The Birmingham News
Carla Crowder
August 31, 2005
 


Gov. Bob Riley is likely to call a special legislative session this fall to address Alabama's prison crowding crisis, two officials said Tuesday.

Michael Stephens, chair of the Governor's Task Force on Prison Overcrowding, said Riley is "strongly considering" a special session in late October or early November to try to implement recommendations expected Oct. 12 in a task force report.

Vernon Barnett, Riley's deputy legal adviser, added, "At this point, the governor is wanting to know what the task force comes back with, and if the commission endorses some legislative fixes, that's certainly a possibility."

The task force has been meeting monthly since the spring, gathering information about why so many Alabamians are in prison, and what can be done to reduce that number. The state prison population is creeping up again with 27,500 people locked up in space for about 12,000.

Tuesday, the group heard about possible solutions ranging from private treatment programs to expanded local community corrections to out-of-state private prison companies.

"I'm a 30-year law enforcement veteran and I never thought I'd sit in front of an audience and say we need treatment," said Calhoun County Sheriff Larry Amerson, slapping the table for emphasis. "But we do."

Amerson has begun a rehabilitation and work program for drug offenders in his northeast Alabama county that costs about $27.50 per inmate per day. He told the task force he believes the program could divert 100 people a year away from state prison beds, if he could expand it.

The offenders would live in local centers and receive drug treatment. They also would have to work in community service jobs, such as road crews, to pay back the community.

"We are ready to do this," Amerson said. "We don't have the finances to do this."

A private New Jersey company called Community Education Centers also proposed treatment-oriented centers, where lower-risk offenders would get special attention aimed at lowering recidivism rates.

With contracts in Colorado, Indiana, Wyoming and New Jersey, the company presented research that showed it lowered reconviction rates 31 percent at its New Jersey programs.

Alumnus Keith Hooper, a former drug dealer who now works as director of operations for a CEC program in New Jersey, gave a personal, sometimes graphic, testimony to the task force. He compared CEC's approach to New Jersey state prison, where he also spent time in his 20s.

"I was incarcerated, I was housed, but I never got any information on why I used 15 bags of heroin a day," said Hooper, 40. A persistent counselor forced him to come to grips with his addiction, and made him feel like a human being, instead of a number, he said. CEC executives said they could run an Alabama program for $40 to $50 per prisoner per day. Alabama's prison costs remain the lowest per prisoner in the country at about $32 a day.

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