Reforms Target Prison Costs Judges, Prosecutors Just Enforcing Laws That They Passed, Legislators Admit

Legislators came to a hard realization Thursday: The rising prison costs that so frustrate them are at least partly their own doing.

“The judges and the prosecutors are enforcing the laws that the Legislature passes,” state Corrections Director Jim Spalding told the Legislature’s budget committee.

Under repeated questioning from legislators, Spalding added, “I guess the response would be you have to change your philosophy in order to change this budget.”

Rep. Robert Geddes said, “The answer is very simple. We’ve either got to change policy and start turning people loose, or ask the people whether they want to keep people in prison or not.”

Geddes, R-Preston, is co-chairman of the budget committee.

Rep. Don Pischner, R-Coeur d’Alene, said he looked at the corrections budget increases in recent years and found the trend “incredible.”

Gov. Phil Batt’s proposed budget for the coming year calls for a 24 percent increase in corrections spending, and a 30 percent increase for juvenile corrections.

“Wouldn’t the colleges like to have that, wouldn’t the community colleges like to have a big bump like that in one year,” marveled Pischner, who serves on the budget committee. “It’s just a lot of money, a lot of hit at one time.”

Budget committee members spoke out strongly in favor of changes - not only those proposed by the governor in his “Committee of One” reforms this year, but also some that would go further.

The governor’s package of reforms - including dropping felony penalties for driving without a valid license and raising the threshold for grand theft charges from $300 to $1,000 - is up for introduction Monday in the Senate Judiciary and Rules Committee.

Sen. Evan Frasure, R-Pocatello, said the state should look into placing some nondangerous prisoners on electronic monitoring in their homes. That costs $15 a day, instead of the average $45 it takes to hold an inmate behind bars.

Batt has recommended nearly $600,000 in the coming year to add electronic monitoring in three additional regions of the state, including North Idaho. The monitoring would be used only for offenders on probation or parole, as it is now - not for prison inmates.

Corrections Field and Community Services chief Eugene Larson said monitoring, while more expensive than the average $3 per day cost of probation, can bring some violators back in line and keep them from moving on to prison.

Spalding said he won’t move any state prisoners to house arrest with monitoring.

“We don’t use electronic monitoring to circumvent what the judge says,” he said. “The answer would be to provide more sentencing alternatives to the judges … so that they can say, ‘I’m going to put you on electronic monitoring rather than send you to prison.”’

Gov. Batt told the Idaho Press Club on Thursday that he’s open to new solutions, although he has some reservations about electronic monitoring. “It’s my understanding that it’s not as effective as you see on TV. I don’t think we ought to get our hopes up higher than they need to be.”

But he added, “I have said all along we should not stop at my recommendations.”

Sen. Stan Hawkins, R-Ucon, said, “It seems to me we have got to do something different than what we’re doing. The crime rate’s down, we build more beds. The crime rate’s up, we build more beds. What are we going to do in the future?”

Prisons have become the fastest-growing part of Idaho’s state budget in recent years, as lawmakers have enacted a flood of new laws including mandatory minimum sentences, enhanced penalties and additional crimes. Nearly a quarter of Idaho’s prisoners are serving time for drug possession, drunken driving, driving without a license or bad checks - offenses that aren’t even felonies in most states.

Geddes noted that a legislative report in December found the state could save money by using other forms of punishment besides prison - like electronic monitoring. The report also found that just 11 percent of Idaho prison inmates are receiving substance abuse treatment, although 85 percent have substance abuse problems.

Spalding said that’s true, but the department tries to focus its treatment efforts on inmates nearing release. He said a much larger percentage get some treatment before they’re released.

Sen. Atwell Parry, R-Melba, the budget committee’s other co-chairman, asked whether Spalding could require that all inmates get substance abuse treatment before they’re paroled or released.

Spalding said the department certainly could require that. The only problem is money.

Geddes said he’s asked the chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary committees to review the legislative report on alternatives to incarceration, and send recommendations to the budget committee to be considered along with the corrections budget.

Rep. Celia Gould, R-Buhl, the House chairwoman, said her committee will hear a presentation on the report next week.

“These are policy decisions we’re going to have to make, and I’m willing to look at all of them,” Gould said. But she added, “I quite frankly am pleased about how our sentencing laws work in this state. We’ve got a low crime rate.”

Sen. Denton Darrington, R-Declo, the Senate chairman, was less open. “The best alternative to incarceration is do not commit crime,” he said. “That is the best alternative.”

As far as putting prison inmates on electronic monitoring, he said, “I don’t want to be a party to that.”

“Judges have a lot of options now in how long a sentence can be. … We’re talking about community safety. We’re talking about victims. We’re talking about somebody who might go through the checkout stand right next to the person who assaulted them. We’re talking about community protection.”

He added, “We’ve been pretty effective in our criminal laws. People know if they commit crime in this state, they’re going to have to do some time, as it should be.”

Darrington said he’ll be an active supporter of the governor’s proposed reforms, contained in four bills up for introduction in his committee on Monday. “I think they’re useful little things that need to be approached, that will help here and there in the justice system,” he said. “But I don’t think we’re going to wholesale cut our numbers.”

, DataTimes