KANSAS CONSIDERS PRISON EXPANSION

TOPEKA - With the state's prison population threatening to overflow
facilities, a proposal surfaced Tuesday that calls for construction of new
cell houses at the El Dorado Correctional Facility.

Roger Werholtz, who runs the state Department of Corrections, said he was
not ready to make specific recommendations for dealing with the exploding
population, but expansion of the maximum-security prison "will be part of
any discussion involving further capacity requirements."

Preliminary plans calls for one or two new cell houses, each capable of
housing 128 maximum-security inmates or 256 medium-security inmates. Two
medium-security inmates can be housed in a single cell, but only one
maximum-security prisoner.

Estimates are that one cell house could be built for $7.1 million. If two
were built, the cost would be slightly more than double because of the
expanded infrastructure that would be required.

"We anticipate that a policy decision will need to be made during the 2003
legislative session as to whether to increase capacity or to take action to
reduce the size of future inmate populations," Werholtz said in documents
prepared for the Joint Legislative Committee on State Building Construction.

He said the inmate population is expected to exceed 9,000 by the end of the
week. That would put state prisons almost at capacity.

The prospect of spending more than $14 million on prisons at a time when
the state is scrambling just to reach a zero treasury balance this year is
not attractive to building construction committee members.

"I certainly don't want to do that if we don't have to," said Sen. Steve
Morris, a Hugoton Republican and the committee chairman. "We also don't
want to get into a court-order situation where we have to do something
drastic."

The Kansas Sentencing Commission already has come up with a much less
expensive alternative. It calls for putting nonviolent drug users in
treatment programs, some of which cost only $1,500, rather than in prison
cells, where the tab runs about $20,000 annually.

In the 2001 budget year, according to the Sentencing Commission, 1,257
people were sentenced to Kansas prisons for drug possession. They had no
history of crimes against people.

The commission estimated that placing drug users in treatment programs
instead of prisons would free 400 to 800 prison beds for dangerous criminals.

"As fast as the population is growing, that might not be enough," said
Morris, who also is chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.