BILL WOULD KEEP 300 DRUG OFFENDERS JAILED

But it would require all first-time offenders to pay for a treatment
program instead of being sent to prison.

TOPEKA - Hoping to rescue a bill that requires treatment instead of prison
for some drug offenders, a key senator promised Thursday to abandon a
provision making about 300 inmates eligible for early release.

Opposition from Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and some lawmakers prompted Senate
leaders to pull the bill from the chamber's debate calendar last week.
Sebelius has said providing treatment was good public policy but that
letting some offenders out of prison was not.

Proponents of the bill's main goal -- treatment rather than prison -- made
their case Thursday at an unusual caucus of all senators and members of the
Kansas Sentencing Commission.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman John Vratil, R-Leawood, told the
gathering that when the Senate debates the bill, he and Democratic Sen.
Greta Goodwin of Winfield will offer an amendment deleting the section that
would free some drug offenders. The bill was returned to committee.

Members of the Sentencing Commission told senators that people convicted of
drug possession are addicts and that incarcerating them does not solve
their problems.

"This is not a soft-on-crime bill. It's about the problem of addiction and
how to address it," said Shawnee County District Judge Eric Rosen.

Billed partly as a money-saving measure, the legislation would allow judges
to place nonviolent offenders with a single conviction for drug possession
in community treatment programs rather than prison.

Supporters said the bill would free up space in Kansas' overcrowded
prisons. Opponents worried that releasing the 300 inmates would jeopardize
public safety.

Vratil said beds would still be saved even without releasing the 300
inmates early. He estimated some 240 beds would still be freed.

The bill requires offenders to pay for their own treatment, but senators
said the state would most likely cover costs. The Sentencing Commission
estimates it would cost as much as $9.2 million to treat some 1,400
offenders in fiscal year 2004.