THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 12, 1995 TAG: 9505110182
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
The city's newly approved budget includes a raise for sheriff's deputies. That ought to lower their high turnover rate at the Virginia Beach jail.
But Sheriff Frank Drew, among others, is more concerned about the state's pickup rate of inmates who belong in state facilities yet remain in the Virginia Beach jail. He was the first of several local sheriffs to sue recently to force the commonwealth to take those prisoners. He won, and should have: The state should take its prisoners on time.
It should also have prisons in which to put them.
In response to Sheriff Drew's suit, the state has acted . . . moving some 460 inmates to a private Texas prison at $44 per day per inmate. That's $30 more than the state pays Sheriff Drew to house its prisoners. How much more would it cost Virginia to start building prisons as it should?
Even before the abolition of parole, the state needed many more prison beds. Parole's abolition will, if projections are correct, increase that need by 10 percent over the next 10 years or so. But the (Democratic) General Assembly followed its approval of parole abolition with a refusal to approve the financing (Republican) Governor Allen requested for prisons.
Approving the end of parole yet rejecting the means to implement it reflects more political than philosophical differences. There's a political element too (surprise) in suing the state now.
Most sheriffs who have sued are Democrats in office longer than George Allen's two years. The problems of overcrowding and state prisoners languishing in local and regional jails go back 10 years. Why sue now? Especially since as long as double-bunking is practiced, the Virginia Beach jail has empty beds?
The Allen Parole Board's low release rate has exacerbated jails' need to double-bunk. Forcing the state to take its prisoners will ameliorate the need - but nowhere near end it. On the day Sheriff Drew won his suit against the state, the Beach jail had a rated capacity (the number of inmates the state certifies a jail should hold, a number that few meet and that needs re-evaluating) of 563 and a population of 886. Of the 323 inmates over the rated capacity, fewer than a third belonged to the state. by CNB