Crime-Fighting Mood Shifting Lawmakers Considering Legislation For Educating Prisoners, Offering Drug Treatment Programs

Lawmakers are still pledging to lock up dangerous crooks for longer and longer terms, but a few are whispering that prison alone is not the answer.

Even some legislators with toughon-crime reputations are considering measures that would promote education of prisoners or reduce prison sentences in exchange for drug treatment programs.

But unlike the crackdown on violent criminals, in which lawmakers have said cost is no barrier, efforts to expand drug treatment and inmate education may have a hard time getting funded.

One leader of the crackdown on criminals, Rep. Ida Ballasiotes, R-Mercer Island, is sponsoring a bill to allow judges to give reduced prison sentences to firsttime drug dealers in exchange for a year of drug treatment and probation.

That proposal wins praise from some officials in a judicial system clogged with drug cases. But some believe it does not go far enough.

Judges need more discretion in dealing with drug offenders, King County Superior Court Judge Ricardo Martinez told the House Corrections Committee Friday.

Martinez, a former prosecutor, said it is time for lawmakers to pass a “rational” law, instead of chipping away at the power of judges through mandatory sentences that leave no option but prison. At the core of many criminals’ problems is a chemical addiction, which prison alone cannot address, he said.

“When we don’t have the ability to mandate treatment for someone, there’s nothing we can do,” Martinez said.

Sen. Jim West, R-Spokane, hopes to encourage more prisoners to get an education while behind bars. He introduced a bill last week that would require prisoners to earn the equivalent of a high school diploma before earning any time off their sentences for good behavior.

Approximately 70 percent of the state’s prisoners never graduated from high school, according to prison officials. Prisons currently offer education to inmates who want to get a high school diploma.

However, West’s bill does not request any more money be given to prisons to beef up their education programs.

That could be a problem, according to state Corrections Secretary Chase Riveland.

Prisons already offer education to inmates who want it, but more facilities or staff might be needed if demand increased, Riveland said. Prisoners who failed to achieve a high school education would remain in prison longer, driving costs up.

West said Riveland always has excuses for why state prisons need more money.

“They have the capacity to do this,” West said. “I think they can do it within their current budget, and if they have to take away from something else they do, fine.”

Currently, more than 600 prisoners receive a high school diploma or general equivalency diploma certificate each year while behind bars, according to the Corrections Department.

Some law-enforcement officials say the Legislature has so far failed to address the root cause of much of the state’s crime problem - drug addiction.

“We have a punishment-driven system, but nothing in the system to cause defendants to have opportunities for rehabilitation,” said Spokane County District Court Judge Richard White.

That will not change until our leaders are given “political permission” to talk about alternatives to prison without being labeled soft on crime, Riveland said.

“At some point, we have to get beyond the rhetoric,” he said. “What we are not doing is giving names and faces to the people being locked up. A lot of them are just young kids who do drugs.”

Drug offenders have filled Washington’s prisons, largely as a result of changes to sentencing laws. They now account for 25 percent of the state’s inmate population, Riveland said. That doesn’t count people imprisoned for drug-related crimes, such as burglaries or thefts to support addictions.