MONTGOMERY - A package of sentencing reform bills passed the Alabama House on Tuesday over dueling concerns by liberal and conservative groups.

Black lawmakers suggested the changes could cause further prison crowding and make it tougher for people who make mistakes to turn their lives around.

The Christian Coalition warned that the proposals, backed by Republican Gov. Bob Riley, "are associated with far left political ideology."

Among the eight bills that breezed through the House are proposals that would:

Triple the maximum fines imposed on people who commit felonies and certain misdemeanors.

Count drunken driving convictions in other states toward someone's Alabama record.

Give judges voluntary "sentencing standards," which would tighten the current broad range of possible prison terms, and call for shorter sentences for certain drug and property crimes and longer ones for violent crimes.

Allow judges to fine individuals convicted of trafficking in illegal drugs even if they have been sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The key bill in the package - sentencing standards - passed the House last year, then stalled in the Senate.

The Alabama Sentencing Commission, a group of lawmakers, prosecutors, attorneys and victim advocates has been hammering out proposed standards for three years. The commission says the proposals would slowly stem the growth in Alabama's prison population while bringing uniformity to the range of sentences handed down from county to county for the same crimes.

A judge in Houston County, for example, might now sentence someone to 15 years for a crime that would net a three-year sentence in Jefferson County.

The standards passed 94-0.

Riley's Prison Overcrowding Task Force has endorsed the standards, along with the eight other bills developed by the Sentencing Commission, for relief in Alabama's prison system, which houses 27,000 inmates in space for 13,000.

A mass e-mail from the Christian Coalition warned that the bills were soft on crime, and linked Riley's task force and the Sentencing Commission with national groups such as the Drug Policy Alliance and Justice Strategies, New York-based groups that have been pushing prison reform across the country, including in Alabama, which has the nations sixth highest incarceration rate.

The Christian Coalition noted the Sentencing Commission has issued annual reports on Alabama's prison crowding crisis. Other groups have also issued reports, the e-mail said, suggesting a connection.

Some lawmakers said the opposite, that portions of the package are too tough. For example, the maximum fines for Class C felonies would rise from $5,000 to $15,000, for Class B from $10,000 to $30,000 and for Class A felonies from $20,000 to $60,000.

"It's putting in today's dollars what they were back when they were adopted," said Rep. Marcel Black, D-Tuscumbia, a member of the Sentencing Commission.

Released convicts already have trouble paying fines with the low-wage jobs many are forced to take. Piling on more fines is unrealistic, said Rep. George Bandy, D-Opelika.

"You're going to force them to bring down more crime on us," Bandy said.

Lawmakers passed the bill 77-10 after amending it to leave certain misdemeanor fines at the current levels.

Only one bill in the package failed to pass the House on Tuesday and was held over. It would allow the state to deduct up to 45 percent of paychecks from parolees living in new halfway-house-type facilities operated by the state.

"You are creating a group of slave laborers under that bill," said Rep. James Buskey, D-Mobile.

He and several other lawmakers said that prior to discussion of the package Tuesday, they were under the impression that the bills pushed by Riley would help clear prison beds. Instead, some of the bills appear to do the opposite.

"If a person is convicted of a crime, they pay forever," Buskey said, expressing concerns about the bill raising the fine ceiling.

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