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

DATE: MONDAY, November 28, 1994                   TAG: 9412070047
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE BANGKOK PRISON OF VIRGINIA?

Few would deny either the popularity of the governor's proposals or the need to protect society from violent predators. But some not-so-small questions linger, among them: From where is to come the estimated $2 billion needed over the next few years for prison construction and additional corrections costs?

The $2 billion, moreover, isn't the whole story. The figure doesn't include indirect costs such as the likely increase in jury trials because of the weakening of plea-bargaining incentives. Nor does it address the long-term fiscal impact of decades-long prison sentences. Corrections costs will continue to mount over time, at least until the first wave of long-timers start to die or are released from prison as old men.

One way to offset the cost of keeping violent offenders incarcerated longer is to leave lesser offenders unincarcerated - and employ satellite technology to monitor them. Another way may be to "export" Virginia prisons to Third World countries.

Those, at any rate, are ideas raised by Virginia Tech sociologist Clifford D. Bryant in a recent issue of the Tech publication Virginia Issues & Answers.

To work properly, alternative punishments - halfway houses, community service, in-home detention and the like - require intensive supervision. While the most intensely supervised of such programs is less expensive to taxpayers than putting someone in jail or prison, and offers other benefits as well, it isn't inexpensive.

One key to cutting corrections costs, Bryant argues, is to make effective use of satellite computer technology. Enough of it already exists, he maintains, to make possible a centralized, computerized, integrated monitoring system that would enable fewer supervisory officials to keep better track of the activities of more offenders serving alternative sentences.

For violent offenders, Bryant suggests that Virginia could save money by building prisons in other countries where (a) the business would be appreciated and (b) construction and operating costs would be cheaper. While conceding that the idea raises difficulties, including a potential constitutional obstacle, Bryant says it may be possible to overcome the objections. Prison staffers could be U.S. citizens hired from among retired American military personnel. Some inmates might prefer to serve their sentences in an American-run prison in another country, or could be offered inducements to do so.

Satellite tracking has an air of science fiction; overseas prisons, more than just an air of political-science fiction. The latter idea sounds like something that could be dreamed up only in the groves of academe.

But it does point up the fact that politicians and the public have given far more attention to the benefits of Allen's program than to its considerable costs. The idea of "exporting" prisons is lame. But so are Virginia's efforts to date to find better ways than jail or prison to punish most crimes - so we can afford to keep the worst criminals out of commission for a long, long time.