Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410100016
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
By abolishing parole in Virginia while delaying funding for new prisons, the General Assembly may be flirting with disaster, critics say.
Lawmakers revamped the state's criminal justice system during a two-week special session that ended Sept. 30, but they left unanswered the question of how to pay for as many as 27 prisons that will be needed within the next 10 years.
Unless the legislature moves quickly to finance the prisons, the state will run the risk of being forced by a court order to release inmates early to ease overcrowding in jails and prisons, according to a Virginia Tech criminologist and an inmate advocacy group.
Legislators have promised to address the costs of Gov. George Allen's crime-fighting proposal - estimated at between $1 billion and $2.2 billion - when the General Assembly returns to Richmond next year.
By then, anyone convicted of a felony will not be eligible for parole, violent and repeat offenders will face up to five times as long behind bars than they do now, and the state's overcrowded prisons and jails will be packed even tighter by a conservative Parole Board.
Abolishing parole is expected to more than double the state's prison population - from about 20,000 now to 52,000 in 2005 - and launch a massive prison-building program that some say the state can ill afford.
John Flannery, a Leesburg lawyer and frequent critic of Allen's plan, said the 44-page crime bill approved overwhelmingly by the General Assembly is a "prescription for disaster."
In what Flannery called an example of "legislative schizophrenia," lawmakers up for re-election next year were reluctant to appear soft on crime by voting against the plan. But they were just as hesitant to sink the state into debt with a multimillion-dollar bond issue.
"It's an incredible way to do business," said Flannery, of the Virginia chapter of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants, a national inmate advocacy group.
"It's like buying your dream house, but waiting until later to decide how to make the mortage payments," Flannery said. "Except in this case, it's not a dream, it's a nightmare."
Donald J. Shoemaker, an associate professor of sociology at Virginia Tech who specializes in criminology, said the state could face a class-action lawsuit over crowded prisons - and a court order to release some inmates - if construction is delayed for too long.
"The state of Virginia runs the risk of having the courts intervene if crowding becomes worse than federal regulations allow, and it may not take long for that to happen," Shoemaker said.
In a report leading up to the special session, Allen's Commission on Parole Abolition and Sentencing Reform had warned against such a scenario.
"Other states that have abolished parole or enacted other forms of tough anti-crime legislation have suffered crises down the road because they failed to adequately project and provide for prison capacity," the report stated.
"In some states, this has led to a renewal of early release policies and all of their deleterious consequences. Virginia must avoid this trap."
To deal with immediate problems with jail overcrowding, Allen had asked the special session to approve $367 million in Virginia Public Building Authority bonds, which do not require voter approval. A report warned that delaying the bond bill until the legislature's regular session in January would increase the local jail backlog from 1,800 to nearly 3,000 state-responsible inmates by October 1995.
Even though the General Assembly approved just $56 million for prison construction at the special session, the Allen administration put the best face on the news - pointing to assurances from both Democrats and Republicans that the rest of the funding will come next year.
"It gives us what we need in the short term, and we'll come back in January and hopefully get the rest of it," Secretary of Public Safety Jerry Kilgore said.
But when the General Assembly convenes for its regular session in January, funding for prisons will have to compete with other priorities such as state colleges and universities, public education and transportation.
And there may be a fight over how much the state should borrow through building authority bonds, which do not require voter approval, and general obligation bonds, which would have to be voted on by the public.
While some economically depressed areas of the state will no doubt welcome prisons, a bond referendum that lists the cost and site of each prison might draw opposition in more populated and affluent areas.
Still, public opinion polls show that a majority of Virginians support abolishing parole, and that 53 percent of the state's registered voters would be willing to fund the plan through a bond issue, a tax increase or cuts to other state programs.
"I don't think that people are being told of the whole cost, but I don't know if it matters," Shoemaker said. "There is a limit, but I don't think that we've approached it yet."
Under the Allen plan, inmates convicted of felonies committed after Jan. 1, 1995, will have to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence. Previously, inmates served an average of about a third of their time before being released on parole. Under a new set of guidelines drawn up by a sentencing commission, violent and repeat offenders could face sentences up to five times as long as they now face.
Meanwhile, local jails will continue to bear the brunt of an overcrowding problem, as inmates who are supposed to be in prison continue to be crowded into jails. The backlogs have been attributed to the fact that the parole rate in Virginia dropped from 40 percent last year to less than 5 percent over the summer under the watch of a conservative Parole Board appointed by Allen.
Even though parole will be abolished for offenses committed after Jan. 1, the Parole Board will continue to decide when the 20,000 inmates now in the system should be released.
In Roanoke, an unwanted surplus of state inmates has sent the city jail's population soaring to 550 - more than twice what the building was designed to hold - and has raised tensions that have been blamed for fights, fires and other disturbances.
Although $56 million was appropriated this year for work camps and other prison construction intended to ease jail overcrowding, Roanoke Sheriff Alvin Hudson is not expecting a quick fix for his jampacked jail.
Hudson, who has spent the past two years battling the state Department of Corrections over space requirements for a new jail annex, said planning and construction of new facilities can be long and drawn out.
"My biggest concern right now is that, even if the money was approved today, it's going to be at least four years before the first unit will even open," Hudson said.
"I think it's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets any better."
by CNB