Banner Graphic, Volume 18, Number 83, Greencastle, Putnam County, 14 December 1987 — Page 2

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THE BANNERGRAPHIC December 14,1987

Indiana officials fear crisis with overcrowded prisons

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) The rapid increase in Indiana’s inmate population and growth projections that show three to five new prisons may be needed by the year 2000 will force Hoosier lawmakers to confront some tough choices, legislators and correction officials say. In 1988 and 1989, lawmakers will have to decide whether they want to foot the bill for continued tough law and order or authorize new correctional alternatives on a range of issues from sentencing to prison operation, key legislators predict. “This is an issue that hasn’t really publicly surfaced in a broad sense,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Edward A. Pease, RBrazil. “We’ve had some flare-ups like a court order here or a prison uprising there, but we haven’t had a general awareness that there are and will be problems because of the increasing population.” NEW STATISTICS and projections compiled by the Department of Correction show how rapidly the state’s inmate population has grown: —The total adult inmate population was at an all-time high of 10,507 on July 1. That is more than twice the 4,996 population in 1979. —At mid-year, the capacity of the system was 9,802, which means there was a 7.1 percent overcrowding rate. —The prison system has a nei gain of about 400 inmates per year, and the rate of increase is growing. —The population is projected to increase to 14,928 by July 1995 and to 17,227 by 2000. —Using those projections, the department estimates that as much as $199.5 million must be spent on new facilities before the turn of the century. “The tomorrow that we’re putting things off for has come to pass,” said Vaughn Overstreet, executive assistant to acting DOC Commissioner John Shettle and the department’s legislative liaison. Pease said he believes the projections are realistic.

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SEN. ED PEASE Public not aware

“IF IT WERE JUST some bureaucrat putting together a report to get more money, that would be one thing,” he said. “But there’s a track record there to show that it’s not idle talk.” The beginning of the population explosion coincided with the revision and implementation of a tougher criminal code in 1977-78, lawmakers and correction officials said. The new code called for more determinant sentencing, which meant that judges had less discretion to waive some of the jail time for specific'crimes. The result is that more people are going to prison and they are staying longer, Overstreet said. Other criminal law changes such as tougher drunken driving statutes and the habitual criminal law that allows jail time to be added on top of sentences for chronic offenders have also swelled the prison population. The department and the Legislature have already taken steps to deal with the population problem by increasing the emphasis on work-release programs and community corrections and by paying county jails to house many misdemeanor offenders. THE PRISON system also has expanded rapidly, said House Ways and Means Chairman Patrick J.

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SEN. PATRICK KIELY DOC spending up

Kiely, R-Anderson. “In the 10 years prior to 1978, we spent something like $lO million on capital projects” in the department, said Kiely. “Since 1978, we’ve spent over $240 million.” Projects have included opening the Westville Correctional Center on the site of a former Department of Mental Health facility in northwest Indiana and adding on to the Indiana Reformatory. But the ability to expand the nine main correctional facilities further is limited, Overstreet noted. Any additional expansion at Westville, for example, would require a complete overhaul of support systems such as water and sewage treatment, he said. Federal court orders have capped the populations at prisons in Michigan City and Pendleton, he said. “We’ve reached almost the capacity of adding on to these situations,” he said. The department continues to look at other options such as taking over existing state mental institutions, hospitals or abandoned

Hoosier Congressmen traveling the world on taxpayer’s dollars

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Rep. Dan Burton spent the weekend in Nicaragua talking to both Sandinista and Contra leaders and receiving an update on the condition of downed American pilot James Denby. Burton, who returned to Washington Sunday night with seven other congressmen, said such foreign trips are necessary if lawmakers are to do their jobs well. “If I’m going to represent (constituents) well, I need to be informed. I need to vote properly, and this information will help me.” From the start of 1984 to present, members of Indiana’s congressonal delegation have taken 35 trips abroad at taxpayer expense, The Indianapolis Star reported Saturday. The newspaper based its data on expenses filed in the House Records and Registration Office, the secretary of the Senate, a survey of Indiana’s House and Senate members, and a report by the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen. BURTON IS listed as traveling to England, Israel, Italy, Honduras and Nicaragua, and, at partial government expense, to South Korea and the Philippines, since February 1985. Burton met Sunday night with a Sandinista leader who said Denby was doing well and would be seen

MERRY CHRISTMAS

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federal facilities, he said. Lawmakers also are exploring other options. PEASE HAS filed a proposal for the 1988 Legislature that calls for a pilot program to experiment with intensive probation as an alternative to prison sentences. Sen. Joseph V. Corcoran, RSeymour, is preparing a bill that would allow the state to hire a private contractor to build and operate the next correctional facility to see if that approach would save the state matey. Pease also is sponsoring a bill to give the DOC more latitude in assigning prisoners to medium -or maximum-security beds. “We’re going to have tc look at the whole system determinate sentencing, probation, community corrections, giving judges back some discretion,” said Kiely. “Clearly, we’re not going to be able to afford three to five new prisons. Something’s going to have to give,” he said. The solutions may not be easy, financially or politically, the lawmakers said. “It’s going to cost a lot of money. The problem is how you deliver punishment for the best return on the dollar,” said Kiely, who predicted the next major spending decisions on corrections will be made in the 1989 session. Kiely noted that many legislators who take tough law-and-order stands are also fiscal conservatives who don’t want to spend money. Pease said some lawmakers who propose solutions are unfairly characterized as “bleeding hearts who want to let people out of jail.” “Corrections is the kind of thing that folks would just as soon not have to deal with,” he said. “In a way, that’s a reflection of societal attitudes. People want to lock them up and forget about them.”

