Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 26, 1994 TAG: 9408260063
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Flanked by crime victims, politicians and law-enforcement officers who gathered on the city courthouse steps, Allen said he hopes to use voter-approved general obligation bonds to finance an estimated $850 million in prison construction that his proposal would require.
"I have no doubt that the voters would approve it," said Allen, who found voters receptive to his plans to abolish parole last year after making it a key issue in his campaign.
If Allen's plan to abolish parole and establish truth in sentencing is approved next month at a special session of the General Assembly, the bond issue could be on the ballot in November 1995.
Virginians last voted for a prison construction bond issue in 1977. In 1992, voters approved $613 million in borrowing for construction projects at colleges, mental-health facilities and parks.
Financing of Allen's plan is expected to be a key issue when the special session convenes Sept.19. But the costs about which the governor spoke most Thursday were the personal and social ones exacted by violent criminals who strike again, after being released early under the state's "deceptive, fraudulent system that they call criminal justice."
Allen's proposal, approved this week by his Commission on Parole Abolition and Sentencing Reform, would lengthen prison sentences for violent offenders and make inmates serve up to 85 percent of their time.
The Allen proposal would shorten most sentences being handed out, but would increase by as much as seven times the amount of time actually being served under a truth-in-sentencing plan.
Most Virginia inmates now become eligible for parole after serving about one-sixth of their sentence, after good time and other credits are considered.
Allen said that under his plan, "Ten years is going to mean 10 years; it's not going to mean 21/2 or three years."
In addition to building new prisons to house an increased number of inmates, Allen also proposes the construction of at least 10 less-secure work camps to house nonviolent offenders.
Allen acknowledged that some people may be upset that drug dealers and other undesirables will be housed in work camps instead of doing hard prison time. But he said he does not expect any public-safety problems at the less-secure facilities.
"It's not as if they're going to be staying in a campground," he said. "There will be fences and there will be security."
If Allen's plan is approved, discretionary and mandatory parole would be abolished effective Jan.1. Inmates who entered the system before then still would be eligible for parole.
But they are not likely to fare well with a new Parole Board, appointed by Allen, that has cut the parole rate from nearly 40 percent a year ago to 5 percent in July.
The more conservative Parole Board has been blamed for a backlog of state inmates held in local jails - including Roanoke's, which this month had an all-time high inmate count of 551 in a facility designed to hold about half that many.
Allen said a new women's prison in Powhatan, along with another new prison soon to be opened and plans to double-bunk in existing facilities, should ease the jail overcrowding problem within the next month.
Like most of Allen's public events concerning parole, Thursday's news conference included testimony from crime victims who spoke graphically about their ordeals at the hands of violent criminals.
Bob Leonard, who was kidnapped in 1975 by a man who later murdered Leonard's mother and grandfather, said he is revictimized every year when he tries to persuade the Parole Board to keep the man behind bars.
"The burden of keeping this man in prison falls on my shoulders," Leonard said.
by CNB