By Greg Wright
Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON - Ohio had one of the highest prison construction rates in the nation during the 1980s and 1990s, a new report says, but state officials say budget cuts are forcing them to close some penitentiaries.

"We were building more prisons because the (inmate) population was increasing, and there was a need," said JoEllen Culp, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction in Columbus.

The number of prisons in Ohio more than tripled to 35 between 1979 and 2000, according to a report from the Urban Institute, a Washington-based, nonpartisan group that studies social and economic issues. Ohio was the fourth-largest prison-building state behind Texas, Colorado and Missouri.

Urban Institute officials said it was no surprise that states built more prisons because the number of people incarcerated increased by more than 1 million between 1980 and 2000. But the group said its report takes a closer look at where prisons were built and how local populations are affected.

Prisons have an economic benefit because they bring jobs and some federal money, said Jeremy Travis, an author of the Urban Institute report.

Federal spending often is pegged to an area's population. Since the Census Bureau adds the inmate population into a surrounding area's population, counties with prisons might be ahead when it comes to federal spending, Travis said.

But Ohio's prison construction boom might have hurt some urban neighborhoods because criminals from cities are often sent to prisons far from their hometown, said Peter Wagner, assistant director of the Prison Policy Initiative in Cincinnati.

So prison construction is causing some city neighborhoods to lose population and clout when it comes to federal spending, Wagner said.

That trend was evident in Ohio, the report said. Most Ohio prison inmates came from counties in the state's biggest cities - Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron and Dayton.

Yet only 4.6 percent of these inmates were incarcerated in these cities, the report said.

Meanwhile, Culp said the state's 21-year building boom is over. Ohio's prison population peaked at more than 49,000 in 1998, but dropped to 43,800 this year.

Budget cuts forced Ohio to close Orient Correctional Institution in the Columbus area in 2002. The state is also in the process of closing Lima Correctional Institution, which has 443 inmates, to save money, Culp said.

And no new prisons are on the drawing board, she said.