DRUG-OFFENDER BILL WON'T INCLUDE EARLY RELEASE PROVISION

TOPEKA - A bill that would send some drug offenders into treatment
programs instead of prison will not include provisions allowing the
early release of some inmates, backers said Thursday.

The legislation, proposed by the Kansas Sentencing Commission, is the
Legislature's latest attempt to free up space in a prison system that
is less than 1 percent from capacity. But sections of the bill that
would have meant the early release for some imprisoned offenders
triggered opposition.

Details of the bill, along with its impact and cost, were outlined at
a late-afternoon meeting attended by Republican and Democratic
senators and a representative of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

At the meeting, supporters of the bill said they would remove the
early release sections before it was debated by the Senate.

Paul Morrison, Johnson County district attorney and a member of the
commission, attended Thursday's meeting and told the senators, "There
isn't anybody in the world who hates dope more than me."

He said he had two recommendations: One was to eliminate early release
of inmates. The other was to make sure there was enough money to pay
for the needed community treatment programs.

Estimates are that the revised legislation would cost $2 million to
$2.5 million to implement, but the treatment programs would be far
less costly than keeping those convicted of simple drug possession
behind bars.

If prisoners were released early, as the bill initially proposed, the
state prison system would free up 383 beds in 2004. With early release
eliminated, the savings drops to 240 beds.

About 10 years out, there would be little difference between the two
versions of the bill in the number of beds saved.

Shawnee County District Judge Eric Rosen defended the legislation and
told the senators, "This is not a soft-on-crime bill."

He said the current system needs to be replaced.

"We're not addressing the problem at all," Rosen said. "We are really
spinning our wheels. We don't have treatment, and what treatment we
have doesn't work.

Speaking for the governor, Jeremy Anderson, a governmental affairs
aide, said Sebelius supports the legislation, "especially with taking
the retroactivity (early release) out of it."

Sen. John Vratil, a Leawood Republican who is chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee that initially approved the drug legislation, said
he and the ranking Democrat on his committee, Sen. Greta Goodwin of
Winfield, would remove the retroactive features of the
legislation.