TIME FOR SENTENCING REFORM

Our Future Economic Development Ought Not Depend Upon Prison Bars

It doesn't need to be repeated, but for the record, North Carolina
lawmakers are faced with difficult funding decisions this year. And the
public is taking it personally -- whether we have a child in public school
or a parent on Medicaid. As taxpayers and as a community, we're hurt by
these cuts.

The budget pain is being spread indiscriminately, we're told. Everyone has
to make sacrifices. What we're not being told, however, is that the joint
budget conference committee will vote on a proposal to give the Department
of Correction a virtual credit card to pay for three more 1000-bed prisons
even though violent crime has declined.

The budget already includes $59 million to operate three new prisons in
Anson, Scotland and Alexander Counties, which the state is buying for $225
million ($380 million with interest). If these prisons go through, the
correction department intends to ask for four more in the near future.

Why is the state being short-sighted in its approach to crime? North
Carolina has been a model for community corrections programs in the South.
These programs were working until the state started slashing the funding.

North Carolina's prison population has increased steadily over the past
decade because too many prisoners are serving longer sentences due to
inflexible sentencing guidelines. North Carolina has the fifth highest rate
of incarceration in the country for people convicted for drug crimes, and
African Americans are grossly over-represented among the state's
incarcerated drug offenders.

We cannot in our good conscience spend millions to build more prisons until
we give sentencing reform a fair hearing. In California, the public voted
to divert 30,000 drug offenders from prisons into treatment, saving the
state billions, and many other states have adopted other innovative
alternatives to prison expansion.

The state's solution to an increasing prison population cannot be to build
more prisons. Other states have gone down this path and have learned that
building prisons without implementing reasonable sentencing reforms is a
daunting, hopeless and expensive cycle billed to taxpayers, prisoners,
their families and future generations.

Prisons are an expensive business. It costs the state almost $30,000 to
lock up a prisoner in a close-security prison annually. If that money were
spent on university scholarships for example, you could pay tuition and
fees for seven students at UNC and have some money left over for books.
With North Carolina in such a dire financial situation, we should ask:
Could money spent on prisons be better used to keep people out of prison?

We implore the joint conference committee and Gov. Easley to envision a
future where real economic development is not contingent on prison bars,
but on programs that make N.C. proud; where people have the basic resources
to live healthy and fruitful lives and build vibrant communities. Voting no
on prisons and implementing proposed sentencing reforms is the first step
towards this future.