Governor will not push jail bills in '08

COUNTIES WANT ACTION TO EASE CROWDING

By Ryan Alessi - RALESSI@HERALD-LEADER.COM

FRANKFORT -- Despite a growing thunder of pleas from local officials, Gov. Steve Beshear says his administration won't push plans to ease pressure off the overburdened and underfunded county jail system this year.

"We're not planning on introducing any additional jail legislation during this session," Beshear told the Herald-Leader after his address Thursday night at the Kentucky County Judge Executive Association conference.

Instead, he said he's focusing on a task force --similar to past commissions called for this purpose -- to vet possible jail and judicial system reforms that would lay groundwork for future proposals.

With the governor passing on the problem now, lawmakers from both parties and both chambers are pledging to dig into the matter with or without the administration.

"If the governor is missing in action, we'll take action by ourselves," said Sen. Robert Stivers, R-Manchester and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "To me, this is the No. 1 issue facing county governments and county government budgets."

Indeed, county officials from across Kentucky spent three days this week at the Kentucky Association of Counties conference in Lexington comparing jail-funding horror stories and bemoaning what they considered unmet promises of help from Frankfort for five years.

Greenup County Judge-Executive Robert Carpenter said his county budgeted $750,000 for this fiscal year for its jail and spent $450,000 through the first half.

"It looks like we're going to bust nines," said Carpenter, a Democrat, who says he still has hope that Beshear will come through on his campaign promise to address the financial burdens associated with jails. "It's just gotten to where it's killing us."

A combination of rising health care costs for locked-up offenders and operations costs of the jails has encouraged some facilities to cram in more state prisoners -- who come with $32.67 daily payments from the state corrections department -- in order to make money. In turn, that has led to overcrowding in many local jails, which puts a greater strain on the buildings and workers, not to mention the claustrophobic and sometimes unsanitary conditions for inmates, as outlined in last month's Herald-Leader report.

The pie-in-the-sky solution many officials like Carpenter want to see is the state taking control and responsibility for local jails.

That appears unlikely, with Kentucky facing a stark two-year budget that Beshear laid out last month.

Many possible approaches

House Democrats are writing a plan to be unveiled in the next two weeks to provide counties with more money and attempt "to lower costs (and) move people out of the system more efficiently," said Rep. Rob Wilkey, D-Scottsville and the House majority whip.

"This will be at the top in terms of priorities," he said, noting that Rep. Derrick Graham, D-Frankfort, will sponsor the bill.

Various reforms to the judicial and courts process, as well as the jails, themselves -- such as standardizing future construction plans to save on design costs -- have been floating through Frankfort for years. Just about any plan to lower the number of prisoners or cost of housing them is on the table, Stivers said.

A few of the many ideas for broad overhauls include:

• Revise sentencing guidelines.

• Increase an emphasis on the prison industries program, which helps hone prisoners' skills and could cut down on recidivism, Stivers said.

• Raise the cost of property for a felony theft charge, which is currently $300.

• Consider using home arrest or other alternative sentencing for certain crimes.

• Provide incentives for counties to build cookie-cutter jails that are standard sizes with the same layouts, which would eliminate design costs and could make them easier to manage, Stivers said.

And Sen. Dan Kelly, R-Springfield and the Republican floor leader, has introduced a bill that would divert non-violent drug offenders to treatment programs before a trial.