The Associated Press
Samira Jafari
February 14, 2006
 

A legislative committee Thursday called for a joint meeting with all House and Senate members to discuss the "emergency situation" at Alabama's overcrowded prisons, giving the prison commissioner a unique chance to make a case for increased funding.

No date was immediately set for the meeting, but it is expected to be early in the session that opens Tuesday. Joint Prison Committee chairman, Sen. Myron Penn, D-Union Springs, said letters would be sent to all lawmakers alerting them to the conditions at the prisons and urging legislative leaders to hold a joint meeting.

"The Legislature does have a concern about prison overcrowding," said Penn.

Senate President Pro Tem Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe, said he supports such a meeting, but he wants Gov. Bob Riley to organize it and address the Legislature on prison issues.

"The governor is the boss. He needs to do the sales job only the governor can do," said Barron.

Barron said Riley's appointed task force for prison overcrowding, which came up with a series of bills aimed at reducing overcrowding and upgrading the prison system, was a good starting point. He said Riley's presence at a meeting about prisons would "carry a great deal more weight with the Legislature" than another presentation by prison Commissioner Donal Campbell.

Riley's communications director, Jeff Emerson, said he thought the Legislature holding a joint meeting on the issue was a good idea. He said Riley was open to participating at the meeting, if that's what lawmakers wanted -- but he called Barron's comments "a little surprising."

"The governor has spoken with Senator Barron on several occasions about these bills and the need to focus on them. He's asked for Senator Barron's help with getting the Legislature to focus on them," Emerson said.

Emerson added that every lawmaker has received a copy of the task force's report and the prison reform bills they developed. The bills have been prefiled.

The announcement came a day after Circuit Judge William Shashy urged lawmakers to take control of the overcrowding situation. He is considering holding Campbell in contempt for keeping hundreds of state inmates in county jails.

The prison system is at double its designed capacity with more than 27,000 inmates, forcing the Department of Corrections to leave some 700 inmates in county jails for more than the 30-day grace period allowed by law. The situation has resurrected a 1992 lawsuit by a group of counties fed up with the backlogs.

"The only way we're going to deal with this jail problem today is with more beds," Campbell told the members of the Joint Prison Committee at the meeting Thursday. "I need more beds today."

Campbell acknowledged that adding beds is a short-term answer, and that passing sentencing reform bills -- which would tighten sentencing ranges for nonviolent offenders -- is the first step to a long-term solution.

Rep. Blaine Galliher, R-Gadsden, suggested the joint meeting after hearing Campbell reiterate his needs for more guards, more beds and, ultimately, more money. Galliher called the conditions at the prison system "an emergency situation."

Normally, Campbell has an opportunity to present his concerns to lawmakers during legislative budget hearings. No budget hearings were held this year, and Galliher suspected that legislators wouldn't understand the scope of the overcrowding issue unless they heard it directly from Campbell.

"If we can't get the support of both bodies, we're just kidding ourselves," he said.

Rep. John Rogers, D-Birmingham, agreed: "People just don't know the conditions of those prisons. We're just going to bite the bullet on this one."

Campbell said lawmakers are giving the prison situation more attention this year than before and he was optimistic that the prison reform package would gain support at the Statehouse.

But some legislators have hinted that Campbell's agenda will be overshadowed by demands from other agencies, especially during an election year.

Senate budget committee Chairman Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, has said he believes prison reform, including more drug rehab programs, is desperately needed, but also thinks it will be put off.

"I think it'll probably be a major issue the year after the election, but not this year -- it's just my gut feeling," Bedford told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Galliher said he doesn't believe the problems within the Department of Correction's concerns should be held above those of other agencies, but he said overcrowding deserved the full attention of lawmakers.

"It's a big issue whether it's an election year or not. I think we're at a critical crossroads and we need to make some tough decisions -- and all the decision makers need to be in the same room," he said.

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