WAVE 3 TV Louisville, KY | Prison Sentences To Get Shorter During Lean Budget Year

Prison Sentences To Get Shorter During Lean Budget Year

(FRANKFORT, Ky., March 19th, 2003, 10 a.m.) -- Prison sentences in Kentucky will likely shrink in coming months as state government runs short on cash.

The Kentucky Parole Board adopted a risk-assessment scoring system in January that makes it possible to grant parole to nearly half of the eligible inmates, up from one-third of the eligible inmates just a year ago.

Also, the General Assembly this month approved a bill to let prisoners work off part of their sentences through community service, possibly saving the Corrections Department more than $5 million a year.

The trend of shortened prison sentences -- in Kentucky and other revenue-starved states -- reverses a decade of tougher crime measures that led to soaring prison populations.

Gov. Paul Patton released nearly 900 prisoners months before their sentences expired to ease the state budget crunch. Several of them were re-arrested on charges including rape and bank robbery. Patton hastily ended the furloughs.

Kentucky remains strapped for funds and pays an average $17,670 a year to hold each of its 16,000 prisoners, a population 60 percent greater than a decade ago.

If some inmates are judged a low recidivism risk and sent home early, that eases the burden on taxpayers and leaves more money to permanently lock up criminals who are truly dangerous, Parole Board executive director Keith Hardison told the Lexington Herald-Leader.

But prosecutors warn that crime rates sank in the 1990s precisely because more criminals were in prison. Cutting prisoners loose ahead of schedule shows disrespect to jury sentencing recommendations and erodes the principle of punishment, they said.

"Whoever our criminal-justice wise guys are, they apparently aren't concerned with people who violate the law being made to suffer the consequences of their actions," said Fayette County Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Larson.

Many states that cracked down on crime during the 1990s, adding mandatory-minimum sentences and stricter parole guidelines, now face a budget crisis. Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Massachusetts have closed prisons.

By contrast, the Kentucky Corrections Department's $310 million annual budget "was left pretty much intact" in this year's state budget, said department spokeswoman Lisa Lamb. No prison closings are planned, Lamb said.

Instead, Kentucky is focused on releasing its prisoners faster if they are determined to be a low risk for committing new crimes.

The Parole Board has adopted a risk-assessment form that analyzes parole candidates and awards points based on criteria including age, marital status, level of education, criminal record and behavior in prison. The most attractive parole candidates are older, married and enrolled in classes behind bars.

Previously, the nine-member board decided each inmate's parole request individually, without any uniform criteria, Hardison said.

Under the previous system, the board's judgment was increasingly conservative. During the last dozen years, board members denied the majority of parole requests. The average length of time served in prisons steadily rose from 11.5 months to 15.5 months.

And not everyone thought the board was fair, Hardison said. "There had been concerns expressed about consistency," he said. "Were we applying the same factors consistently to all inmates in all cases?"

Fairness was the reason for switching to a new system, not cost, Hardison said. But parole rates -- the percentage of prisoners eligible for parole who are released each year -- are swiftly rising.

In recent years, the parole rate hovered between 30 percent to 35 percent. In January, the parole rate was 47 percent; 554 felons were sent home before their sentences expired.

"Yes, the parole rate went up in January when this system came on line. The rate went up again in February," Hardison said. "But it's too early to say for certain to what degree the new system is responsible, or whether the trend will continue."

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)