Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 14, 1994 TAG: 9409140020
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BOB EVANS NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS For the Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Georgia and Florida, which have some of the highest incarceration rates in the nation, make extensive use of less costly methods of sentencing nonviolent offenders, known as intermediate sanctions.
When North Carolina eliminates parole later this year, it too will use alternatives to prison for thieves on their first and second offenses.
Georgia had the equivalent of 26 percent of its prisoners in intermediate sanctions programs last year, compared with 8.7 percent in Virginia, according to a report by the Virginia Senate Finance Committee staff.
The same report pointed out that within three years of release, Georgia offenders under intermediate sanctions were less likely to commit new crimes than people imprisoned for the same types of offenses.
``This suggests that for similar, nonviolent offenders, the same or better results can be achieved from intermediate sanctions as from much longer prison terms,'' the report concluded. The staff found that there is ``little and incomplete application'' of these alternatives in Virginia.
Gov. George Allen's ``Proposal X'' to abolish parole and increase prison terms for violent criminals, encourages the use of alternative punishments, but provides no new funding or specific guidance on how to reach that goal.
Florida, which has a reputation for building prisons and an incarceration rate 10 percent higher than Virginia's, has put more than 40,000 people through its Florida Community Control Program during the past decade.
It's the nation's largest intensive-supervision program designed to divert people from prison, according to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, a nonprofit organization that studies criminal justice and punishment issues.
Participants are under house arrest when not working or attending classes, drug treatment, community service or other approved activities. They meet with probation officers at least 28 times a month and are subject to routine drug tests.
While nonviolent offenders are supposed to be the only people involved, murderers, rapists and robbers have been admitted to the program.
Participants must pay part of the costs. Florida estimates that community control costs an average of $6.49 a day, compared with $39.05 a day for prison and $2.19 a day for regular probation, which usually involves one contact a month.
A six-year study by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency found that participants in Florida's program were less likely to be arrested within 18 months of release than similar offenders sentenced to 12- to 30-month prison terms.
Oregon corrections chief Frank A. Hall and others who champion use of intermediate sanctions say one advantage is that many of these programs can be contracted out to private companies to save money. Oregon, Connecticut, Massachusetts and many other states take this approach.
``It has spawned a whole new industry in Connecticut'' and cut the costs of supervision, says William H. Carbone, director of the state's Office of Alternative Sanctions, an arm of the state's courts.
He said the private, nonprofit contractors who run his state's program have been scrutinized by independent evaluators and found to be effective in another way - reducing the number of people on probation who commit new crimes.
The cost difference is also great, he notes: $4,500 for the community program versus $25,000 a year for prison.
by CNB