Pubdate: Sun, 21 Sep 2003 Source: Birmingham News, The (AL) Copyright: 2003 The Birmingham News Contact: http://al.com/birminghamnews/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/45 Author: Foster Cook NO QUICK FIX State Needs to Take Balanced Approach to Solve Current Corrections Problems The Alabama prisoner population and associated budget have exploded during the past 20 years. In 1980, there were 6,368 state prisoners in Alabama. Today, there are 28,338 - more prisoners than in Canada, a country of more than 30 million people. Obviously, many don't need to be there. Now, at the expense of children's education and health care, nursing home beds and medications for poor people, the governor and Legislature scramble to address the problem. In their defense, Alabama's prison overcrowding crisis and budget crisis are real. But the governor and Legislature should not fall victim to the seemingly quick fix of only expanding the function of parole. Instead, Alabama should support its expanding community corrections programs, which are ultimately more effective and less expensive. There are two basic options available to address Alabama's corrections crisis. The first, which is more progressive and in line with sentencing reform efforts, is to change Draconian sentencing laws and provide judges community-based alternatives under the Community Corrections Act. The second is to continue to sentence nonviolent offenders to the penitentiary and to expensive out-of-state prisons ($17 million) and then have the governor's appointees change sentences administratively and release offenders on parole. The first option stops the problem of overcrowding at its root and efficiently moves the state forward in line with the work done by the Sentencing Commission. The second doesn't address the flow of lower-risk offenders into our prisons and doesn't change the system, which has brought us to this dismal point. The first option is efficient, builds public confidence in the system and invests in the future. The second option, which is the only option on the table, does not. Eggs in One Basket: Regrettably, Gov. Bob Riley has elected to put all his eggs in the broken basket of corrections and parole. His budget doubles the size of the parole board and its supporting cast and totally ignores investing in permanent solutions to the problem. True, an expanded parole board is one of several mechanisms available to release offenders who really don't need to be there, and parole supervision needs to be improved and augmented with re-entry services. But doubling the size of the parole system alone without looking at other immediate solutions or investing in any long-term solutions is simplistic and extremely unwise. Alabama can provide a more thoughtful and comprehensive solution to its prison and fiscal crisis than the Band-Aid of out-of-state private prisons and massive parole expansion. The Department of Corrections could expand the SIR program through Community Corrections to reassign offenders to community custody. Existing probation and parole caseloads could be trimmed by review and judicial or parole board concurrence. Split sentences could be reviewed. Thousands of offenders waiting to get drug treatment could be diverted to community treatment programs. The Legislature just amended the Community Corrections act to allow it to more easily expand beyond the current 27 counties. However, the $5.5 million recommended by Alabama's Sentencing Commission and agreed to by the Legislature is not included in the governor's budget. This is in spite of the recently completed 10-year master plan prepared for the Department of Corrections by Carter Goble and Associates, which estimates that a minimum of 2,100 state prisoners could be safely diverted from prisons to community corrections without hiring new state employees. The governor's proposal also fails to provide the level of services that many of these returning offenders need. According to the Sentencing Commission, more than 5,000 nonviolent offenders are sitting in prison awaiting drug treatment. Most will return to caseload supervision without available drug treatment, although most Community Corrections programs provide drug testing and treatment. These released offenders need multiple services in the context of their supervision. Without services, 56.3 percent of those paroled (Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics) will simply recycle back into the prison system. State-sponsored supervision without critical services has been proven to be inadequate. The current approach is at odds with Riley's position during the campaign. In his "Plan For Change," the governor said, "We must also be innovative in the way we approach the rehabilitation of nonviolent offenders. Around the state, faith-based and community-based programs for juvenile delinquents and drug offenders have consistently shown low recidivism rates and a record of success in treating addicts and reforming youths. Programs often treat and rehabilitate offenders at a lesser cost than we now spend on housing prisoners. Accordingly, I will support utilizing community and faith-based efforts to rehabilitate certain nonviolent offenders." Apparently, this vision has not been passed along. Backward Looking: Finally, the governor's proposal looks backward for answers rather than forward. It doubles the size of a parole system that the Sentencing Commission recommended be phased out in favor of "truth in sentencing." Having judges' decisions administratively overturned, wholesale, by political appointees does not advance the cause of fixing a broken criminal justice system, nor does it restore the public's faith. The public will support a balanced approach that keeps nonviolent offenders in the community if they make restitution, work and quit using drugs. The public supports structured alternatives to incarceration, which involve local communities in the system of justice. The public will support judges who divert offenders from prison to drug treatment (drug courts) or mental health services (mental health court). And the public will support lower probation and parole caseloads and adequate supervision and services for offenders returning from prison. The governor should involve the Sentencing Commission, attorney general, judges, county community corrections boards, mental health and faith-based groups to build a balanced plan to efficiently reduce Alabama's prison population. The current plan as reflected in his budget is not the balanced approach we should expect for $10 million. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake