THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 9, 1995 TAG: 9502090422
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: B2 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY DENNIS PATTERSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
North Carolina would lift its limit on the number of inmates in state prisons next year under a bill unanimously approved by the state Senate on Wednesday.
``I always had a problem with a law on the books that said we could only have a certain number of prisoners because I always believed that if you do the crime, you ought to do the time,'' said Sen. Fountain Odom, D-Mecklenburg.
Under Odom's bill, the prison cap would be lifted on Sept. 1, 1996.
Odom said he, like others, would like to see the cap lifted immediately. But ``we can't do it because we don't have the space to do it,'' he said.
Lifting the cap immediately could force the state to find emergency housing for up to 10,000 inmates. But waiting until mid-1996 would allow prisons now under construction to open, providing enough beds for all the expected inmates.
The prison cap was imposed by the General Assembly in 1987 as the state moved to settle federal lawsuits on prison crowding. When the prison population reaches 98 percent of the limit, an emergency parole process is triggered to lower the inmate population.
Originally imposed as a temporary measure, the cap has made emergency paroles virtually a continuous process because of the rapid growth of the prison population in the past 10 years.
At the time the cap was imposed, the state was holding 18,000 prisoners, but only had room for 12,000 beds under a nationally recognized standard of 50 square feet per inmate.
By the time the cap would be lifted under Odom's bill, the state will have a capacity of 28,487 inmates.
Sen. Frank Ballance, D-Warren, said a federal court ruling last fall that the state is now in compliance with the lawsuit settlement means ``this is the first time we could validly pass this bill.''
``Some of us had to take some heat on this cap, but it was necessary,'' Ballance said, referring to Republican efforts during last winter's crime session to repeal the limit.
A lawsuit seeking to overturn the cap was dismissed last year.
The measure now goes to the House, where a committee is considering its own version of the bill. MEMO: GENERAL ASSEMBLY HIGHLIGHTS
On Wednesday at the General Assembly:
House Democrats twice failed to change a Republican income-tax cut in
committee in ways they said would help more poor taxpayers.
The state Senate voted unanimously to abolish the intangibles tax on
investments.
A bill that would repeal the state prison cap in September 1996 won
unanimous approval in the Senate and was sent to the House.
Two senators introduced a bill that would set aside $10 million for
schools to hire police to patrol hallways.
Hal Lingerfelt was approved as the state's new Commissioner of Banks
for a term that expires in 1999.
House leaders scheduled votes on veto power and income-tax cuts for
Thursday after Gov. James B. Hunt delivers his State of the State
address.
KEYWORDS: NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY by CNB