THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 16, 1996 TAG: 9602160473
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
North Carolina must send 1,000 more inmates out of state because the repeal of the state prison cap is taxing the prison system, the state corrections secretary said.
The cost of sending the prisoners to other states ``will be about $20 million a year,'' Correction Secretary Franklin Freeman told a legislative oversight committee Wednesday. ``The escape valve is out-of-state housing.''
The state's prison population, which stood at 23,232 a year ago, is now more than 30,000, counting 1,500 inmates held outside North Carolina under contracts with Tennessee, Oklahoma and Texas.
Legislators voted last year to lift the cap on the state's prison population, which was imposed in the mid-1980s to avoid prisoner lawsuits over crowding.
Although state officials are in the midst of a $450 million prison-building program, they have not been able to avoid the spike in the prison population that they warned would arrive after the cap was lifted, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.
``The slowing of paroles has resulted in more people serving time, which is what the public wants,'' Freeman said.
But inmates are now piling up in county jails because state prisons do not have room.
Freeman said corrections officials are negotiating with officials in Texas and Florida to find 1,000 beds for North Carolina criminals. MEMO: Judge tears up correction department hiring settlement. B2
Prison officials say test for AIDS only if state is willing to treat.
B3.
by CNB