Make the time fit the crime
By John Temple Ligon temple@thecolumbiastar.com

South Carolina Attorney General Henry Dargan McMaster wants to reduce the state's prison population and shrink the system's overhead, all the while administering more suitable sentencing to felons.

The U.S. Congress eliminated parole for federal inmates beginning in 1987. Virginia did something similar in 1994.

In 1995, Gov. David Beasley signed a bill into law abolishing parole for most serious crimes in South Carolina. These were the most violent crimes committed as Class A and Class B felonies. Criminals convicted of Class A and B felonies with at least 20- year sentences must serve at least 85 percent of those sentences.

In Virginia, between 1985 and 1995, the state's prison population increased by 154 percent. After Virginia dropped parole in 1994, the prison population grew by only 31 percent from 1995 through 2004. This growth was a considerable drop in the number of prisoners compared with estimates before the decade and a great saving in total prison costs projected for the state.

McMaster wants to abolish parole for Class C, D, E, and F felonies with expectations ahead of what happened in Virginia. The convicted criminals would have to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences.

Attorney General Henry McMaster

State prisoners are costing S.C. almost $19,000 per year, while the country's average annual cost is about $24,000. The U.S. leads the world in incarceration, and S.C.'s incarceration rate is one of the country's highest. The U.S. has more than 1 in 100 of its adults behind bars, the highest proportion on the planet, which leaves us a prison population of 2.3 million. Second in the world is China and its 1.1 million prisoners. However, China, has a total population of 1.3 billion, and our 2.3 million prisoners come from a population of a little more than 300 million people.

Between 1980 and 2000, higher education spending in the U.S. rose 21 percent. During the same time, spending on the country's corrections shot up by 127 percent.

In a national context and in full awareness of Virginia's success, McMaster is asking South Carolina to take a national leadership position. Abolishing parole is proposed as one part of the McMaster plan.

The other part is to establish Middle Courts, a system somewhere between Circuit Court and Magistrate Court. McMaster's Middle Courts would be unique in the nation, which portends a success rate ahead of Virginia's. This is already being done with the state's Drug Courts where self- inflicted selfdestruction is treated administratively by judges and is dealt with directly without prisons but with the threat of prison time if the convicted fails to cooperate.

South Carolina Drug Courts are a success, and the rates of success run from 35 percent to 70 percent, ending up with people going through drug treatment programs, going to school, or getting a job instead of spending 24/7 in prison at $19,000 a year. Prisoner count is considerably less than what would have happened under the old days of "lock up the druggie and throw away the key." A sentence can carry realistic fines that get paid since the convicted can work on the job in the private sector making a living instead of sitting in prison forming a career criminal.

Again, Virginia's prison population fell from a growth rate of 154 percent down to 31 percent 10 years after parole was abolished. And that accomplishment was without McMaster's Middle Courts, a system that can operate for a whole lot less than incarceration. A Middle Court administrative overhead of no more than $2,500 per sentenced subject, according to McMaster, is a lot lower than the $19,000 for keeping one inmate in prison.

Potentially in a future South Carolina, 10 percent off the state's projected prison population can translate to real money. If 2,400 criminals at $19,000 each are taken from the current total of 24,000 inmates, and Middle Court administrative costs of $2,500 per inmate are added in, then the savings in the first year would be nearly $40 million.