RYAN'S VETO LOOMS OVER CRIME BILLS

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Trying to balance a shaky state budget, Gov. George
Ryan ordered big changes for the state Department of Corrections last
month, including closing prisons and laying off thousands of employees.

Now Ryan has to decide whether to approve new laws that would add hundreds
more inmates to the overburdened prison system.

Legislators sent Ryan eight crime bills this spring that would cost the
state more than $80 million during the next 10 years to deal with
additional prisoners.

Ryan rejected one crime bill partly because of its cost, yet signed another
with a much higher price tag last week.

He says cost remains a priority as he decides whether to sign legislation.

"Whether I'm cutting back or whether we're not, we're always concerned
about cost," Ryan said last week.

The Corrections Department has seen huge increases in prison population and
spending in the past 15 years.

But officials cut spending there and at most other state agencies to plug a
huge budget deficit.

The Corrections Department plans to cut about 2,400 jobs - including all
500 of its sergeants. That does not include employees who might take
advantage of the state's $64 million early retirement program.

The department is closing its prison in Sheridan, a juvenile prison in St.
Charles, two work camps, a boot camp and four transitional centers for
inmates being released.

Despite that, lawmakers easily approved measures that would put more than
350 inmates into the prison system within 10 years - a tiny fraction of a
prison population that is expected to top 54,000 inmates by then.

However, the governor has indicated even small increases can be too much.

He vetoed a bill last week that would require drug traffickers to serve
longer prison terms, in part because it would cost the department about
$3.3 million over 10 years.

"It is difficult to justify spending more money on longer prison terms for
drug offenders at the same time that funds are being cut at both the
federal and state level for incarceration and prison construction," Ryan
wrote in his veto message.

Other bills that made it to his desk involve a much greater financial burden.

One would make it a felony punishable by a long prison term for possessing
one gram of heroin. The Corrections Department estimates that would put 76
inmates behind bars during the next decade at a cost of $18 million.

Ryan signed that bill into law Friday.

Another measure would make it a more serious felony for sexually dangerous
or violent people who assault or batter state personnel supervising them.

That would cost more than $50 million for 211 inmates, the department
estimates.

In all, lawmakers sent Ryan about 25 measures that expand or create new
criminal offenses. Most have small or unknown costs, since they are new
offenses for which the department has no data.

Corrections spokesman Brian Fairchild said legislators did relatively
little this year to boost prison costs compared with past years. The
department did not oppose any of the measures, Fairchild said.

"There's always going to be a cost to locking people up," Fairchild said.
"This is really a small amount."

Prison reform experts contend this might be a good time to review the
state's approach to preventing crime.

Jim Thomas, a sociologist at Northern Illinois University, said legislators
should put more emphasis on rehabilitating criminals, especially nonviolent
drug offenders. Instead, lawmakers take the easy - and politically popular
- - way out, he said.

"It's so highly politicized," Thomas said. "Tough-on-crime sells."

Recent financial woes could force a review of state policy, he said, but it
probably would take an even greater crisis and public outcry to change things.

"The end in sight is basically we don't have any more money," Thomas said.