Saturday 12/15/2007 DAILY NEWS DIGEST

Birmingham News – Environmental Management Commission proposes strengthening rule regarding level of allowable carcinogens in state’s waterways.

Birmingham News – Governor says state will assist Birmingham in dome project.

Huntsville Times – Critics charge legislative immigration panel a ‘waste of time’ following latest meeting cancellation, express doubts that committee can meet deadline for recommendations.

Tuscaloosa News – The Tuscaloosa News finds state has ‘failed miserably’ to fund programs aimed toward smoking prevention, endorses call by state health officer to allocate $4 million in next budget to prevention efforts.

FROM TODAY’S ANNISTON STAR:

Commission: State prison for women should close

MONTGOMERY — Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women would close under a preliminary proposal by a commission studying women and girls in the state’s criminal justice system.

Instead of locking up every woman who commits a crime punishable with prison, the commission wants the state to invest more in community-based alternatives such as work-release, substance-abuse and mental health treatment programs.

While the commission doesn’t advocate eliminating incarceration for women, commission member Genesis Fisher said at a meeting Friday that closing Tutwiler ultimately would improve conditions for women inmates, address the underlying issues that land women in prison and reduce the prison population.

“Tutwiler is dilapidated and understaffed, and what we recommend is building a new, smaller facility,” she said. “Women coming into the system would have risk assessment to determine if a person is high-risk.”

The commission recommends gender-informed risk assessment that takes into account, among other things, the difference between male and female offenders and the kinds of crimes they commit.

Those women classified as “low-risk” offenders could end up in community-correction programs if they are assessed to be fit for them and “high-risk” offenders would go to prison.

Beefing up community-correction programs — another of the commission’s recommendations — could be a cost-effective answer to a big problem for the state: prison overcrowding.

Bennet Wright, a statistician with the Alabama Sentencing Commission, said community-correction programs are far less expensive than incarceration.

Incarceration of women inmates costs the state about $38 a day per inmate. Some community correction programs can cost less than half that.

Wright says the problem is that community correction programs vary from county-to-county because no state entity oversees the programs.

Public Affairs Council of Alabama researcher Joe Adams said the state would have to expend some money initially to put the necessary programs in place in all 67 counties, but long-range it could be a cost benefit to the state.

Patricia Hood, a correctional warden for the Elmore Correction Facility, said when all the money the state spends for overtime and training of new correction officers is taken into account, the cost of maintaining the existing system continues to mount.

She said the state will have to spend money on this issue because women are the fastest-growing population in the corrections system.

The Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights strongly advocates closing Tutwiler.

The nonprofit law firm sued the Alabama Department of Corrections in 2002 because more than 1,000 female inmates were crammed into a facility built for about 360.

The case was settled in 2004. The resulting order called for reduction of the inmate population at Julia Tutwiler, access to a doctor and mental health expert for inmates, and monitoring for four years by attorneys and advocates from the firm.

Mica Doctoroff, an investigator for the firm, said the commission’s recommendation to close Tutwiler might be its most controversial, but it can be done.

“They’re not crazy or radical,” she said of the commission’s eight recommendations. “In fact they make a lot of sense, and there is evidence to back them up.”

Alexia Ward, campaign director with the Alabama Women’s Resource Network, said legislation likely would be needed to establish who will oversee and implement what amounts to changing the way the state administers correction programs.

Rep. Barbara Boyd, D-Anniston, who was unable to attend Friday’s meeting, is co-chair of the commission, which must deliver its recommendations to the Legislature and Gov. Bob Riley during the first month of the 2008 legislative session.