LAWMAKERS BACK PRISON NEED

JEFFERSON CITY -- Several Southeast Missouri legislators are expressing strong support for Gov. Mel Carnahan's call for additional prisons, but they also think the needs should be looked at from a broader perspective.

"There is no question we need more bed space," Sen. Danny Staples, D-Eminence, said. "But I hate to see us in a position where we build a new prison every year."

Staples is a longtime member of the Joint Committee on Correctional Institutions and Problems.

Staples thinks state officials need to focus on the big picture right now and do more long-range planning for correctional institutions. The senator said the planning process should include alternatives to the state simply building more prisons.

Staples has two prisons in his 20th District, including a maximum security facility at Potosi, which was completed several years ago on a lease-purchase arrangement.

It is the only prison the state has built that way, Staples said, although the governor is proposing another one in next year's budget.

But Rep. Larry Thomason, D-Kennett, said lease-purchase is the most expensive way to build a prison. Thomason prefers a pay-as-you-go approach, but said even building prisons my issuing bonds is less expensive than through a lease-purchase arrangement.

Some states have turned to the private sector to build prison facilities and then pay so much a day for each inmate housed there.

That is just the type of alternative Thomason said the state should examine.

Staples agreed it is worth taking a look at.

"The private sector seems to be able to construct prisons and facilities a lot cheaper than the state can," he said. "I think maybe it is time we sat down and took a hard look at privitization."

Rep. Mary Kasten, R-Cape Girardeau, a member of the House Budget Committee, said it is apparent the need for additional prisons is only going to increase in the coming years.

"With the juvenile legislation we are considering and the trend toward serving longer sentences, I think we need to be looking at the whole perspective and see what other alternatives we have," she said.

Thomason said before he could support the governor's package, more detention facilities for juvenile offenders need to be considered.

"I fully support more adult beds, but doing adult beds without juvenile is just sticking your head in the sand," Thomason said. "One way to reduce overcrowding in the future is to keep juveniles from becoming problems as adults."

Thomason said judges in the Bootheel tell him they sentence juvenile offenders to serve time. But because there is no space for them, they wind up staying at home.

"When you sentence them and they stay at home, that is no punishment at all," he said. "What kind of message is that sending to these offenders?"

Staples said it seems like the state is destined to build a lot of new correctional institutions over the next few years.

"Judges, juries and prosecutors are all doing their jobs," he said. "Now we have to do ours. I'd hate to see $50 million prisons constructed all over the state, but right now there are just no alternatives."

He added that because of the difficulty coming up with the cash needed to build prisons, the state might be forced to continue financing prison construction.