Kernan tours Indiana prison

INDIANAPOLIS -- Gov. Joe Kernan joined legislative leaders on a tour of two state prisons Wednesday and urged lawmakers to discuss ways to ease overcrowding that could include sentencing and parole reforms.\nThe governor toured a medium-security women's prison in Rockville and a low- to medium-security men's prison in Putnamville, both in western Indiana, to get a firsthand look at the crowding problem.\n"We come today with no solutions but instead the idea that we can work together, pool our resources and look for ways to impact the situation," Kernan told reporters after returning to his Statehouse office.\nKernan was joined on the prison tours by Democratic House Speaker Pat Bauer, Republican Senate President Pro Tem Bob Garton and Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard.\nIndiana prisons have room for about 16,000 inmates but are currently holding nearly 23,000, Kernan said.\nKernan, a Democrat, wants lawmakers and prison officials to discuss ways to reduce overcrowding. Those reforms could include revising the rules that judges must follow when sentencing criminals and changing some parole policies.\nBauer said long sentences for drug crimes were at least partially to blame for the increase in inmate populations and suggested lawmakers consider offering more discretion to judges to impose shorter sentences when appropriate.\nBauer and Garton agreed the Legislature should conduct a review of regulations that sometimes require lengthy prison terms for possession of relatively small amounts of illegal drugs.\n"It may be time to revisit what the rush to judgment was starting about a decade ago," Bauer said, referring to passage of harsher drug penalties in the late 1980s and early 1990s. "I think that has to be on the table."\nIf existing sentencing guidelines are left in place, "we'll just have to have a building program that we add two or three more prisons every year, and that will become our economic-development program," Bauer said.\nKernan said he would rather not spend money on new prisons, preferring instead to find cheaper alternatives that might permit some offenders to be released early if they complete drug-treatment or education programs.\nAbout 1,800 new beds are sitting unused at prisons in Miami County and New Castle. The late Gov. Frank O'Bannon wanted to open those beds, but lawmakers approved a budget last spring without any money to do so.\nKernan said he did not discuss that issue with legislative leaders Wednesday but indicated the extra beds were among the ideas that could be considered when lawmakers reconvene.