STATES GET NOT-SO-TOUGH ON CRIME

Budget Woes Force Many To Free Inmates, Close Jails

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, epitomizes the new
outlook taking hold in many states.

For most of the previous decade, legislatures responded to the high crime
rates of the 1980s by building new prisons and toughening sentences. Petty
thieves received life terms under California's "three strikes, you're out"
law; "soft on crime" became a dreaded epithet for politicians. The
population of 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. Reforms of prison and
sentencing policies are unfolding even in states that prided themselves on
get-tough policies.

South Carolina's Corrections Department has suggested money-saving options
that could free as many as 4,000 inmates, including restarting a furlough
program and emergency releases of non-violent offenders.

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 of release; one was charged with rape, another with
robbing several banks.

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

Kentucky also plans to eliminate a program that teaches job skills to
inmates. The state would save $5.7 million, but critics say it would result
in more infractions in prisons and more recidivism as released prisoners
fail to make it in the outside world.

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."