The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The report, prepared for the N.C. Sentencing Commission, could determine whether state prison-system funding becomes part of the debate when legislators start putting together a budget in May. The commission and state corrections officials are reviewing the forecast and could recommend legislation.

Other states are facing the same problem and are considering building prisons, releasing inmates and shipping prisoners to other states to alleviate the space crunch.

"The option we don't want, from my perspective, is to extremely overcrowd the prisons," N.C. Division of Prisons Director Boyd Bennett said.

Inmate advocates who said guards were afraid to patrol packed prisons at night prompted the last N.C. prison building boom in the 1990s. Jails are just supposed to hold potential felons until they're sentenced. Then the state is supposed to take over.

The state has nearly 38,000 prisoners squeezed into barely enough space to meet court rulings and laws determining how much room each inmate should have.

To keep prisons from overflowing, the state pays counties $40 a day per inmate for jail space. Counties held 4,774 state prisoners for at least a six-day period during the last three months of 2005. The state paid counties $1.7 million for the space.

Iredell County built a jail annex in 1997. The county has about 270 beds, but the jail regularly has at least 280 prisoners, about 30 of whom are being held for the state, said Iredell Deputy Sheriff Rick Dowdle.

That means many Iredell inmates sleep on mattresses on the floor.

"You don't have a choice. All of the jails in this area are overcrowded," said Dowdle, who serves on the N.C. Jail Administrators Board of Directors. "They pay us to keep (state prisoners), but it puts a burden on us."

State corrections officials focused their recent building spree on maximum security prisons. State officials planned for six prisons that started opening in 2003. Three are complete, two will open this year and the last should open in 2008.

The maximum security prisons are the state's most expensive, since safety precautions require each prisoner to have his own cell. The two opening this year cost nearly $100 million each.

Now corrections officials say they must shift to building medium- and minimum-security prisons, where inmates can live in bunks in dorm-style cells.

Convictions increased for lower-level felonies, crimes such as drug possession and breaking and entering, those that would fill the minimum and medium security prisons. At the same time, there was a drop last year in the number of convictions for the most serious felonies, ones requiring maximum security.

Plans developed last summer called for the state to spend at least $21.9 million to add about 784 prison beds over the next year. The costs would increase in later years, officials said.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers agree they have to build prisons. But some Democrats have also pushed for changing sentencing guidelines -- a tactic Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt used in the 1990s to free some prison space.

Lawmakers submitted bills that would reduce some sentences and add programs to help inmates avoid crime after prison. But in part because of the "soft on crime" label lawmakers could face in any campaign, the legislation hasn't gone anywhere, said Rep. Phil Haire, D-Jackson.

"I wish some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would see we're not going to build our way out of the problem," said Haire, who serves on the N.C. Sentencing Commission.

Catawba Sheriff David Huffman, a Republican who ran for Congress in 2004, said reducing sentences again would be a mistake. Money that went to community sentencing alternatives in the 1990s could have built more prisons, Huffman said.

"We've got people walking on the street who should be locked up," said Huffman. He said the state needs tougher sentences, despite the fact his jail is packed. "You can't reduce sentences and expect to be fair to the people of North Carolina."

State Prisoners in County Jails

Nearly 4,800 N.C. prisoners were housed in county jails during the last three months of 2005. Corrections officials pay counties $40 a day for each prisoner they hold for the state.

COUNTY NUMBER OF PRISONERS AMOUNT PAID
Wake 433 $162,960
Mecklenburg 70 $23,000
Iredell 62 $24,080
Cabarrus 60 $20,320
Catawba 59 $26,120
Gaston 51 $14,680
Lincoln 35 $11,320
Union 24 $10,160
N.C. Total 4,774 $1,652,040

SOURCE: N.C. Department of Correction