KEEP THE MENACES WHERE THEY ARE

With its prisons again crowded and its budget again bare, North Carolina
might have to shorten the sentences of some inmates. But the dangerous ones
ought to stay behind bars until their original sentences are up.

It's depressing that we're faced with such choices, but we are.

You'd think we'd have plenty of prison space. After all, taxpayers have
shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars to build prisons and millions
more to run them in recent years. In 2001, the state decided to build or
lease three more 1,000-bed units.

But under current sentencing policies, that apparently won't be enough. By
the end of this decade, the state predicts it will need spaces for 40,000
inmates but have room for fewer than 35,000.

Some will say hang the expense: Build enough prison cells to lock up every
convict for a long, long time.

We could do that if we didn't need to pay for schools, medical care, law
enforcement, highways and all the rest. But we do.

One obvious solution is to tinker once again with the length of sentences.
That's what the N.C. Sentencing Commission is recommending. Done right, it
might not put the public in significant jeopardy.

After all, not all inmates pose a danger to life and limb. Some have been
sent up the river because, under a relatively recent get-tough law, they're
been classified as habitual offenders.

But there are offenses and then there are offenses. Some of these people
have been given five to 14 years for committing a fourth crime - often a
drug offense - that normally wouldn't justify a sentence of more than two
years.

The Sentencing Commission estimates that over 10 years, shortening those
sentences would add the equivalent of 1,879 prison beds - beds the
taxpayers wouldn't have to build or operate.

Before the General Assembly goes along with that proposal, it ought to make
certain that dangerous criminals aren't sprung before their time is up. The
longer they're kept away from the rest of us, the better.

But North Carolina already ranks second in the South in the number of
prison beds per resident. We can't afford to keep up that pace. We have to
find smarter ways to deal with prisoners.