MONTGOMERY - Alabama's new corrections leaders have created space for 850 prisoners by reconfiguring several lockups, they said Friday, but they also warned that federal budget cuts are threatening some reform efforts.

The new space comes from beefing up security at the nearly empty 300-bed Montgomery work-release center into medium-security beds, the state's most urgent need, Chief Deputy Corrections Commissioner Vernon Barnett told the Alabama Sentencing Commission.

A further 250 beds will soon be opened at the Bullock Correctional Facility. The special mental health unit, which was built several years ago to comply with a federal court order, has been empty because of staff shortages, he said.

Work release

The Department of Corrections decided to close the Bullock Work Release Center, so those officers will staff the mental health unit. That will allow the department to transfer severely mentally ill prisoners now housed around the state into the specially equipped space, freeing beds for new prisoners and getting the department into compliance with the federal courts, Barnett said.

With the state prison population surpassing 28,000, the worst recent crisis has been in medium-security prisons and higher. But beds have been empty at work-release centers, primarily because most prisoners are paroled from work release.

Last month, Montgomery County Circuit Judge William Shashy criticized the state for letting the beds sit empty while counties were forced to house hundreds of state prisoners in violation of a court order. The new space should help alleviate the jail backup. But, "the cost of medium-security beds is giving up work-release beds," Barnett said.

The remaining 300 new beds will be at Limestone Correctional Facility, where workers are converting an empty factory on the prison grounds into a medium-security dorm.

Short-term solution

Barnett emphasized that the new space is a stopgap measure. Every month, the population in medium security and higher increases by 119 inmates. About 580 leave, while 700 arrive, so much more must be done, he said.

That includes an increase in the state's reliance on private prisons. Next week, the department will issue another request for proposals for bed space to house 600 male inmates. Already this year, about 500 men have been sent to a private prison in Louisiana, and more than 300 Alabama female prisoners remain at another Louisiana private prison, under a contract that has cost the state more than $10 million.

Thursday, Barnett and Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen presented Gov. Bob Riley a draft of their plan to overhaul and reform the beleaguered prison system. Details should be released next week.

Riley appointed Allen, a former chief deputy attorney general, and Barnett, his deputy legal adviser, to the top Corrections spots in February with marching orders to prepare a reform plan in 30 days.

One hurdle: The state is losing millions of dollars in federal funds that prisons had been using for drug treatment programs. The department had been getting $2.3 million a year in federal drug treatment dollars. That will drop to $800,000 next year and $300,000 the next, Barnett told the commission.

The cuts come at a time when several task forces and research reports have urged Corrections to increase drug treatment as a way to reduce recidivism. The department will go forward with plans to improve its programs enough for them to be certified by the Alabama Department of Mental Health.

"That's going to be a painful process," Barnett said.

Even with the federal money, prisoners incarcerated with orders to get into drug treatment had to wait. "One of the messages I would like to get out to everybody - that there's a multi-year waiting list for drug treatment, so don't send someone to the Department of Corrections and expect them to get treatment anytime soon," he said.

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