TOUGH CRIME LEGISLATION OVERLOOKS NEED IN PRISON SYSTEM

Alabama lawmakers, who may or may not be intoxicated by the ethers of an
election year, are rushing image-building bills through the Legislature
that would pack jails and prisons far beyond their capacity, which already
has been stretched to the limits.

Typical is a bill approved last week by a House committee that allows 13,
14 and 15-year-olds to be tried as adults for some serious crimes. If
convicted, they would be transferred to state prisons after they turn 21.

That measure alarmed county sheriffs, who have fought a long-running legal
battle with the state over housing state inmates. As a result of heavy
lobbying on their behalf by the Association of County Commissions of
Alabama, legislators added an amendment saying that the youthful criminals
could be held in county jails for only 20 days before being transferred to
state prisons.

Association assistant director Sonny Brasfield said the group will seek to
add similar amendments to as many "get tough on crime bills" as possible
this year. The next target is a bill proposed by Gov. Don Siegelman to
require that criminals convicted of certain serious crimes serve at least
85 percent of their sentences.

We're fully supportive of the association's efforts. County jails in many
areas are crowded enough. They do not need the additional burden of housing
an overflow of new state inmates.

But the association's initiative addresses only half of the problem.

Alabama has more than 26,000 people behind bars. It has the nation's
fifth-highest incarceration rate, at 571 people per 100,000 residents.

Yet there are no plans to build new prisons. Unlike tough talk about crime
and punishment, prison construction and corrections funding are simply not
politically popular issues.

Alabama does not have enough money to adequately fund its existing
operations in the Department of Corrections and it certainly has no money
to expand them. It would take a sizable infusion of new money, probably in
the form of added court fees or new taxes, to house even more inmates.

That's a detail the get-tough-on-crime bills overlook.

Last year when he proposed his bill to force certain inmates to serve at
least 85 percent of their sentences, Siegelman talked about the need for
reforms like alternative sentencing, work release and drug treatment
programs, noting that 80 percent of the state's inmates are in jail for
drug-related crimes.

He spoke of the impact of the state's "three strikes" law from the 1990s
that imposed mandatory prison time. While it was politically popular, the
governor said, it added 10,000 inmates to the state's custody and Alabama
was able to build only one new prison to try to house the expanded population.

"We can't build prisons fast enough" to keep up with the growing number of
life-without-parole criminals in Alabama, Siegelman said last summer.

That kind of talk isn't being heard much this year, either in the
Legislature or on the election trail.

Alabama can't have it both ways. It can't be tough on crime and put more
criminals behind bars without building new jails and prisons or launching a
dramatically expanded alternative sentencing program.

Something's got to give.