US panel considers alternatives to prison

Minimum terms faulted as inmate population jumps

WASHINGTON - As the nation's inmate population climbs toward 2.5 million, the US Sentencing Commission is considering alternatives to prison for some offenders, including treatment programs for nonviolent drug users and employment training for minor parole violators.

The commission's consideration of alternatives to incarceration reflects its determination to persuade Congress to ease federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws that contributed to explosive growth in the prison population.

The laws were enacted in the mid-1980s, in part to address a crime epidemic related to crack cocaine. But in recent years, federal judges, public defenders, and probation officials have contended that mandatory sentences imprison first-time offenders unnecessarily and affect minorities disproportionately.

If the commission moves ahead with recommending alternatives to Congress, it would send a signal to state sentencing commissions and legislatures, and could pave the way for a major expansion of drug courts and adult developmental programs for parolees, advocates said.

"We are leading the world in incarcerating adults, and that's something Americans need to understand," said Beryl Howell, one of six members of the commission, which drafts federal sentencing guidelines and advises the House and Senate on prison policy. "People should be aware that every tough-on-crime act comes with a price.

"The average cost [of incarceration] across the country is $24,000 a year per inmate. . . . It's going up far faster than state budgets can keep up," she said.

About 2,000 drug courts nationwide spend between $1,500 and $11,000 per offender, according to the National Drug Court Institute. Those courts handle only a fraction of the 1.5 million nonviolent drug offenders who are arrested and charged with a crime, said C. West Huddleston, chief executive of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals.

The courts operate under similar principles: At sentencing, a judge gives nonviolent offenders the option of going to prison or entering a rigorous treatment program, where they submit to frequent tests and supervision. The aim is to reduce the 67 percent recidivism rate of addicted offenders.

The government has established a discretionary grant program, operated by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, which is distributing $13 million to drug court programs this year.

"Drug courts are the most successful strategy in terms of reducing crime, but they're tremendously underutilized," Huddleston said. "I think a Sentencing Commission recommendation to US courts would create momentum. It'll wake up state legislatures."

The commission held a symposium in July to discuss alternatives to incarceration after a study this year by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States revealed that more than one in 100 American adults are in jail or prison. That study was followed by a Bureau of Justice Statistics report in June that showed that a record 7.2 million people are under supervision in the criminal justice system.

Jeffrey L. Sedgwick, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's office of justice programs, said research has shown that crime rates decline as the incarceration rate rises.