Richard Rossi
#50337
P.O. Box 3400
Florence, AZ 85232
Death Row
Prison Overcrowding
in Arizona
At the moment, Arizona is facing a major prison crisis. A generation
of "tough on crime" policies have resulted in a severe
shortage of prison beds. When I entered the Arizona prison system in
1983, there were only a few thousand state prisoners. In twenty years
the population has ballooned to 30,000 and is growing at the rate of 1,000
per year. The system has the capacity for 26,000 prisoners. To
accommodate 4,000 extra people, prisoners are being put in tents, day rooms,
hallways and just about anywhere a mattress can be thrown.
Governor Janet Napolitano already has a quarter of a billion dollar deficit
in the current budget, and the deficit is projected to
reach one billion dollars by next year. The state legislature was called
into special session to deal with this problem, and only
considered the stop-gap measure of finding more beds. The Republican-controlled
legislature approved an emergency $27 million
to lease additional beds in private prisons in Texas and Oklahoma.
In addition, a prison expansion program totaling $700 million will provide
9,100 additional prison beds. Ignoring fresh ideas, the
politicians continue the same failed "brick and mortar" policies of the past.
There comes a time when reasonable heads must look for alternatives.
The "tough on crime" motto should make way for a
"smart on crime" philosophy.
When such large sums of money are dedicated to maintaining and building the
prison industrial complex in the state, funds have
to be eliminated or severely reduced from other areas. One such area
is education. Tuition at the state colleges and universities has drastically
increased over the last decade. Funding for prisons as a total percentage
of the state budget has risen from 4.3 to 10.7 % while higher education's
share has dropped from 19.1 to 12.4 %. One has to ask, what is more
important? Educating our population or warehousing more of our convicts
without hope for rehabilitation.?
Do we want to be spending more per capita on prisons or schools? We
are sending a tremendously large number of people to
prison for outrageously long prison sentences. The tough on crime experiment
has been a colossal failure. Arizona was one of the first states to
jump on the bandwagon and adopt the "Truth in Sentencing" guidelines, which
eliminate parole and require a person to serve 85% of their sentence.
And the sentences in Arizona are harsher than most other states. Statistics
show that only 10% of Arizona's prison population is classified as violent
repeat offenders. Most prisoners in the system are serving time for
nonviolent offenses and 77% of those incarcerated are first time offenders.
Does this make any sense? A full 22% of the prison population - 5,300
people - are serving time for nonviolent drug possession. There surely
are better ways to handle drug possession convictions.
Another area where changes can be made is in the area of elderly prisoners.
Statistics from the National Center for Institutions and Alternatives show
that it costs three times more to house elderly prisoners than younger ones.
Arizona has 1,200 prisoners over the age of 55. This age is considered
to be beyond a person's crime-prone years. These 1,200 elderly prisoners
are costing the state the equivalent of some 3,500 younger prisoners.
Although parole does not exist for current prisoners in the system, older
prisoners and released prisoners are governed by
parole. In 2001, 3,267 prisoners were returned to prison, most for
technical violations of their parole, not new crimes. Parole costs
$2 per day per prisoner whereas, incarceration costs $55.10 per day.
Which makes better sense? Under the mandatory sentencing guidelines,
the judge has very little discretion to select the most appropriate sentence
for the particular crime. It is the prosecutors who have the power.
They decide the charges and then control the plea bargains that are offered.
They usually offer long prison terms as plea bargains because the alternative
for the individual - who often faces multiple, excessive charges - is even
more years under the mandatory sentencing guidelines. It is totally
out of control, particularly in drug and alcohol cases. We have too
many people going to prison who would be better helped by use of drug treatment
and intensive probation.
There are many excellent proposals to alleviate the problem, and some of
these ideas have been around for a long time. We need to seriously
look at these alternatives which include:
1) When the prison capacity reaches a certain level, such as 110%,
the state pardon officials must review the sentences of the
nonviolent offenders who are not considered a risk to society and
grant parole to open up bed space for more serious criminals.
2) Discretion in sentencing should be returned to judges for more
appropriate disposition of justice. This should also include the
authority to order concurrent sentences, instead of consecutive.
3) Do away with the "Truth in Sentencing" law that mandates serving
at least 85 % of the sentence. Revert to the former method of "hard
time" which allowed good conduct to reduce time served to 2/3 of the
sentence.
4) More use of drug treatment, intensive probation, and house arrest
with electronic monitoring for nonviolent offenses.
These are just a few good ideas that should be considered. We should
not be locking away increasingly high numbers of our
citizens for what amounts to a lifetime. You can not legislate morality,
but you can legislate common sense.
©Richard Michael Rossi
50337
P.O. Box 3400
Florence, AZ 85232
Death Row - December 2003
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