Already overcrowded prisons are adding inmates at an unsustainable rate. And even more state prisoners are backlogged in county jails, violating a court agreement that the state wouldn't leave convicted prisoners in county jails at the counties' expense beyond 30 days.

The bottom line: Prisons are so dangerously overcrowded that doing nothing is not an option. The Legislature must take action.

Already, Gov. Bob Riley has said prison and sentencing reforms are his top priority going into the session. He's right. But it's the Legislature that needs to commit itself to enacting solutions to help ease prison crowding.

Part of the Legislature's job is easy - pass the package of reform bills it failed to pass last year.

The Alabama Sentencing Commission prepared the bills after years of research. Among its many proposals, the commission recommends establishing voluntary sentencing standards for judges that should produce more reasonable and consistent sentences. Such sentencing reforms would put punishment more in line with the offenses committed and bring about more truth in sentencing since sentences would better match the actual time convicts serve.

The other part of the Legislature's chore will be a little more difficult. A task force Riley appointed on prison crowding has made its own recommendations. It wants the state to make more and better use of transition centers for released inmates, community corrections, drug treatment and prison industries.

Putting those recommendations in place won't be cheap. Making drug treatment more readily available, for example, could come with a steep price tag. But legislators should remember that the cost of drug treatment saves money in the long run because it helps reduce the drug addiction that leads many released inmates to commit new offenses.

The Legislature will have to find millions of dollars more for the Department of Corrections budget from an already tight General Fund budget. That will be a difficult task.

Lawmakers also must realize that finding money in the General Fund to pay for the reforms is still much easier than trying to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to build new prisons needed to handle the growing inmate population.

Consider these facts: Alabama's prison population is approaching 28,000. That is more than five times as many inmates in the prison system as there were just 25 years ago. And it's more than twice the number of prisoners the prisons were built to house.

Meanwhile, about 1,300 more prisoners are waiting in county jails around the state - enough to fill a new prison - for space to open in the state prison system.

These realities won't go away. The state must adopt a plan - sentencing and prison reforms - to change them. And it must pay for it.

Not doing so isn't an option we can afford.

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