‘Middle Court’ can help save money, increase safety

GOOD NEWS, taxpayers: The state of South Carolina — already spending $40 million less than in 1999 — will spend $7 million less than that to lock up prisoners next year.

Bad news: That’s not because we’ll be providing around-the-clock care for fewer inmates; projections are that we’ll have 300 more. It’s because in the state that already spends less per inmate than any other, we’ll be spending less still. Not because prison officials say they don’t need as much money, but simply because in a tight budget year, lawmakers have other priorities.

Frankly, we have other priorities as well. We suspect most South Carolinians do. But once you put people in prison, you have an obligation to feed and clothe them and provide them with medical care — and to provide enough guards to keep them from rioting or escaping.

That’s why it’s so maddening that legislators are resisting a plan that would almost certainly reduce the inmate population, and thus the tax dollars we have to spend on prisoners, and at the same time make our state safer — by diverting first-time, non-violent offenders into an intensive-parole-type program.

Until recently, alternative sentences were mostly just theory in our state. But Attorney General Henry McMaster has fleshed out the theory with his “Middle Court,” which would operate much like drug courts, combining individual attention with certain punishment for anyone who breaks the rules. Offenders would appear regularly before a judge, where they and others would report their progress on education, job skills, drug treatment, public service, restitution and whatever else the judge ordered them to tackle. The judge could throw them in jail for a few days or have their original prison sentence imposed if they didn’t cooperate.

It would cost money to start with — although precious little compared to the $340 million we’re spending to run the prisons this year — but the savings would outweigh those initial costs quickly, perhaps even within a few months.

In fairness to legislators, the plan’s backers haven’t given them an opportunity to consider the Middle Court on its own. They propose to add it to another McMaster initiative, a plan to abolish parole and require all inmates to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences.

Lawmakers are justifiably hesitant about abolishing parole: The financial cost alone could be extraordinary, and prison officials warn that reducing their ability to reward good behavior could make prisons more dangerous, by taking away inmates’ incentive to behave. If that happens, expect even higher costs — in salaries for more guards, or guards and inmates injured or killed, and perhaps even harm to the larger public as a result of more escapes.

But there’s no good reason to hold back on the Middle Court. We understand that Mr. McMaster sees this as a package, and it does have the political appeal of giving something to the tough-on-crime group in exchange for giving something to the rehabilitation crowd. But there is no good reason for even the staunchest lock-em-uppers to oppose a Middle Court, to which prosecutors control access, and that allows judges to ship a participant off to prison on the spot.

It’s one of those nothing-to-lose-but-everything-to-gain ideas. If it doesn’t result in declining prison populations and a safer state, we can shut it down; if it does, those of us who worry about no-parole would have a harder time arguing that it would bankrupt our state.