The head of Ohio’s prison system gave state legislators a no-nonsense budget talk yesterday, saying, “We’ve lost the war on drugs, yet we keep sending people to state prisons.”
Terry Collins, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, made an impassioned plea for sentencing reforms to divert more offenders from overcrowded state prisons and ease the burden on the financially strapped system.
The alternative: closing another prison in 2011, Collins told a House committee reviewing the state budget.
The director said state prisons are bulging with 32 percent more inmates than they are designed to hold, and the population will hit 60,000 in the next decade unless changes are made. It was 50,719 on Monday.
Gov. Ted Strickland’s two-year budget proposes spending a total of $3.65 billion in fiscal years 2010 and 2011 to operate prisons, community-corrections facilities and halfway houses funded by the state. Collins said the proposed budget, though large, will require cutting about 500 positions from his payroll.
“We cannot continue to believe the only option is to punish people by sending them to prison,” Collins said. “We need to stop sending people to prison who we are just ‘mad at.’ … Prison beds should be maintained for those who are just plain ‘bad.’ ”
via DispatchPolitics : Prisons director demands reforms Columbus Dispatch Politics.
I love that line! Again it comes down to the simple economic truth that the states can no longer afford to be in the business of “sending messages” about one’s personal drug use. The public may be “mad at” those of us who choose marijuana over martinis and cannabis over cigars, but arresting us to deter our use has not worked and has cost the public billions in revenue, expenses, and lives.
You might think that the head of prisons would LOOOOVE the War on Drugs. But he says ‘No!’ Just a good reminder to avoid making too many assumptions…