Although the Alabama Department of Corrections would receive a $16.2 million increase, it would triple the number of prisoners it releases next year if Gov. Bob Riley plan passes.

However, the department has no plans to cut personnel or rehabilitation programs for its 28,000 inmates.

Riley's proposed budget for the 2003-04 fiscal year allots $250 million for the Corrections Department, an increase of $16.2 million over last year's general fund appropriation. The department had requested right at $330 million for the next budget year.

"We are operating at level funding, and with the $16.2 million increase the governor is asking the Legislature to appropriate to Corrections, it looks like at this time that we will not have to make any cuts," said department spokesman Brian Corbett. Cuts could still become necessary later in the year, he said.

Corbett said department officials hope speeding up of the release of inmates will save enough money to avoid cuts. The department will also bring back Mississippi-housed inmates as space becomes available, thus saving money there, he said. Those contracts, he said, have clauses that allow the state to break them.

It costs the state $9,073 per year to house and care for each inmate, he said

The governor's cost-saving plan involves expanding the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles from three members to seven members. It also triples the annual number of inmates released -- from about 2,000 last year to about 6,000, said Cynthia Dillard, assistant executive director of the board.

At Riley's request last April, an extra $1 million was allocated to the board to speed up releases, Dillard said.

"We're doing it (paroling inmates) faster now" to ease overcrowding in 19 state correctional centers, 12 work-release facilities, county jails and out-of-state correctional centers, Dillard said.

The board paroled 2,169 inmates statewide in fiscal year 2002, she said. Since April, the board has heard an additional 2,191 special docket cases. Of that number, the board granted parole to 1,309 inmates, about 60 percent, in keeping with the governor's acceleration order, Dillard said.

The early release inmates are not serving time for violent crimes, Corbett said. Their crimes include forgery (bad checks and credit card theft), burglary, drug possession, felony DUI (driving under the influence) and theft of property, which covers a wide range of theft categories, Corbett said.

The prospect of a flood of early releases doesn't sit well with many citizens and law enforcement officials.

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