Pubdate: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 Source: Gainesville Sun, The (FL) Copyright: 2003 The Gainesville Sun Contact: http://www.sunone.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/163 Author: Gary Fineout, Sun Tallahassee Bureau Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) BOOM IN PRISONERS HAS STATE PUZZLED State To Spend Millions On Prisons TALLAHASSEE - Florida's crime rate, as proudly hailed by Gov. Jeb Bush, is at a 30-year low. Yet seemingly inexplicably, the number of state prisoners has been rising sharply since March. In June nearly 3,000 new inmates were placed behind bars. That's the largest number to enter state prisons in one month since 1992, which was a time when Florida's crime rate was 34 percent higher. The state also locked up 30,000 more inmates in the last 12 months, a figure unmatched since Jeb Bush's father, George Bush, was president. So far, no one, including Gov. Bush and Department of Corrections Secretary Jim Crosby, has been able to completely explain why Florida's prison population is suddenly exploding. And no one is sure if the trend will continue. What is known is that there has been a sharp rise in the number of drug offenders being sent to state prisons following two years in which legislators cut back on the money available for drug treatment of criminals. Plus, five counties have been sending a higher-than-anticipated number of people to state prisons. Bush and Crosby have offered their own theories for the dynamic rise, with the governor wondering aloud if judges he has appointed the last five years have imposed tougher sentences. (Statewide data, however, doesn't back up that assertion.) But more importantly, both men warned that if the sharp rise continues Florida would be forced to release prisoners because of overcrowding. Florida now has more than 77,000 prisoners. "We have circumstances beyond our control," Crosby said. That was enough to prompt legislators to take the unprecedented act this past week of dipping into state reserve funds to hand out nearly $66 million to the Department of Corrections just two months into a new budget year. The department - which already had planned to build 3,000 additional prison beds this year - will use the money to hire more than 500 employees and start building an additional 3,200 prison beds in the next year.But the bill approved last week and immediately signed into law by Bush also grants the department the ability to waive state bidding laws to hire contractors to build these new beds. "If we need to build prisons to make sure that public safety is first and foremost and a high priority in this state, we will do it," he said. "We have to do it." This sudden crisis caught many lawmakers - both Republican and Democrat - unaware. Senate Republicans said they were troubled by the fact that two months ago no one in the Bush administration said anything about a crisis. Democrats attacked the legislation for containing the no-bid provisions, saying it could lead to a sweetheart deal for a campaign contributor. In the end, however, only a handful of House Democrats and Rep. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, voted against handing the extra money to the prison system. "What other choice do we have?" asked Senate President Jim King, R- Jacksonville. Detert stands by her vote, saying she wanted more proof an emergency exists. She said she was troubled by the idea of rushing through a major budget item during a special session on medical malpractice. "I was not convinced based upon what they presented that this is an emergency," Detert said. "I have concerns when you ask for $65 million at the last minute when everyone's attention is focused on something else." Republicans, including Bush, have touted themselves as "tough on crime" and have cited the passage of such laws as the requirement that prisoners serve 85 percent of their sentence as one of the reasons that crime has fallen in the Sunshine State. Since 1994 - when Democrats still controlled the Florida House and the governor's mansion - the time served by prisoners in Florida's prisons has jumped from roughly 45 percent of their sentences to more than 80 percent today. During the past decade, the crime rate as well as the total number of crimes has dropped, according to data collected by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. For example, more than 161,000 violent crimes, including murder, were reported in 1992. Last year there were 128,000 reported violent crimes. Florida's crime rate peaked in 1989. That same year the state locked up more than 43,000 prisoners - the highest number of inmates entering prison in the last 30 years. During the '90s, as the crime rate began to fall, so did the number of criminals headed to state prisons. Since Bush became governor, the number of inmates admitted to the state's prisons was hovering around 27,000 a year. That number, however, has shot up the past five months. State estimators could not say exactly what sparked the sharp increase. But they did note two trends. The first was that there was a 13 percent increase in the number of criminals convicted of drug charges heading to prisons. Secondly, five counties - Hillsborough, Escambia, Polk, Volusia and Leon - were suddenly sending many more people to prison. Polk County, for example, sent more than 1,400 criminals to state prisons in 2002. A year later the number grew to more than 1,600. Bush last week admitted he didn't know what was behind the sharp rise in the number of inmates. "It may have something to do with the judges I've appointed," Bush said. Meanwhile, data collected by the state shows that judges today aren't handing out tougher sentences than they were before Bush became governor. The average sentence handed out this past year was five years. The average sentence handed out in 1995 was six years. "I really think it's time to have a hard-core review of where we are," said Sen. Rod Smith, D-Alachua and a former state attorney. What has Smith worried is whether budget cuts the past few years in drug treatment programs have contributed to the 13 percent rise in drug offenders who were sent to prison. Since 2001 state lawmakers have cut funding to pretrial intervention and drug offender probation programs. They also cut the Department of Corrections' drug treatment programs for inmates in prisons and those criminals sentenced to probation or in community control programs. In 2001, the amount spent on drug treatment for prisoners was $15.5 million. This year it's $7.7 million. Drug treatment programs for those sentenced to probation, house arrest and other community supervision programs has been cut from $33.3 million to $27 million. "You didn't catch them on the front end," he said. "All of a sudden they score a prison offense. I think the matter is coming home to roost in prevention and intervention programs. That's what concerns me." Bush last week dismissed any connection between the budget cuts and the rise in drug offenders headed to prison. "I don't know if there is any evidence to suggest that," he said. Bush and DOC officials, however, have quickly pointed the finger at state lawmakers, noting for example that the governor this past year recommended restoring past budget cuts to drug treatment programs. "I'm not happy with that, but we had a different set of proposals for reducing government," Bush said. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom