| |
Thirty days in jail
Tough ruling must be followed by action
Last Friday, Montgomery County circuit judge ordered state prison officials to remove nearly 2,000 state prisoners
from county jails within 30 days or face contempt of-court charges. Wanna bet that the state will comply?
If history is any indication, the state will make excuses, perhaps take minimal steps to comply and seek to get
a higher court to rule that the judge erred in ordering the removal of the prisoners. Those prisoners have been
left in county jails throughout in violation of a 1998 court agreement that the state must pick up the inmates
within 30 days of their convictions.
With the state doing little to live up to its obligation, county jails are jam packed with prisoners, many beyond
capacity. Judge William Shashy, in fact, made that point in his ruling. While state prisons could be hurt by the
influx of convicts from jails, he said, there already is evidence of "actual harm being caused by the presence
of state inmates in country jails."
Crowded county jails create health and safety issues, open the counties to lawsuits by inmates and saddle local
governments with the costs of feeding, boarding and providing health care for convicts who should be in state custody.
For Jefferson County, for instance, those costs could hit $3 million this year - just for prisoners who have been
in the county's two jails for more than 30 days after their convictions.
Shashy's stern warning, we hope, will get the attention of Gov. Don Siegelman and his Department of Corrections.
It may not be realistic to remove all 2,000 prisoners within a month (the state has no place to put them), but
state officials ought to come up with both short-term and long-term plans to deal with the problem.
The move, beginning today, of 300 prisoners into a converted canning plant is a good start. So, too, is the governor's
directive that a plan be presented for dealing with the other prisoners.
The governor has talked of the need for alternative sentencing and other programs to deal with nonviolent offenders
rather than sending them to prisons. He's right; such programs, plus truth-in-sentencing reforms, are badly needed.
But those are state prisoners. Taking care of them is the state's responsibility. So, too, is starting and paying
for alternative programs.
The answer to the crowding problems of prisons and county jails won't be found in any court. The governor, who
oversees the prison system, and the Legislature, which funds it, must provide that answer.
© The Birmingham News
|
|