PRISON CROWDING: IT IS TIME TO CONSIDER BOLD ALTERNATIVES

Headlines in recent editions of newspapers across our state have made their point: "Missouri prison population booming." "Missouri prisons bulging." "Missouri prisons at 160 percent of capacity." Prison overcrowding, a problem that has affected many other states, is hitting Missouri with a vengeance. These are the facts:

-- When it opened in 1988, the Western Missouri Correctional Center at Cameron was designed for 1,075 inmates. Today, it houses 2,409 men. As officials of the Department of Corrections truck in portable toilets and squeeze cots into nearly any available space, prisoners continue to arrive.

-- A clothing factory at the Algoa Correctional Center was transformed into a dormitory for 400 prisoners.

-- A second bunk was added to most of the cells at Missouri's maximum-security prison in Potosi.

-- An old storage closet at the prison in Boonville was converted into showers, and inmates sleep in what used to be an auditorium and a kitchen.

-- Last month, the state's 16 prisons -- built to hold 10,763 inmates -- had 17,257 prisoners in custody. Six of the prisons have court-ordered caps on population, so the burden falls on the others.

-- Corrections officials had been used to a rate of increase in inmate population of three percent annually. In 1994 that number has already increased by more than 10 percent.

Several trends are converging to force us to face this fact. Department of Corrections director Donna Schriro said she believes the public's increased concern about crime has led to more detection by police and more aggressive prosecution in the courts. Others stress that 1994 is an election year, with judges and prosecutors trying to respond to public demands to get tough on crime.

Also a factor are recent changes in the state's driving-while-intoxicated law, including making it easier to classify a felon as a persistent offender. "The legislature says get tough on crime," an inmate told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "so the guy who goes out and writes a bad check with a previous DWI goes to prison. If the right people were in here, it wouldn't be overcrowded." Those convicted of DWI are now the fourth-largest category of new inmates, up from ninth just five years ago.

Still another complicating factor is a new law requiring violent criminals to serve 85 percent of their sentences. This law took effect just three months ago. Corrections officials are just beginning to deal with its impact.

It would seem a good time for lawmakers, judges, prosecutors and corrections officials to take a fresh look at just who it is we are sending to prison. Director Schriro says 75 percent of those entering prison have been convicted of nonviolent crimes such as property, drug and traffic offenses. Half of the ongoing prison population are nonviolent offenders, Schriro says.

It is clearly time for all these parties to conduct a thorough re-evaluation. Like their fellow citizens in other states, Missourians are demanding a serious crackdown on crime, especially violent crime. It goes almost without saying that when existing resources are pressed to the wall, more prison space will be needed. Some of this is on the way, as with the women's prison to be paid for through the $250 million bond issue voters approved last August. But that facility will replace the Renz facility lost in last year's flood.

In the meantime, it is essential for all officials involved to cooperate in filling our prisons with the most violent offenders. For others, it would seem time for some more creative approaches in sentencing. Ideas such as the private prisons proposed by former Lt. Gov. Ken Rothman will need to be looked at. And the public will need to understand that the much-heralded crackdown on crime won't come cheaply. If we continue adding prisoners at double-digit rates, we will have no choice but to build more prisons.