Thursday, February 10, 2000
Ohio officials say new prison not necessary
BY ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS — After years of expansion, the Ohio prisons department doesn't need $82 million allocated for a new prison because of a drop in the number of inmates, a spokesman said Wednesday.
For the first time in 10 years, the department also isn't asking for new money for prison construction.
“When we were planning for a new prison, we had projections showing that by July 2000, we'd be over 54,000 inmates,” said Joe Andrews, spokesman for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. “What's happened is the population is going the other way.”
Ohio prisons housed 46,480 inmates as of Tuesday. That's down from the record high of 49,023 in July 1998 but 126 percent above the current 36,750, Mr. Andrews said.
The drop was a one-time phenomenon caused by the 1996 “truth in sentencing” law that shortened some sentences for less serious offenders. So the state will probably have to build a new prison someday, he said.
The news doesn't affect new prisons being built in Grafton, Conneaut and Toledo, Mr. Andrews said.
The Senate Finance Committee is considering final changes to the current capital budget before beginning talks on the 2001-02 capital budget. On Tuesday it approved the prisons' request to reallocate $10 million of the $82 million for planning a future prison.
But the committee recommended rolling the additional $72 million into the prisons department's upcoming capital budget request. That means the department will have to justify using the money for renovations.
Sen. Doug White, R-Manchester, Senate Finance Vice-Chairman, said he would support using the leftover money to fix up current prisons.
But Sen. Leigh Herington, D-Kent, said he and other lawmakers aren't so sure.
“If they do agree to do a new prison, and they don't do a new prison, they shouldn't feel as if that's their money,” Mr. Herington said. “Seventy million dollars could put a dent in two or three school districts.”
Of Ohio's 31 prisons, 25 were built in the 1980s or 1990s.
Any slowdown in prison growth is a good thing, said Jana Schroeder of the Dayton-based American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). The Quaker-affiliated group has long opposed new prison construction.
“We've always felt that as long as new facilities are being built, there will always be the possibility of incarcerating more people,” Ms. Schroeder, program director of the AFSC's Ohio Criminal Justice Program, said Wednesday.
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