Tuesday, June 13, 2006

We can't ship everyone to the bayou

Alabama prison commissioner Richard Allen, whose job you probably wouldn't want, is confident that his proposals will shrink the state's prison's rolls enough that a federal judge won't throw him in jail for contempt of court. The short-term plan to remove state prisoners from county jails includes more reliance on transition centers and "technical" violators centers for parolees who fail a drug test, as well as sending more inmates to rented space in Louisiana prisons. Meanwhile, Allen's longer-term hopes to ease the burden on Alabama's underfunded corrections system, which operates at more than 200 percent capacity, rest heavily with the state's new voluntary sentencing guidelines.