THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 28, 1995 TAG: 9510280312
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 159 lines
A new preliminary report forecasting the number of inmates in Virginia's prisons during the next eight years predicts an inmate population much lower than that used by the administration of Gov. George F. Allen to justify a massive prison-building plan early this year.
The numbers could mean that as many as four prisons now proposed by the Allen administration would not be needed, and that the administration has overestimated the cost of housing inmates by millions of dollars.
The report, compiled by an interagency group of state forecasting experts, estimates that by 1998, there will be about 4,000 fewer inmates than Allen officials estimated in reports last year.
The average state prison holds 1,000 inmates and the average cost per inmate is $17,000 a year, so if the projection is off by 4,000 inmates the state could wind up with roughly four unneeded prisons.
The higher projections were circulated as part of the Allen administration's pitch for a $408.6 million prison-building bond package during the past legislative session.
The Democrat-controlled legislature rejected the bond package and passed a $180 million compromise bill instead. The move, in which 13 GOP legislators also participated, prompted administration officials to accuse the legislators of sacrificing the safety of Virginians for political gain.
Now, with the Nov. 7 election looming, GOP candidates are using the compromise bill to denounce their opponents with fliers proclaiming that the bill ``could result in 8,700 violent criminals being put back on the street.''
Democratic incumbents, meanwhile, are using the new report as evidence that the administration inflated the numbers last year, and that their decision to reject the governor's plan was a wise one. The next session of the Assembly is sure to revisit the issue of prison construction, so the difference in projections will remain a political weapon.
House Majority Leader Del. C. Richard Cranwell, D-Roanoke, is especially critical.
``Look, there's a whole pattern here,'' he said this week. ``When (the Allen administration) did Disney, we couldn't get the numbers. When they said parole abolition would cost about $1 billion, we looked at it and we came up with $2 million. They are notorious in massaging numbers to make them what they want to make them.''
Cranwell's allegations outraged Deputy Secretary of Public Safety Carl R. Baker, who heads a policy committee that is supposed to review and amend the report before handing it over to Allen's secretary of public safety, Jerry Kilgore. Because his committee has not yet reviewed it, said Baker, the report is preliminary and incomplete.
``I find it unacceptable for anyone to send out the technical report and say that's the forecast. There is no forecast,'' he said. ``The policy committee has to look at factors that cannot be reviewed empirically.''
Such factors, said Baker, include new sentencing guidelines, the impact of parole abolition and the recent arrival in Virginia of a ``new Mexican brown heroin.''
But staff members for the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees the forecasting process, say the technical committee that produced the report took most of those factors into consideration, including a drug epidemic.
The sentencing guidelines, said staff member Ron Jordan, were not considered because they are voluntary and there is no way to know the extent to which judges are complying with them. So Baker's policy committee will have only anecdotal information to consider.
Last year, said Jordan, there was no policy committee. Employees of Criminal Justice Services, working under Kilgore, used a strict technical method to come up with their forecast.
The Forecast of State Responsible Offenders, as it is called, is distributed to members of the General Assembly every year on Nov. 1. In anticipation of the special session on parole abolition, last year's forecast was released early. In contrast, said Baker, this year's forecast will be late. A final meeting of the policy committee, originally scheduled for Sept. 20, was postponed to Oct. 24 and then postponed again. A new date has not been set.
Cranwell charges that the meetings have been intentionally postponed so that the new, lower numbers will not be made public before the Nov. 7 elections.
``It would appear to me that they're sitting on these numbers so that their campaign rhetoric is not exposed as the distortion and misrepresentation that it is,'' he said Thursday.
But Baker insists that Cranwell, not the Allen administration, is injecting politics into the forecasting process.
``I don't care if the numbers are lower or higher,'' he said.
``All I want to do is make sure that they're accurate. What difference does it make right now if it (the forecast) comes out before the election? The important thing is that it comes out accurately so we can build the correct number of prisons.'' MEMO: PRISON PROJECTS
Prison projects in Virginia currently planned or under construction:
1. Sussex I and II, maximum security, state-built
Site: Sussex County
Contractor: Archer-Western Contractors Ltd., member of Walsh Group of
Chicago
Cost: $105 million
Timetable: Contract signed October 1995; scheduled opening August
1997
Beds: Sussex I 1,121, Sussex II 1,267
2. Wallens Ridge Maximum Security Prison, privately built, financed
by Big Stone Gap Redevelopment and Housing Authority bonds
Site: Big Stone Heights, Wise County
Contractor: Gilbane Building Co., Laurel, Md.
Cost: $77 million
Timetable: Groundbreaking scheduled for Wednesday; to open July 1998
Beds: 1,267
3. A 1,000-bed minimum security prison, privately built
Site: Undetermined
Contractor: Bids submitted by Corrections Corporation of America,
Wackenhut Corp. and U.S. Corrections Corp.
Cost: Undetermined
Timetable: Contract to be awarded within 45 days; construction will
take about 18 months
Beds: 1,000
4. Lunenburg Medium Security Prison, state-built
Site: Lunenburg County
Contractor: Kenbridge Construction Co., Kenbridge, Va.
Cost: $29.8 million
Timetable: Opens late December or early January
Beds: 1,100
5. Two high-medium security prisons, state-built
Sites: undetermined
Contractors: Undetermined
Cost: $55 million each
Timetable: Undetermined
Beds: 1,380 each
6. Red Onion Prison, maximum security, state-built
Site: Wise County
Contractor: Brown & Root Inc.
Cost: $72 million
Timetable: Ground was broken Oct. 3; to be completed in 1997
Beds: 1,267
7. Fluvanna women's prison, state-built
Site: Fluvanna County
Contractor: Bids to be opened Thursday
Cost: $48.9 million
Timetable: To open in 1997
Beds: 1,170
Other prison construction projects include:
Seven minimum-security work centers that opened this year, costing
$27 million, with a total of 1,500 beds.
The state is looking for a new site for a $77 million
maximum-security prison with 1,267 beds that was to have been built in
Northampton County.
The state plans to open two facilities for inmates being returned to
custody. They will have a total of 950 beds and be privately built.
ILLUSTRATION: Color graphic by John Corbitt/The Virginian-Pilot
Virginia inmate population forecasts
KEYWORDS: PRISONS VIRGINIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS by CNB