KEATING ASKS PAROLE BOARD TO CONSIDER EARLY RELEASES

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Oklahoma's financial crisis may require the early release
of prisoners to cut costs, Gov. Frank Keating said Monday in a letter
asking members of the Pardon and Parole Board to consider freeing hundreds
of inmmates.

"This action is regrettable, but it is made necessary by a very real budget
crisis confronting the Department of Corrections," Keating wrote.

Lawmakers met in a special session earlier this month to grant $9.8 million
in emergency funds to the Corrections Department. The action kept the
agency from furloughing prison guards and other employees, but the
Corrections Department still has a $27 million shortfall.

The governor's office does not have an estimate of how much money will be
saved through the early releases, said Keating spokesman Dan Mahoney. "It
sort of depends on where in the system these people are," Mahoney said.

Mahoney said the letter does not contradict Keating's opposition to early
releases under previous governors.

"The problem in the past was early releases were done without any thought
as to who was being released," Mahoney said. "It was just a numbers game."

He said Keating is confident the release criteria will keep dangerous
prisoners away from the public.

"These are inmates that were probably due to be discharged in the immediate
future anyway," Mahoney said. "It just speeds up the process to improve the
overcrowding situation."

Keating is asking the parole board to think about releasing more than 1,000
inmates who have no convictions for violent crimes and no more than one
previous imprisonment for a felony.

The governor says inmates up for consideration must also be serving a term
of no more than five years, must not be wanted in other jurisdictions and
have no convictions for drug trafficking.

Prison costs have more than doubled since Keating was elected in 1994,
rising from $172 million to more than $407 million. A reason for the budget
increase is Oklahoma's rising prison population.

A Department of Justice study released in July said Oklahoma has one of the
highest incarceration rates in the nation.

Last week, the number of state prisoners exceeded 23,000 for the first time
ever, said Patty Davis of the Corrections Department. Davis said the
population traditionally rises in the spring.

Oklahoma's private prisons are at 95.5 percent capacity and state-run
medium-security facilities are 98.7 percent full.

According to a recent study by the National Institute of Corrections,
Oklahoma has an inmate-to-officer ratio of 7-to-1, while Florida,
Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas have four to five officers for
every inmate. The study, commissioned by the Corrections Department, only
examined those states.