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Sens get advice on cutting prison expenses

Florida Today, January, 25, 2011

TALLAHASSEE — A tough-talking Texas legislator told Florida lawmakers Monday voters don't think it's "soft on crime" to spend money wisely on drug treatment and education for inmates if it avoids building more prisons.

The key is to forget about career criminals who will never get out of prison and budget only for programs that work among offenders who can still be salvaged, said Rep. Jerry Madden, a Plano, Texas, Republican. Madden co-chairs a National Conference of State Legislatures task force on prisons.

Madden said policymakers need to distinguish between dangerous offenders and those who "just make us mad," with offenses like drug cases, that can be deterred by a mix of punishment and rehabilitation.

Madden said there are three kinds of prisoners: life-time criminals, one-time offenders and those in between.

"Don't spend one cent on a person who is always coming back; the only thing you spend is what it takes to lock him up and keep the public safe from him," said Madden. "And that person who is never coming back? Don't spend much on them either. Don't put them in programs where they're more likely to meet up with people who are more dangerous than they are."

"One of the things that we have to look at is, no one wants to be viewed as soft on crime," said Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. "How do you think the public and your law-enforcement community and the media have responded?"

Madden said public-opinion surveys have shown widespread support for spending tax money on rehabilitation, rather than building new prisons.

Florida has tough mandatory sentencing laws, like the "10-20-life" sentences for gun use in a crime, a requirement that inmates serve 85 percent of sentences before release and "three strikes" life sentences. Evers said he would like to see the Parole Commission reactivated, but Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, who chairs the budget subcommittee on crime, said Floridians want the tough, no-parole sentences for violent crime.

Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, sat in on the meeting. Baxley, who heads the House criminal-justice panel, said the state can't keep building prisons, with more than 100,000 inmates already in custody. That's making common ground for tough law-and-order legislators and liberal rehabilitation-oriented members, he said.

"A lot of people spend their whole time here worrying about the next election, but these men and women need to be looking at the next generation. They're going to run a flier on me anyway, so I just want to figure out the right thing to do, and do it," said Baxley.