIVES TO PRISON

Prison experience is not the classic entry you find on a job resume, but
today it is a component of the background history for 5.6 million men and
women in the United States who have been or are a part of the prison
system. That's 2.7 percent of the total population, according to 2001
statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice. Projections are that 7.7
million men and women will have served time in prison by the end of this
decade.

In Georgia, June 2002 statistics from the Department of Corrections were
just as startling: There are a total of 194,000 Georgia citizens either in
state prisons or under state supervised probation or parole. The figure
does not include probationers in misdemeanor cases, which would add another
200,000 people who could claim "prison experience."

This year, Georgia's inmate population topped 50,000, even with a general
decline in violent crimes. For every 336 prisoners released each week, 360
are added. The state DOC has a $916 million budget, down $40 million from
last year. In a declining economy, the propensity to build more prison beds
and fund chaplains and rehabilitative programs is just not there.

In addition to what the national and state figures say about the violence
and criminal tendencies of our society, it says even more about what
taxpayers can expect in escalating costs to keep our criminal justice
system running and pay for the re-socialization of its former inmates for
decades to come.

Georgia's mandatory get-tough sentences of the '90s for seven categories of
serious crime will continue to swell the prison rolls. According to the
state Office of Criminal Justice Research, inmates sentenced for violent
crimes or sex offenses make up 57 percent of the state prison population,
while property and drug offenders account for seven of every 20
probationers. A growing percentage of the inmates, probationers and
parolees in Georgia are female: In the 1990-2000 decade alone, the
percentage of female inmates in our state grew by 109 percent; the total
females in the three categories grew by 39 percent.

Prison beds are high cost accommodations, but no one wants to risk turning
repeat violent offenders back onto the streets as was done with some early
release programs undertaken back in the 1980s. Costly prison bed and
services will have to limited to those type crimes and further development
of less costly alternative sentencing, including community service, drug
treatments and work release programs, will have to be developed and expanded.

Either type of prison experience, however, limits the employability of and
increases the social and emotional problems of the state's nearly 200,000
convicted felons. We pay for their experience.