OFFENDER PROGRAMS SHOULD NOT BE CUT

The N.C. Department of Correction's primary job is locking offenders in
prisons and making sure they don't escape. It handles the assignment very
well. The problem is, once released, those offenders keep coming back again
and again. With such evidence the system isn't working, alternatives to
incarceration have begun to emerge. Instead of a jail cell, offenders who
pass intensive screening enroll in community-based alternative
rehabilitation programs. Not surprisingly, this approach works much better.
Participants stay in the community, receive treatment for drug addiction,
get intensive counseling and attend GED classes. And fewer re-enter the
penal system.

So now the state plans to eliminate the programs.

Faced with a drastic funding loss due to the state budget shortfall, it
wants to close dozens of rehabilitation programs. On the chopping block is
the state-funded Criminal Justice Partnership Program for parolees and
probationers. But the biggest hit would be funding for day reporting
centers, work programs, substance abuse treatment programs and pretrial
services. Unless financially strapped counties come up with money, an
unlikely occurrence, those much-needed programs will end.

The shutdown of nonlockup programs hasn't been finalized. Yet, every
indication is they will be the first to go. If it happens, the state would
save $8.5 million, about what a new maximum-security prison costs. The need
for such a facility is a near certainty because of recidivism, longer
sentences ("three strikes and you're out") and loss of community initiatives.

In the long run, keeping rehabilitation programs in the community saves
money. For example, the state spends as much as $68 a day to house a
prisoner and each new prison cell costs taxpayers more than $50,000.
Compare those figures with Guilford County's Day Reporting and Restitution
Center. For $10.30 a day, it provides treatment, education and supervision
for one nonviolent offender who will get a job and pay restitution to his
victim. Also, day reporting programs benefit counties by not contributing
to jail overcrowding. Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes warns that
overcrowding unavoidably leads to more dangerous conditions for inmates and
gaurds and, ultimately, to expensive federal legal intervention requiring
new facilities that cost millions of dollars.

Admittedly, the correction department is being squeezed. Better-trained and
- -equipped police make more arrests. Get-tough judges are giving defendants
longer sentences. But there may be other options. Despite political
pressure, the state should consider closing smaller, outdated, inefficient
and often underused county prison camps.

Sacrificing cost-effective, successful community alternatives should be far
down list.