Pubdate: Fri, 10 Oct 2003
Source: Savannah Morning News (GA)
Copyright: 2003 Savannah Morning News
Contact:  http://www.savannahnow.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/401
Author: Dave Williams, Morris News Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

TOUGHER SENTENCING LAWS BEHIND GEORGIA'S INMATE GROWTH

ATLANTA - Before slashing Georgia's corrections budget, state lawmakers 
should consider that they helped create the inmate-population explosion 
that has the prison system bursting at the seams, key legislative leaders 
said Thursday. The stricter sentencing laws the General Assembly passed 
during a tough-on-crime fervor in the 1990s have contributed heavily to one 
of the nation's highest incarceration rates.

"We've taken a lot of discretion away from the judiciary . and created a 
monster of a system," said Rep. Alan Powell, D-Hartwell, chairman of the 
House budget subcommittee with jurisdiction over prisons.

Powell's comments came as representatives of the two departments in charge 
of state prisoners, probationers and parolees briefed lawmakers on deep 
cuts proposed in the agencies' budgets.

To comply with across-the-board spending reductions ordered by Gov. Sonny 
Perdue, the Department of Corrections is planning to close three state 
prisons and 10 detention and diversion centers, including the Savannah 
Diversion Center.

The $847 million 2005 budget, $69 million less than the corrections 
department is spending now, also would force furloughs and layoffs.

The job losses would leave the prison system with barely enough 
correctional officers to be considered safe, said Alan Adams, the 
department's assistant commissioner. All but legally mandated library 
services, educational offerings and counseling programs would be 
eliminated, he said.

Adams predicted that, without the kinds of programs that help rehabilitate 
inmates, the proposed cuts would increase recidivism.

"Unfortunately, the things we're having to (cut) are those very things that 
have an impact on them coming back," he said. "We're going to guarantee 
safety for the public before we make (inmates) change their behavior."

Michael Light, a member of the State Board of Pardons and Paroles, said the 
almost doubling of Georgia's inmate population - from 25,000 in 1992 to 
47,500 last year - is due in large part to laws the legislature passed 
during the mid-1990s.

Stiff mandatory sentences now are required for defendants convicted of the 
most serious violent crimes, while the "two-strikes" law cracks down on 
repeat offenders.

Then in 1998, the board adopted a policy requiring defendants in the most 
serious cases to serve at least 90 percent of their sentences.

"We've created some very tough laws," said Sen. George Hooks, D-Americus, 
former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "(Prison officials) 
are not doing anything but following directions of the laws we've put on 
the books."

The proposed cuts now are in the hands of Perdue's Office of Planning and 
Budget. The governor will make his budget recommendations to the General 
Assembly in January.

Adams said that even if the reductions go through, his department will do 
everything it can to find jobs elsewhere in the system for employees of the 
facilities due to be closed.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom