Pubdate: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 Source: Austin American-Statesman (TX) Copyright: 2000 Austin American-Statesman Contact: P. O. Box 670 Austin, Texas 78767 Fax: 512-445-3679 Website: http://www.austin360.com/statesman/editions/today/ Author: Mike Ward, STATE'S PRISONS PUSHING CAPACITY A steadily growing population of convicted criminals is pushing Texas' prison system close to where an emergency-crowding law not used for a decade could trigger steps to lower the number of felons behind bars, officials said Thursday. But they insisted such a move is unlikely, as long as Texas' parole rate remains at more than 25 percent and other programs successfully divert enough convicts from prison to avoid a crowding crisis. Official reports listed Texas' 114 prisons as 97.3 percent full. When the prisons reach 99 percent, a state law requires the parole board to consider for early release almost any convict serving time for a nonviolent crime who is nearing the end of a sentence -- even if the inmate already has been turned down. And while that might not produce a much different result than the board approving more convicts for parole in the first place, officials privately concede the political backlash could be ugly. "Anytime you invoke anything, like martial law or the prison act, it creates the perception of a crisis -- and perception is as much of it as anything," said A.M. "Mac" Stringfellow, chairman of the prison system's 18-member governing board. "If the (parole approval) rate stays at 25 or 26 percent, I think we'll be OK." In recent months, admissions to state prisons have continued to grow steadily, by an average of about 400 per month, officials said. By Thursday, 151,095 convicts were behind bars -- a tally that officials predict could increase by 5,000 during the next year. The state's capacity is about 155,500. Earlier this month, the prison board recommended that the state build three more prisons, adding 8,550 beds at a cost of nearly $550 million. And they are seeking another $17 million for additional beds for parole violators, for expansion of electronic monitoring programs for parolees and for 500 beds in local lockups. In recent months, parole officials have changed their policies to review cases faster and not send as many parolees back to prison for rules infractions -- most involving low-risk, nonviolent convicts who were headed for freedom soon anyway. They also are reportedly studying whether more elderly and seriously ill convicts can be paroled to nursing homes to free up additional prison bunks. New statistics made public Wednesday showed that Texas' parole rate climbed in July to its highest single point in a single month since Gov. George W. Bush took office five years ago, with nearly 29 percent of eligible convicts approved for early release from prison. Parole officials attributed that to new programs that have allowed closer supervision of convicts who are released, among other factors. They have insisted that a steadily increasing parole rate in the past year is not a reaction to prisons growing fuller. But unless the growing influx of prisoners cools, officials have warned for two months, Texas' prisons could be full within a year. And that has heightened some concerns that the Prison Management Act, a law approved in 1983 to relieve prison crowding and first used a few years later, could come into play again. A dozen years ago, when Texas prisons were so full that more than 30,000 convicts were backed up in county jails and courts were levying millions of dollars in fines each month, then-Gov. Bill Clements invoked the law 13 times to release tens of thousands of convicts early. Many quickly went out and committed new crimes, triggering a public outcry that caused Texas to more than double the size of its prison system in five years -- the biggest such construction project in U.S. history -- and brought about tougher anti-crime laws. Carl Reynolds, general counsel for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said that although the prison capacity is high again -- the highest since all the new prisons were completed in 1995 -- he thinks it's unlikely the Prison Management Act will come into play again. A recent cushion: The state is leasing bunks from counties -- more than 5,000 in recent months -- with another 1,500 recently authorized by the prison board. "The community beds act as our safety valve," Reynolds said. Tony Fabelo, head of the Criminal Justice Policy Council, the state agency that charts prison population trends, predicts there will be enough beds for state convicts during the next year -- even if the parole rate stayed at 20 percent. "We don't have any crisis," Fabelo said. "Ninety-seven percent is not overcrowded. And we have the planning in place to keep it from reaching 99 percent." Even so, Stringfellow and other officials are optimistic the system will not hit 99 percent before new prisons are built. Privately, officials said they need to keep the capacity at less than 98 percent to allow for proper operational flexibility. "The fact of life is that we have only X number of beds -- and we don't have any control over what the parole board does or what the judges sentencing people to prison do," Stringfellow said. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk