LEGISLATURE HESITANT ON TREATMENT MEASURE

Drug Offenders: Prisons Reach 98 Percent Capacity, Forcing Officials To
Consider Other Options

A soon-to-be introduced proposal to put nonviolent drug offenders into
treatment rather than prison will be a tough sell in the Legislature.

"It takes a lot of political courage to vote for something like that," House
Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, said at a news conference Friday.

Because the measure expected to be introduced next week will be
controversial, it will need a powerful champion. It isn't clear yet who, if
anyone, will assume that role.

It won't be Republican Attorney General Phill Kline, who has said he doesn't
support sentencing changes that would result in early release of inmates.

"He's opposed to it. He stated that during the campaign," said Whitney
Watson, a Kline spokesman.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said Friday she wasn't ready to take a position on
the issue.

Senate President Dave Kerr, R-Hutchinson, stopped endorsing the measure at a
recent news conference, but said it deserved careful study because of the
state's budget situation and its overcrowded prisons.

"We should never make policy of that type just on the basis of financial
considerations, but we should look for better ways to handle each kind of
offense," Kerr said at a Statehouse news conference Friday.

In a report to the 2003 Legislature, the Joint Committee on Corrections and
Juvenile Justice Oversight said the state's prisons were at more than 98
percent capacity. It said there was no room left for minimum- and
medium-security prisoners.

In its report, the committee said lawmakers would either have to adopt the
Kansas Sentencing Commission's recommendation for treating rather than
incarcerating drug offenders, or build two new cell houses at the El Dorado
Correctional Facility, at a cost of $14.4 million.

Operating the new cellblocks would cost between $5.2 million and $7.2
million a year, the report said.

"I think the Legislature needs to give some serious consideration to
weighing the options," said Barbara Tombs, the outgoing director of the
sentencing commission.

Studies have shown that outpatient treatment is less expensive than
incarceration.

The federal center for Substance Abuse and Treatment has calculated that
society saves $3 for every $1 spent on treatment, because offenders can work
and pay taxes while receiving treatment.

According to the sentencing commission, 1,257 people sentenced in fiscal
2001 for felony drug possession had no history of crimes against people.

"We may be able to keep these people out of prison on a pretty permanent
basis," Kerr said. "The indications are that a lot of them do not
re-offend."