in public this week. Denby, 57, of Carlinville, 111., was shot down last week while flying his Cessna plane over Nicaragua. The Sandinistas accuse him of spying, but he has not been formally charged. The Indianapolis Republican says that whenever possible he tries to arrange his travel through private, non-profit groups who are willing to foot the bill, instead of taxpayers. “IF THERE IS some foundation or organization that wants to do something that I think is in the - scope of my responsibilities ... I’ll do it so long as there is not some kind of quid pro quo where I’m supposed to do something for the money,” Burton said. In the Star study, Democratic Reps. Philip Sharp, James Jontz and Andrew Jacobs and Republican John Hiler are listed as taking no trips. Jacobs says some, but not all, foreign trips are necessary. “What I do find curious, however, is when a committee decides it can’t perform its work in a room in the Capitol but instead needs to perform its work on some military base in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and it just happens in the dead of winter,” Jacobs said. “You find that coincidence often,” he said.

Winter storm wreaks havoc in west, plains

A powerful snowstorm howled through the southern Plains today after stranding hundreds of motorists from Arizona to Oklahoma, leaving 5foot drifts in New Mexico and killing at least three people. In California, meanwhile, winds up to 80 mph Sunday flipped over small airplanes parked at Los Angeles-area airports, knocked out power to more than 300,000 customers and snapped dozens of utility poles. The storm dumped 19 inches of snow Sunday on parts of New Mexico, where 7,000 people were left without electricity, and more than 16 inches in Colorado, where a 70-car pileup in Denver was blamed on the weather. Parts of Kansas and Missouri were expected to get up to a foot of snow as the storm continued on its northeastern path. THE STORM SHOULD move into the upper Midwest by tonight, with warnings for more than 6 inches of snow posted for Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, the National Weather Service said. “It’s a strong storm system,” Hugh Crowther of the weather service’s Severe Storms Center said early today. “For most of these areas it will be the first really major storm of the season.” Severe weather including thunderstorms and possibly tornadoes was expected today in southeastern Texas, Louisiana, southern Arkansas and Mississippi, he said. New Mexico appeared to be the hardest hit Sunday. The storm dumped up to 19 inches of snow on parts of the state, and high winds piled drifts 5 feet deep in the Estancia area, about 40 miles southeast of Albuquerque.

Congressmen who frequently travel abroad are usually members of the Senate and House appropriations and armed services committees or the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, such as Burton. REP. JOHN T. MYERS, a Republican member of the House Appropriations Committee, the Ethics Committee and Post Office and Civil Service Committee, is listed as having traveled extensively since June 1984. Myers’ itinerary during that time included France, South Korea, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, the Philippines, Ireland, Greece, Turkey, Kenya, Niger, Portugal, Sudan, South Africa, Zaire, Senegal, the Netherlands, Poland, Czechoslovakia, West Germany, Luxembourg, Algeria, Yemen, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Jordan, Thailand, Norway, the Soviet Union, Finland, Iceland, West Germany, Italy, England and Yugoslavia. Rep. Peter J. Visclosky traveled in July to Canada; fellow Democrat Francis X. McCloskey is listed as traveling to Vietnam, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia since January 1986. Democrat Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, is listed as having

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About 300 cars were abandoned along Interstate 40 east of Albuquerque, closing portions of the highway. Gov. Garrey Carruthers dispatched National Guard units to help police dig out vehicles. WINDS TO 91 mph sent the wind-chill readings in some areas of New Mexico below zero and downed power lines, leaving about 7,000 Albuquerque houses without electricity. In Arizona, about 30 campers, including a Boy Scout troop, were rescued Sunday after being trapped by snow. “They had plenty of food and warm clothing, but we wanted to get them down because we knew the forecast called for heavy snow for the area,” said Sgt. Calvin Stuart of the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office. In Colorado, more than 16 inches of snow fell on Rye, near Pueblo. No injuries were reported in the Denver pileup on snowy Interstate 70. Up to 13 inches of snow fell on the Texas Panhandle, and blowing snow cut visibility to a half-mile in some areas. El Paso International Airport closed briefly while runways were cleared. “It’s a real bad winter storm here, with dangerous, harsh conditions In California, winds flipped over three small airplanes at Ontario Airport, 40 miles east of Los Angeles, and several planes at Burbank Airport. THE WINDS caused the most damage in Rancho Cucamonga in San Bernardino County, where 80 utility poles snapped like matchsticks. Weather-related traffic accidents killed a man on Interstate 40 near Allenreed, Texas, and two people Saturday evening in New Mexico.

traveled to Luxembourg, Austria, England, France, West Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Italy in 1984 and Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Turkey and Austria in 1986. Republican Daniel R. Coats, who is on the Energy and Commerce Committee and Committee on Children, Youth and Families, is listed as traveling to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua in January 1987. AS CHAIRMAN of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1984 to 1986, Sen. Richard G. Lugar led many U.S. observer groups, including those that oversaw elections in the Philippines and Guatemala. He is also part of a Senate arms control observer team. Indiana’s senior senator said he always made a point of promoting Indiana trade at each stop. He had a special book on the Hoosier state printed and gave a copy to each foreign leader. Lugar, who is on the foreign relations and Agriculture committees, is listed as having traveled to England, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Guatemala, the Philippines, Costa Rica, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Bali, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji since July 1984. Sen. Dan Quayle, R-Ind., a member of the Armed Services, Budget, and Labor and Human Resources Committees, is listed has having traveled to West Germany, Switzerland, France and Israel in February 1985.

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