CORRECTIONS TOPS BUDGET GROWTH

Between 1990 and 2001, Oklahoma's Corrections Department led all other
state agencies in budget growth with 147 percent, but it still is bleeding
financially.

A new report by the Community Action Project of Tulsa on state spending
during those years lists some of the reasons why the corrections department
budget grew.

"This growth was much more a reflection of the changing sentencing and
parole patterns than it was of crime rates, which actually dropped 17
percent in Oklahoma between 1991 and 2001," the report said.

The Community Action Project is an antipoverty agency whose mission is to
help people achieve self-sufficiency.

The report examined state spending for all state government operations
between 1990 and 2001.

Total state appropriated budgets grew from $2.868 billion in 1990 to $5.408
billion in 2001, a growth of 88 percent, the report said.

Education, always a top priority, got large budget increases.

So did corrections, which has been a financial problem for the Legislature
since the 1973 riot that destroyed much of the penitentiary at McAlester
and led to the building of more state prisons and private prisons as well.

Big budget increases for education and corrections reflected the public
priorities of the era to improve public schools and enforce strict
treatment of criminals, the report said.

While education got the largest dollar increase between 1990 and 2001,
corrections surpassed it in percentage increase. The education budget
increased 124.7 percent, but corrections increased 147.4 percent, the study
showed.

The report said the budget growth in corrections reflected a combination of
factors including:

A growing prison population, as the state tightened parole requirements and
adopted legislation leading to longer prison terms.

Oklahoma's prison population grew from an average daily census of 15,260 in
fiscal year 1996 to 22,299 in 2001, a 46 percent increase.

Policies aimed at keeping inmates in higher-security settings. Fewer
inmates were released into halfway houses and community-based centers and
held instead in higher-cost prisons. The prison inmate population grew by
7,000 while the number of inmates placed in community correction
facilities, work centers and halfway houses declined from 2,551 in fiscal
year 1996 to 2,447 in fiscal year 2001.

Another factor affecting the budget was pay increases for corrections
officers, the report said.

The corrections budget also had to be increased to meet medical care
requirements in the settlement of a federal lawsuit filed in the early
1970s by Bobby Battle, a former inmate, the report said.

Money always has been a problem for corrections. Every year the Legislature
has to pump additional money into the prison system just to get it through
the fiscal year.

This year is no different, except there is little money available to help
any state agency. An economic downturn left the Legislature with $678
million less to appropriate for next year than legislators had in February
2002.

Rep. Jari Askins, D- Duncan, was a new member of the Pardon and Parole
Board in 1991 and watched the prison system grow.

After a few meetings of reviewing hundreds of inmate files, it became clear
to her and others that Oklahoma needed more medium-security beds.

Some offenders who should have been in medium security were in less secure
housing in the prison system, said Askins, who now is chairman of the House
Appropriations Subcommittee on Corrections.

"That is what began to drive the building of and contracting (with) private
prisons," she said.

With more private prisons, offenders began to serve more of their
sentences, she said.

At the same time, methamphetamine labs "exploded across the country,"
resulting in more people going to prison for drug use, Askins said.

Since the state had more prison beds, early release of inmates became less
of a need, she said.

"Many legislators say, 'we want to lock up those who we're scared of and
not those we're mad at,'"Askins, a former special judge, said.

Askins and Sen. Dick Wilkerson, D-Atwood, her counterpart in the Senate,
believe the state needs more treatment for nonviolent inmates with drug and
alcohol problems.

The Corrections Department has more than 500 vacant corrections officer
positions, Askins said, and nearly 60 probation and parole officer vacancies.

Wilkerson, a former agent with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation,
said Oklahoma's corrections system "has grown by leaps and bounds."

Georgia has a population of 9 million and fewer than 50,000 inmates, he said.

Oklahoma has a little more than 3 million people and an inmate population
half the size of Georgia's, Wilkerson said.

Oklahoma has about 23,000 inmates, a spokesman for the corrections
department said.

Treatment is important, Wilkerson said.

The people who go to prison for drinking-related crimes get no treatment,
but when they are released from prison the first thing they do is celebrate
by buying alcohol and getting into trouble again, he said.

David Blatt, director of Public Policy for the Community Action Project,
prepared the report.