MISSOURI INMATE POPULATIONS CONTINUES CLIMB

JEFFERSON CITY -- Concerns over a steady increase in the number of prison inmates has prompted Gov. Mel Carnahan to make additional prison beds a priority of his budget for Fiscal Year 1996.

But even if lawmakers approve funding for the 6,504 additional prison beds, administration officials say it will only keep pace with the projected growth of the male inmate population over the next five years.

Missouri's correctional institutions will still be overcrowded.

State Budget Director Mark Ward explained recently that over the last year the male inmate population in Missouri grew from 15,400 to 17,400.

He expects the trend to continue because "it is largely the product of what judges, juries and prosecutors are recommending," he said.

Asked if the increase was just short-term, Ward said it was much more than that.

"A month is a spurt," he said. "Two months is a spurt. But it has been like this for a year and that is a trend."

In 1999 the male population will grow to 27,500, and that assumes alternatives to incarceration will be used for some first-time, non-violent offenders.

State legislators are being asked to pay for a new 1,820 bed reception-diagnostic center on the eastern side of the state, and a new 1,975-bed free-standing prison somewhere in the state.

In addition, 2,709 additional beds will come from expansions of existing prisons. No decisions have been made on which institutions will be expanded.

The new diagnostic center would cost $94 million and be handled on a lease-purchase basis. The new prison will cost $79 million and be funded on a pay-as-you-go basis.

All the proposed expansions are in addition to $96.1 million that is part of a $250 million bond issue voters approved last year that is earmarked for correctional institutions.

Of that, $53 million is earmarked for a new 1,200-bed women's prison to replace the Renz facility destroyed by flooding, $19.7 million for 180 additional beds at Division of Youth Services facilities, and the rest for upgrading other facilities for prison use.

Further complicating the problem is that state legislators passed one of the toughest crime laws in the nation last year that require many inmates to serve a longer portion of their sentence. The impact of that legislation has not yet come through the system.

Another problem on the horizon is that there aren't enough beds for juvenile offenders to be incarcerated. Yet, state lawmakers are poised this year to pass stronger legislation for dealing with youthful offenders.

The governor, though calling for tougher laws dealing with juveniles, didn't address additional juvenile facilities in his budget.