By Christopher Swope

In recent years, a "tough-on-crime" mentality defined corrections
policies--for nonviolent drug offenders and murderers alike--nearly
everywhere in America. Politicians in state after state voted for
longer prison sentences, mandatory minimums and truth-in-sentencing
laws. Despite its liberal leanings, Maryland was no exception. And the
impact was predictable: Since 1988, Maryland's prison population has
nearly doubled, from 13,600 to nearly 24,000.

 Now, however, Maryland is ready to try a new approach. In April, the
state legislature passed a law that will divert many convicted
substance abusers away from pricey prison beds and into treatment
instead. At the same time, the state is beefing up education and
treatment programs for all inmates. Maryland is trying to put some
correcting back into corrections.

 Maryland isn't the only state that's re-thinking the harsher sides of
its punishment policies. In the past three years, about two-thirds of
all states have lowered prison sentences or begun steering convicts
into incarceration alternatives such as drug treatment or community
corrections programs--and in many cases, Republican governors and/or
legislators have been leading the way. Michigan recently repealed
mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. Kansas last year mandated
treatment for first-time drug abusers. And Connecticut this year
loosened parole rules for nonviolent felons. There's a new shorthand
phrase lawmakers of all stripes use to sell these policies to their
constituents. Now they're getting "smart on crime."

REFORM FROM THE RIGHT

 Ironically, Republicans are best positioned politically to make that
point. They've done such an effective job of branding Democrats as
"soft on crime" that sentencing reform in many states had to come from
the right, not the left. That's what happened in Texas, where Ray
Allen, the Republican who chairs the House Corrections Committee,
persuaded tough-talking conservatives to divert thousands of drug
abusers out of prison and into treatment. "It opened up a real un-
Republican can of worms for me," Allen says. "It was like Nixon going
to China. Some of my colleagues said, 'Ray, what are you doing?' And I
said, 'The only thing we can do.' We don't have the money to lock
everybody up."

 As in many states, the sentencing debate in Texas began with the
budget. Facing a massive deficit last year, the legislature lopped
$240 million from the two-year prison budget. As Allen scrounged for
budget cuts, two facts jumped out at him. The first was that Texas had
locked up more than 4,000 people on first-time drug-possession
charges. That meant the state was spending millions of dollars, as
Allen puts it, incarcerating people caught with less than a Sweet'N
Low-size packet of cocaine or methamphetamine. The second fact had to
do with the equity of sentencing around the state. It seems half of
these first-timers were coming out of just one jurisdiction: Harris
County. "What began as a budgetary search for expenses to cut," Allen
says, "turned into some real questioning of what are we doing and why
are we doing it."

 Allen had seen members of his own family recover from drug
addictions, and came to believe that first-time offenders deserved a
shot at treatment before incarceration. His bill gave judges a range
of sentencing options, from outpatient treatment to intensive
inpatient care for the most serious addicts. The shift is projected to
save Texas $117 million over five years. Allen is confident that it
will also prove to be more effective public policy. "If we have to
make choices, then low-level first-time offenders are the easy choice
to make," Allen says. "There's ample research showing that drug
treatment is more effective at stopping crime." 

 Some critics, however, argue that Texas and many other states are
taking too simplistic an approach--making the same kind of mistake by
diverting whole classes of criminals from prison that they did by
putting them behind bars in the first place. "The pressure is there to
free up beds," says Richard Kern, director of Virginia's sentencing
commission. "But there's no sound methodology regarding how they're
doing it."

 Virginia was revisiting its sentencing priorities long before the
fiscal crisis hit. It began switching to a data-driven approach to
sentencing back in the mid-1990s. At the time, Virginia had just
adopted a truth-in-sentencing law requiring violent felons to serve at
least 85 percent of their sentences. Knowing that lockups would
quickly fill with violent offenders, Kern's commission set out to free
some space by reducing prison time for non-violent felons. Virginia
still wound up building some new prisons, but not at the budget-
busting rate that other states did.

A THERAPEUTIC APPROACH

 Maryland, too, is stepping up its individual assessment of criminals.
The difference is that in Maryland the plan is for that to happen in
prison, rather than in court. As part of a pilot program known as
RESTART, all incoming prisoners will be evaluated for drug problems
and mental illnesses. Case managers will tailor a treatment plan for
each inmate, and begin making plans for housing, jobs and other
transition issues nine months before release. Overall, it's a more
therapeutic approach to hard time than Maryland has been accustomed to
recently. "Guess what, 95 to 98 percent of inmates are coming out
sooner or later," says corrections chief Mary Ann Saar. "We never
asked ourselves what condition do we want these people in when they
come out."

 In Maryland's case, Saar insists, these changes aren't budget-driven
at all. In fact, they'll cost at least $3 million more up front for
expanding drug treatment services. If there's a cost savings, it will
only become evident a few years from now--and that is only if the new
philosophy actually stops ex-cons from becoming cons again. "The cycle
has been addiction, offense, incarceration, keep the addiction, get
out and re-offend," says Governor Ehrlich. "We didn't understand the
importance of treatment behind the wall."