Alaska's prison expenses rise: We need cures and fewer costly punishments

2-25-2011 Alaska:

Earlier this month, Gov. Parnell requested more than $8.5 million in supplemental funding for Alaska’s prison system. Those additional costs account for almost 20 percent of this year’s supplemental request from the general fund. This shouldn’t surprise us. Alaska’s average annual prison population has grown 10 percent during the past two years, and it is projected to grow another 4 percent next year. That’s more than 500 new prisoners in just three years.

Consider this: if Alaska’s prison population continues to grow at 4 percent annually and our costs per prisoner grow at a conservative 2 percent, the total expense of Alaska’s prison system will grow from $260 million to more than $1 billion annually by 2035. In that same time frame, we will be forced to build four more prisons, each the size of the new Goose Creek facility and costing taxpayers $250 million apiece.

Alaska is not alone. Faced with a prison overcrowding crisis and the prospect of spending $523 million to build and operate additional prisons, Texas — a famously tough-on-crime state — began a data-driven reexamination of its correctional system and a cost-benefit analysis that evaluated how prison expenses affect public safety.

What did the state learn? Texas’s prisons, much like Alaska’s, were overwhelmed by low-level drug and alcohol offenders and large numbers of mentally ill offenders who would be better served in community diversion, substance abuse and mental health programs.

Led by Republican state Rep. Jerry Madden, the 2007 Texas Legislature enacted sweeping prison reform to better protect the public and reduce costs. This reform focused on expanding substance abuse and community-based mental health treatment and diversion programs, as well as enacting parole reforms for non-violent, low-risk offenders.

Texas invested $241 million in residential programs for people on probation, supervision with substance abuse treatment needs, expansion of halfway houses, a new mental health pre-trial facility, a new in-prison treatment unit for DUI offenders and thousands of new beds for in-prison intensive substance abuse treatment.

The $241 million was a lot of money, but it was a fraction of what was being requested to build new prisons. These reforms eliminated Texas’s need to build more prisons, and for the first time in the state’s history, there is no waiting list for substance abuse treatment in Texas.

Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich wrote in the Washington Post in January: “We urge conservative legislators to lead the way in addressing an issue often considered off-limits to reform: Prisons.”

He praised Texas for its “community treatment of the mentally ill and low-level drug addicts,” and he advocated for “punishing low-risk offenders through lower-cost community supervision.”

This is not about being soft on crime. Praising New York’s rehabilitation efforts, Gingrich wrote: “although New York spent less on prisons, it delivered better public safety.”

This is not news to the people who run Alaska’s prison system. Department of Corrections Commissioner Joe Schmidt and Deputy Commissioner Carmen Gutierrez have agreed with me regarding the cost-saving potential of evidence-based treatment and parole initiatives. Unfortunately, Schmidt and Gutierrez are hobbled by the shamefully low funding for these programs.

Alaska spends just 2.3 percent of its annual prison budget on offender rehabilitation programs — including substance abuse treatment, domestic violence programs and sex offender management. The administration’s proposed prison budget for next year includes no increases for these treatment programs.

Even a pilot probation program aimed at improving public safety while reducing long-term costs received only a paltry $200,000 increase.

I hope Gov. Parnell will consider adjusting his budget to reflect the importance of substance abuse treatment and mental health services in defeating Alaska’s epidemic of domestic violence and sexual assault.

Let’s face it, Alaska’s prisons are the largest mental health and substance abuse institutions in the state, and 95 percent of those in Alaska’s prison system will eventually be released. Why not get offenders the treatment they need while they serve their time?

Please join Rep. Madden, Newt Gingrich and me in challenging public officials to tackle Alaska’s rising prison costs by investing in evidence-based treatment programs and cost-effective parole initiatives.

State Sen. Johnny Ellis, a Democrat, represents downtown and midtown Anchorage and chairs the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Corrections. ..Source.. by Johnny Ellis, Community Perspective