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April 27, 2007
VT: Overhalm of Prison System Could Include More People Sent Out of State
Editorial: Prisons plan seeks path to lower costs
Published: Thursday, April 26, 2007
Sen. Richard Sears has put forward an approach too rarely broached by lawmakers this session with his proposal to save the state money with a sweeping overhaul of Vermont's prison system.
The boldness of the senator's plan floated before the Senate Appropriations Committee has to do with his willingness to look at ways to reduce the amount of money the state spends to meets its obligations instead of taking the much-traveled route of seeking -- usually through taxes -- additional money to cover rising costs.
Sears, a Democrat from Bennington, proposes closing the state's most expensive prison -- Dale Correctional Facility for women in Waterbury -- converting another women's prison into a low-security jail for men, and consolidating the female inmate population at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington. The state would also send more prisoners out of state, where inmates are held for less than half of what it costs in Vermont prisons.
All these changes could save the state as much as $4 million, according to Sears. Vermont is spending $128 million on corrections, up 16.4 percent from the $110 million in 2006, and more than the state spends on higher education, as the popular comparison goes.
The state's prison population, already straining the corrections system, is expected to grow by 33 percent by 2011, an increase driven by more and longer prison sentences, and the increasing chance of former inmates' being incarcerated again for probation or parole violations. Lawmakers have called the growth in the prison population, and the rising costs that go with it, unsustainable.
The senator's plan is far from perfect. Chittenden County might not be the best site for the women's prison, given that South Burlington handles 40 percent of inmates in the corrections system, according to Darryl Graham, a steward for the state employees union at the prison. Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility also plays host to as many as 1,500 people a year who are brought there drunk and kept until they sober up.
Practical consideration might mean that some other prison would be better suited as the state's sole facility for female inmates, but it's not the details that matter here. The significant thing about Sears' plan is that he proposes shuffling the deck of existing resources and options to come up with a hand that costs less than what the state has now.
Too often, lawmakers seek more money as the first option, an option that usually leaves Vermonters with the bill. Sen. Sears is looking for a solution as if taxpayers matter.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070426/OPINI
ON/704260316/1006
Posted by lois at April 27, 2007 09:55 AM