ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 16, 1993                   TAG: 9306160187
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C5   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: BONNIE V. WINSTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

CANDIDATES FAULTED ON CRIMINAL COSTS

O. Randolph Rollins, the Wilder administration's public safety chief, chided the Republican and Democratic candidates for attorney general Tuesday for talking tough on crime but not addressing the budget-busting cost of locking up more criminals.

In remarks televised statewide during an economic symposium, Rollins also put in a plug for Mary Sue Terry, a fellow Democrat and the party's candidate for governor in November.

He said Terry, a former two-term Virginia attorney general, is the only statewide candidate to recognize the difference between violent and nonviolent offenders; and the only one to promote less-expensive alternatives to prison, such as electronic surveillance and home confinement, for nonviolent criminals.

"It takes a courageous political leader to say the solution to recidivism is through treatment, education and job training of inmates," Rollins said. "It's much more politically correct to say, `Throw the book at them' the first time.

"I know if the public knew more of the facts, they would be willing to try some new approaches to crime and punishment," he continued. "I know that the public is smarter than we think, if only those who run for office would bother to tell the whole story - like Mary Sue Terry - and not just advocate getting tough on crime."

James Gilmore, the GOP candidate for attorney general, later said that alternative punishment should not be used "as an excuse" for failures to solve the problem of crime.

"The people of Virginia are tired of excuses. They want solutions to the problems of crime," Gilmore said. "If we have to change priorities, we have to change priorities. And priority No. 1 is public safety."

A spokesman for William Dolan, Gilmore's Democratic opponent, said Rollins missed "a major component" of Dolan's campaign plan - early intervention.

"He believes in putting money into intervening early, when a child becomes disruptive or truant, rather than waiting until he's 16 and walks into a 7-Eleven with a 9-millimeter [handgun]" said Irene Thomaidis, Dolan's press secretary.

By 1997, the state's prison population is expected to grow from 17,000 to more than 27,000. At an average cost of $17,000 per inmate per year, the state's corrections budget is expected to almost double by the end of the decade.

Already, public safety accounts for almost 11 percent of the state's $13 billion general fund budget.

Keywords:
POLITICS 


 by CNB