SPEAKERS DISCUSS STATE'S CROWDED PRISON SYSTEM

The governor and his new correction commissioner said they favor sending
more Connecticut prison inmates out of state. Consultants recommended early
release programs or alternatives to incarceration as ways to reduce
Connecticut's prison population and rising costs.

All agreed Thursday that the state can no longer afford to leave its
crowded prison system as it is.

Thursday the legislature's judiciary and appropriations committees met at
the Legislative Office Building to hear testimony from experts, department
heads, activists and former inmates on how best to reduce the number of
inmates and reduce prison system costs.

Since 1990, the number of offenders supervised by the Department of
Correction has grown from about 16,000 to about 21,000, resulting in
numerous inmates sleeping on cots in common areas or double-bunked in
cells. Over that same period, the agency's budget has grown from about $187
million to well past $500 million.

Gov. John G. Rowland, who was the first to testify, said the state had
reached a

"turning point" and that he was pleased that lawmakers had begun this dialogue.

He said the state had enacted tough laws and sentencing guidelines over the
past 10 years to counteract the effects of drugs and the violence that came
with it.

"I think at that time, we did the right things," Rowland said.

But he acknowledged that the pendulum had begun to swing the other way, and
it may now be time to change "our laws and our philosophy," especially in
light of the state's fiscal problems. Rowland said he did not support
drastic measures that would jeopardize public safety, but was open to
suggestions.

"All options should be considered and discussed as far as combining safety,
justice and cost," Rowland said.

One of the initiatives being considered by lawmakers is a proposal titled
"Building Bridges: From Conviction to Employment." James Austin of George
Washington University, Michael Jacobson of John Jay School of Criminal
Justice and Eric Cadora of the Open Society Institute prepared the report.
They are regarded as experts in the field of criminal justice and represent
the Council of State Governments.

The report recommends that some inmates should be automatically paroled
once they complete 85 percent of their sentences and that nonviolent
inmates could be released after serving 50 percent of their time.

It suggests that the chairman of the board of parole be given the authority
to transfer an inmate from prison to an approved public or private facility
any time within 18 months of the inmate's release date. It also recommends
that offenders who violate some of the terms of their probation be given
incremental sanctions or a shortened prison stay.

The authors claim that if all their recommendations were followed, the
state would save almost $50 million and cut its inmate population by
roughly 2,700 beds.

"This is very doable and would pose very little risk to public safety,"
said Austin.

Austin said that to properly initiate the recommendations, the state would
have to improve its community supervision system and its risk-assessment
programs.

But they and other witnesses noted that the state would spend significantly
less by supervising inmates in the community instead of prison, where it
costs roughly $27,000 annually to house each inmate.

Correction Commissioner Theresa Lantz said she believed the proposal had
good intentions, but she had concerns about the projected bed savings and
giving the impression that the state was going to release large numbers of
inmates.

She said she more strongly supported other recommendations such as sending
inmates out of state -- an idea supported by the governor but opposed by
many lawmakers -- and improving the programs that prepare inmates for release.

"Any initiative aimed at addressing the issue of crowding in our system
should consider release options that balance the good intentions of truth
in sentencing with policies ... aligned to initiatives that promote public
safety, offender accountability and offender responsibility to become a law
abiding citizen," Lantz said.

Chief Court Administrator Joseph H. Pellegrino said he was generally
supportive of the recommendations in the report. However, he said staffing
concerns prevented his department from taking on additional
responsibilities in overseeing released offenders.

He noted that his department had lost 40 probation officers to layoffs and
that another 30 were projected to take early retirement. He said his
agency's alternative programs have been cut by $6.2 million.

"Losing 70 probation officers will increase average caseloads from 140 to
211 per officer. This will make implementation of the graduated sanctions
called for in the report virtually impossible," said Pellegrino.

Gloria Brown of Waterbury, a convicted felon and former addict, urged
lawmakers to fund the services and programs needed to support and aid
released offenders.

Brown, a single mother, said that an alternative program helped her to get
her high school equivalency diploma, and then her bachelor's degree. She is
now employed and working toward her master's degree.

"The AIC program offered me the tools that I needed to become the person
that I always wanted and believed I could be," Brown said.