LAWMAKERS SHOULD ATTACK PRISON PROBLEM AT ROOTS

No more room in the inn. Full to the brim. Packed in like sardines.
Chock-full. Whatever cliche best describes Alabama's prison system, take
note. Then force lawmakers and the governor to do something about it. For
at least 20 years now, overcrowding sits at the top of problems facing the
state's correctional system. From governor to governor, from Legislature to
Legislature, the faces change, but the problem forever lingers.

In keeping with its "make me" attitude, the courts once again have
intervened in an Alabama crisis, ordering the transfer of 1,850 state
inmates from county jails into already overflowing prison populations by
next week. And state officials are now scrambling for an immediate fix to a
decades-old problem.

Up to now, Alabama's answer was to build more prisons. It couldn't keep up
with the population growth 20 years ago, and it certainly can't now.

The financially strapped system, just like state troopers and just like
public schools, grapples with how to survive when funds fall too short.

When schools tipped to overcrowding, Alabama put up portable classrooms.
When interstates lacked state troopers, Alabama paid salaries with federal
grant money. In prisons, officials are looking at packing them in and
hoping to avoid major riots - a risk wardens say is inevitable.

At some point, this state must attack the roots of problems rather than the
symptoms.

Lawmakers need to take a closer look at alternative sentencing to keep less
serious convicts from filling up the state's cells. They need to put more
money into education programs - the real deterrent to crime. And they need
to appropriate more funding to address the immediate crisis.

Time is past running out.