danielle
12-07-2002, 01:36 AM
EDITORIAL
Prison problem all too familiar
A straight-faced request for a 70 percent budget increase might draw some chuckles under different circumstances, but that proposal from Commissioner Mike Haley of the Alabama Department of Corrections is anything but amusing.
A straight-faced request for a 70 percent budget increase might draw some chuckles under different circumstances, but that proposal from Commissioner Mike Haley of the Alabama Department of Corrections is anything but amusing. It's a dead-serious description of what the department needs to address the long-neglected problems that are steadily steering the prison system toward another court takeover.
Virtually all elements of state government are facing financial struggles, but nowhere are the problems more severe than in the Department of Corrections. Alabama's prisons are seriously overcrowded and alarmingly understaffed.
The understaffing presents major security concerns, both for the public and for the corrections officers charged with supervising unrealistically large numbers of inmates. Prison wardens have spoken openly of the scary potential for outbreaks of violence, even for prison riots.
The overcrowding raises constitutional questions that the courts will not -- and should not -- ignore. It also raises issues about basic responsibility, about the state failing year after year to live up to an agreement that was supposed to move state inmates out of county jails within 30 days. There are now about 1,500 state inmates in county jails who have been there more than 30 days.
Just this week, a federal judge found conditions at Julia Tutwiler Prison in Wetumpka, the state's only prison for women, so hazardous as to be unconstitutional. Haley, already in contempt of court in the county jail matter, was hit with another huge legal problem.
He told newly elected legislators at an orientation session Wednesday that Corrections needs an appropriation of $349 million in the next fiscal year. The current budget line is $204 million.
"It is not an unrealistic increase," Haley said. "I would be less than honest if I did not propose that level of increase. Your Department of Corrections has been underfunded for more than 30 years. We have gotten to the point where we've exhausted all of our options."
Indeed, it is hard to see what more Haley and the department can do with the resources allotted. Alabama's prison system has the leanest operating budget of any penal department in the nation at $9,581 per inmate per year, according to figures from the American Correctional Association. The next highest state, Mississippi, has an annual per-inmate figure of $12,912. That's a whopping 35 percent higher than in Alabama.
The grim financial situation has developed over many years and is long past the point of being addressed with thrift. It's not a belt-tightening question any longer, and hasn't been for a long time.
"I'm not standing up here crying wolf," Haley said. "But I am standing up here reminding people of what happened in the 1970s."
What happened then was a federal court takeover of the prison system -- an eminently justified takeover. The state had neglected, to a scandalous degree, its fundamental obligations in the operations of prisons. It took years for the state to regain control of its prisons.
Alabama could well be headed down that same path again. Surely no one wants that
Prison problem all too familiar
A straight-faced request for a 70 percent budget increase might draw some chuckles under different circumstances, but that proposal from Commissioner Mike Haley of the Alabama Department of Corrections is anything but amusing.
A straight-faced request for a 70 percent budget increase might draw some chuckles under different circumstances, but that proposal from Commissioner Mike Haley of the Alabama Department of Corrections is anything but amusing. It's a dead-serious description of what the department needs to address the long-neglected problems that are steadily steering the prison system toward another court takeover.
Virtually all elements of state government are facing financial struggles, but nowhere are the problems more severe than in the Department of Corrections. Alabama's prisons are seriously overcrowded and alarmingly understaffed.
The understaffing presents major security concerns, both for the public and for the corrections officers charged with supervising unrealistically large numbers of inmates. Prison wardens have spoken openly of the scary potential for outbreaks of violence, even for prison riots.
The overcrowding raises constitutional questions that the courts will not -- and should not -- ignore. It also raises issues about basic responsibility, about the state failing year after year to live up to an agreement that was supposed to move state inmates out of county jails within 30 days. There are now about 1,500 state inmates in county jails who have been there more than 30 days.
Just this week, a federal judge found conditions at Julia Tutwiler Prison in Wetumpka, the state's only prison for women, so hazardous as to be unconstitutional. Haley, already in contempt of court in the county jail matter, was hit with another huge legal problem.
He told newly elected legislators at an orientation session Wednesday that Corrections needs an appropriation of $349 million in the next fiscal year. The current budget line is $204 million.
"It is not an unrealistic increase," Haley said. "I would be less than honest if I did not propose that level of increase. Your Department of Corrections has been underfunded for more than 30 years. We have gotten to the point where we've exhausted all of our options."
Indeed, it is hard to see what more Haley and the department can do with the resources allotted. Alabama's prison system has the leanest operating budget of any penal department in the nation at $9,581 per inmate per year, according to figures from the American Correctional Association. The next highest state, Mississippi, has an annual per-inmate figure of $12,912. That's a whopping 35 percent higher than in Alabama.
The grim financial situation has developed over many years and is long past the point of being addressed with thrift. It's not a belt-tightening question any longer, and hasn't been for a long time.
"I'm not standing up here crying wolf," Haley said. "But I am standing up here reminding people of what happened in the 1970s."
What happened then was a federal court takeover of the prison system -- an eminently justified takeover. The state had neglected, to a scandalous degree, its fundamental obligations in the operations of prisons. It took years for the state to regain control of its prisons.
Alabama could well be headed down that same path again. Surely no one wants that