BOOM IN PRISONERS HAS STATE PUZZLED

State To Spend Millions On Prisons

TALLAHASSEE - Florida's crime rate, as proudly hailed by Gov. Jeb Bush, is
at a 30-year low.

Yet seemingly inexplicably, the number of state prisoners has been rising
sharply since March.

In June nearly 3,000 new inmates were placed behind bars. That's the
largest number to enter state prisons in one month since 1992, which was a
time when Florida's crime rate was 34 percent higher. The state also locked
up 30,000 more inmates in the last 12 months, a figure unmatched since Jeb
Bush's father, George Bush, was president.

So far, no one, including Gov. Bush and Department of Corrections Secretary
Jim Crosby, has been able to completely explain why Florida's prison
population is suddenly exploding. And no one is sure if the trend will
continue. What is known is that there has been a sharp rise in the number
of drug offenders being sent to state prisons following two years in which
legislators cut back on the money available for drug treatment of
criminals. Plus, five counties have been sending a higher-than-anticipated
number of people to state prisons.

Bush and Crosby have offered their own theories for the dynamic rise, with
the governor wondering aloud if judges he has appointed the last five years
have imposed tougher sentences. (Statewide data, however, doesn't back up
that assertion.) But more importantly, both men warned that if the sharp
rise continues Florida would be forced to release prisoners because of
overcrowding. Florida now has more than 77,000 prisoners.

"We have circumstances beyond our control," Crosby said.

That was enough to prompt legislators to take the unprecedented act this
past week of dipping into state reserve funds to hand out nearly $66
million to the Department of Corrections just two months into a new budget
year.

The department - which already had planned to build 3,000 additional prison
beds this year - will use the money to hire more than 500 employees and
start building an additional 3,200 prison beds in the next year.But the
bill approved last week and immediately signed into law by Bush also grants
the department the ability to waive state bidding laws to hire contractors
to build these new beds.

"If we need to build prisons to make sure that public safety is first and
foremost and a high priority in this state, we will do it," he said. "We
have to do it."

This sudden crisis caught many lawmakers - both Republican and Democrat -
unaware. Senate Republicans said they were troubled by the fact that two
months ago no one in the Bush administration said anything about a crisis.

Democrats attacked the legislation for containing the no-bid provisions,
saying it could lead to a sweetheart deal for a campaign contributor. In
the end, however, only a handful of House Democrats and Rep. Nancy Detert,
R-Venice, voted against handing the extra money to the prison system.

"What other choice do we have?" asked Senate President Jim King, R-
Jacksonville.

Detert stands by her vote, saying she wanted more proof an emergency
exists. She said she was troubled by the idea of rushing through a major
budget item during a special session on medical malpractice.

"I was not convinced based upon what they presented that this is an
emergency," Detert said. "I have concerns when you ask for $65 million at
the last minute when everyone's attention is focused on something else."

Republicans, including Bush, have touted themselves as "tough on crime" and
have cited the passage of such laws as the requirement that prisoners serve
85 percent of their sentence as one of the reasons that crime has fallen in
the Sunshine State. Since 1994 - when Democrats still controlled the
Florida House and the governor's mansion - the time served by prisoners in
Florida's prisons has jumped from roughly 45 percent of their sentences to
more than 80 percent today. During the past decade, the crime rate as well
as the total number of crimes has dropped, according to data collected by
the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. For example, more than 161,000
violent crimes, including murder, were reported in 1992. Last year there
were 128,000 reported violent crimes. Florida's crime rate peaked in 1989.
That same year the state locked up more than 43,000 prisoners - the highest
number of inmates entering prison in the last 30 years. During the '90s, as
the crime rate began to fall, so did the number of criminals headed to
state prisons. Since Bush became governor, the number of inmates admitted
to the state's prisons was hovering around 27,000 a year. That number,
however, has shot up the past five months.

State estimators could not say exactly what sparked the sharp increase. But
they did note two trends. The first was that there was a 13 percent
increase in the number of criminals convicted of drug charges heading to
prisons.

Secondly, five counties - Hillsborough, Escambia, Polk, Volusia and Leon -
were suddenly sending many more people to prison. Polk County, for example,
sent more than 1,400 criminals to state prisons in 2002. A year later the
number grew to more than 1,600.

Bush last week admitted he didn't know what was behind the sharp rise in
the number of inmates.

"It may have something to do with the judges I've appointed," Bush said.

Meanwhile, data collected by the state shows that judges today aren't
handing out tougher sentences than they were before Bush became governor.
The average sentence handed out this past year was five years. The average
sentence handed out in 1995 was six years.

"I really think it's time to have a hard-core review of where we are," said
Sen. Rod Smith, D-Alachua and a former state attorney.

What has Smith worried is whether budget cuts the past few years in drug
treatment programs have contributed to the 13 percent rise in drug
offenders who were sent to prison.

Since 2001 state lawmakers have cut funding to pretrial intervention and
drug offender probation programs. They also cut the Department of
Corrections' drug treatment programs for inmates in prisons and those
criminals sentenced to probation or in community control programs.

In 2001, the amount spent on drug treatment for prisoners was $15.5
million. This year it's $7.7 million.

Drug treatment programs for those sentenced to probation, house arrest and
other community supervision programs has been cut from $33.3 million to $27
million.

"You didn't catch them on the front end," he said. "All of a sudden they
score a prison offense. I think the matter is coming home to roost in
prevention and intervention programs. That's what concerns me." Bush last
week dismissed any connection between the budget cuts and the rise in drug
offenders headed to prison. "I don't know if there is any evidence to
suggest that," he said.

Bush and DOC officials, however, have quickly pointed the finger at state
lawmakers, noting for example that the governor this past year recommended
restoring past budget cuts to drug treatment programs.

"I'm not happy with that, but we had a different set of proposals for
reducing government," Bush said.