PRISON SPENDING OUTPACES HIGHER ED

WASHINGTON - Kentucky's prison budget ballooned dramatically over the
past two decades and grew five times faster than state higher
education spending, a new study concludes. Meanwhile, there are almost
as many African-American men in prison in Kentucky as there are
enrolled in the state's colleges and universities, the report says.

"This report underlines the sad reality that the nation's colleges and
universities have lost budget battles to the growing prison system,"
said Vincent Schiraldi, one of the report's authors and president of
The Justice Policy Institute, a Washington think tank pushing for
criminal and juvenile justice reform.

Kentucky's growing corrections budget is part of a national
trend.

State corrections spending began to outpace higher education spending
in the 1980s as policymakers responded to public concerns about crime
by allocating more resources to house and incarcerate a larger prison
population.

Across the country, state spending on corrections grew at six times
the rate of higher education spending between 1985 and 2000, the
report says.

But as corrections assumed a larger share of state spending, the
burden for paying for college shifted to students, with tuition and
other higher education fees rising at eight times the rate of state
support.

In Kentucky, higher education spending increased by 33 percent, or
$227 million, between 1985 and 2000, while corrections spending
skyrocketed by 164 percent, or $210 million.

Though Kentucky actually spent slightly more on higher education
during that 15-year period, the growth in corrections spending was
much more dramatic - nearly five times the growth rate in higher
education spending, the study said.

State officials say they recognize there has been significant growth
in corrections spending, but it's a problem that other states are
facing as well.

"The situation with corrections - regardless of good or bad - is it is
an area that mandates funding," said Lisa Carnahan, spokeswoman for
the Kentucky Department of Corrections. "What are you going to do with
the offenders? You have to house them."

The number of incarcerated felons in Kentucky has risen by 30 percent
over the past six years - from 12,649 to 16,420, Carnahan said.

"We don't have any control over our destiny," she said. "We don't have
any control over how many (people) we get into the system. And we
don't have any control over when they get out. We are charged with a
responsibility of housing these offenders in a safe and humane way."

Others were surprised by the study's finding that there are almost as
many African-American men in Kentucky prisons as there are enrolled in
the state's colleges. There were about 5,300 African-American men in
prison and 5,564 enrolled in the state's colleges and universities in
2000.

The report's authors acknowledge that they cannot definitely say
whether the prison system is actually siphoning off African-American
men who were destined for college.

But they noted that the college enrollment rate for African-Americans
who are recent high school graduates increased at a much slower pace
than the rate for all Americans over the past two decades.

"If this study is accurate, then perhaps we should carefully evaluate
this and all programs that take public money," said Frances
Steenbergen, president of the Kentucky Education Association.

"We believe that education is the only thing that can help overcome
poverty that may lead some minorities to choose drugs and/or crime. If
you educate them when they are young, they get tools to make better
choices, and perhaps they won't see drugs and crime as inviting."

The study recommends that states put in place new policies to save
money and reduce incarceration, such as sentencing reform, parole
reform and community supervision instead of imprisonment for
non-violent offenders. State corrections officials have considered
several of those options in the past and continue to look at them,
Carnahan said.