STATES FREE INMATES TO SAVE MONEY

Prison Reformers Hail Trend; Others Fear Crime Wave

Prosecutors are uneasy; longtime advocates of sentencing reform are
blinking in amazement. After years of tough-on-crime measures that boosted
America's prison population to 2 million, politicians in many states are
reversing course.

Desperate to avert projected deficits, legislatures nationwide have
curtailed corrections spending -- or are at least considering it -- by
releasing inmates early, closing prisons, diverting drug offenders to
treatment programs and moderating tough sentencing laws. The appetite for
building ever more prisons has faded.

"Our efforts to provide for the public safety must encompass more than
simply locking more people up for longer periods," said Arkansas Gov. Mike
Huckabee. "If that's the extent of our strategy, we'll go broke."

That kind of talk -- from a conservative Republican -- is an exhilarating
change for critics of hardline corrections policies.

"Legislators don't like to admit they made a mistake, but politically
they've got more cover now," said Mark Mauer, assistant director of a
Washington-based group advocating alternatives to imprisonment. "It comes
down to saving money on prisons or increasing class size at their kids'
schools."

For more than a decade, groups like Mauer's Sentencing Project protested
with little effect as states responded to the high crime rates of the 1980s
by building prisons and toughening sentences. Petty thieves received life
terms under California's "three strikes, you're out" law, while "soft on
crime" became a dreaded epithet for politicians. The number of offenders in
America's prisons and jails soared from fewer than 1.2 million in 1990 to
more than 2 million in 2000.

Now, attitudes toward drug use have softened, crime rates have dropped, and
state budgets -- flush in the '90s -- are in disarray.

"In 23 years in the field, this is the most receptive atmosphere I've
seen," said Vincent Schiraldi of the Washington-based Justice Policy
Institute, an ally of the Sentencing Project.

"We're trying to seize on this moment," said Kara Gotsch, policy
coordinator of the American Civil Liberties Union's Prison Project. "We've
been talking about these ideas for so many years, and now -- because of the
financial crisis -- legislators on both sides of the aisle are enacting
these exact policies."

So pervasive is the budget crisis that reforms of prison and sentencing
policies are unfolding even in states that prided themselves on getting tough.

South Carolina's Corrections Department has suggested money-saving options
that could free up to 4,000 inmates, including restarting a furlough
program and emergency releases of nonviolent offenders. In Oklahoma, a
state commission has recommended reducing sentences for drug possession and
strengthening community-based substance abuse programs.

"Every act does not necessarily require putting people in the
penitentiary," said Dick Wilkerson, an Oklahoma state senator. "There's a
misconception that community corrections are a bunch of people sitting
around in a circle singing Kumbaya. "

In Arkansas, Huckabee wants to divert more drug violators into treatment
programs and find ways to handle parole violators without automatically
returning them to prison. Law-enforcement officials remain wary.

"You can't lock up everyone," said Chuck Lange, director of the Arkansas
Sheriffs Association. "But there are a group of people, they just have to
be incarcerated. Our trick in law enforcement is to decide which group you
fall into."

St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch, president-elect of the
National District Attorneys Association, said he and many colleagues are
deeply concerned that budget-cutters will take dangerous risks.

"Crime is down because we put people in prison," he said. "Yes, it's
expensive to put them there, but it's expensive when they come out and
commit crimes."

McCulloch said prosecutors are open to treatment as an option for
nonviolent drug offenders, but he noted that such programs work only if
well-funded.

"Our responsibility as prosecutors is to see to it we're not endangering
people by making moves that may be great at saving money but could get
somebody killed," he said.

Reform groups, amid their excitement, worry that some states will
accelerate inmate releases without bolstering support programs to reduce
recidivism.

"I'm afraid they'll just dump these people out on the streets without
support," said Herbert Hoelter, director of the National Center on
Institutions and Alternatives.

In Kentucky, many prosecutors and police officials were outraged when Gov.
Paul Patton -- frustrated by a budget impasse -- released 883 inmates in
December and January several months before their sentences ended. Four were
arrested within days; one was charged with rape, another with robbing
several banks.

Chastened, Patton halted the early releases, but said they might resume if
legislators fail to address budget problems.

Victims' rights advocates in Kentucky had mixed feelings.

"We understand, in tough times for states, there's an urge to look for
places to do belt-tightening," said Marcia Roth, executive director of the
Mary Byron Foundation, a victim-support group. "But we also know early
releases can lead to tremendous stress for crime victims."

One of the most sweeping reform proposals is on the legislative agenda in
Washington state, where get-tough laws and citizen initiatives since 1990
doubled annual prison spending to more than $1 billion and filled prisons
past capacity.

To cut costs, Democratic Gov. Gary Locke has proposed shortening the
sentences of hundreds of inmates convicted of drug and property crimes, and
eliminating post-release supervision of thousands of low-risk offenders.

"Last year, the Legislature wouldn't touch this," said Joe Lehman, Locke's
secretary of corrections. "This year, given the magnitude of the budget
difficulties, there's much more of a dialogue about how can we make it work."

"We're mindful of the risk," Lehman added. "This is not about developing
what you would do ideally -- but given the diminished resources, we've
developed criteria which we believe are sound."

In some states, cutbacks have angered prison employees. A guards' union in
Ohio, for example, is opposing a decision to close the 88-year-old Lima
Correctional Institution to save $25 million a year.

In New York, the state budget crisis might help speed the demise of the
so-called Rockefeller drug laws, which have endured despite mounting
criticism. Enacted in the early 1970s, the laws can subject first-time
offenders to 15 years to life in prison if convicted of selling as little
as 2 ounces of a drug or possessing as little as 4 ounces.

Faced with a projected shortfall of $11.5 billion, Republican Gov. George
Pataki and lawmakers of both parties are interested in easing the laws to
help reduce prison costs. There is no consensus yet on the scope of the
overhaul.

The reforms will be welcome -- though late -- for Jan Warren, 51, who spent
more than 12 years in a New York prison for a cocaine possession offense
that might have incurred a one-year sentence, or even probation, in some
states.

Now an advocate for women in prison, with a job at the City University of
New York, she calculates the state paid more than $400,000 to imprison her
from 1987 to 2000.

"We're throwing people away," Warren said. "The consequences of
incarcerating so many people, it's costing us more money in the long run."

Caption: (1) ROBERT BRUCK | OWENSBORO (KY.) MESSENGER-INQUIRER After his
early release from prison in Owensboro, Ky., Michael Anthony Hall Jr. is
embraced by his fiancee, Tammy Kennedy. (2) Graphic (3) "Crime is down
because we put people in prison. Yes, it's expensive to put them there, but
it's expensive when they come out and commit crimes." Robert McCulloch
National District Attorneys Association (4) LUKE VICKREY | LIMA NEWS During
a shift change, corrections officers leave the Lima Correctional
Institution, which might close July 1 to save money.