European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 25, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                New York Almu Phalo 1 a -. A Tab Southern Irefej hons Allorte program la impose punishment other than prison on Leix Dan Getoff criminals. Alternative ways of punishing people by Dudley Clendinen new York times Ive Young men three burglars an arsonist and a car Thiel arrived at the Dodge correctional Institute last month with Long hair designer leans tattoos and an attitude of Independent swagger. In Short order the swagger was gone their hair was shorn to a nub. Their clothes jewelry and cigarette lighters disappeared into Gray plastic bags. Stripped showered and Del used they were ordered into the baggy impersonal uniforms of prison and termed a line in troll of it. James Combs a Lormer army Drill instructor Al fort Jackson. . Hold your head up he barked make believe you Are  that was their Welcome to a Georgia program Means to give Young criminals a Tough 90-Day experience of prison Lite that they will never wish to repeat. The program which the slate describes As Shock incarceration is one of a number of new measures being taken across he South to keep criminals out of overcrowded and increasingly expensive prisons. The Southern states which have always put a higher proportion of their population behind bars than any other Region have started programs to sentence thousands of convicts to confinement in their Homes to place hundreds in Community work centers to do City or county jobs end 10 impose various strict new probation standards on others. The intent is to find alternative ways of punishing people who Are not considered dangerous enough to be imprisoned. I think Whan you consider where we started there is no doubt that Here have been More changes in the South than have occurred in any other Region said Morris Thigpen commissioner of corrections in Mississippi and president Oltha association of stale correctional administrators. We re beginning to realize that none of our slates can afford to build prisons year after year Afler year the Federal courts which first began policing state prisons in Arkansas 15 years ago have also been an enormous Force for change there s no double that litigation Hes played a major role in ust about every one of the Stales Thigpen said citing South Carolina. Georgia Alabama. Florida Mississippi Louisiana Arkansas. Texas and Tennessee As states whose systems or individual prisons had coma under Federal court orders. The new program in Georgia was developed under corrections commissioner David c. Evans who went to Nashville last month to testify before a legislative committee seeking to determine How to bring order to a prison system so crowded thai a Federal judge barred new admissions. Tennessee like Georgia Alabama Mississippi and other states is creating new prison space bul Evans said our solution does t no locally with More Beds we have to have other  the Hallern of innovation has been uneven. In the overcrowded understaffed Texas prison system with 08,000 inmates the homicide Rale is so High that l was recently calculated Hal a texan living in a prison was six times As Likely to be murdered is he would be outside a prison but everywhere the realization is spreading thai new methods Are needed. We had this idea in Texas that we could Send them Down there lock them up and throw away the key said state representative Ray Keller chairman of the House Law enforcement committee. Now we know we have to do  tha Folk who Are managing corrections systems today Are basically change managers said William Wilkey chief of the prisons division of the National Institute of corrections in Washington. It s not the place to go o work ii you want to maintain the status  in Florida Over the last two years 7.400 convicted men and women have been sentenced to staying in their Homes except when they go to their jobs or perform Community service. They pay $30 a month toward administrative costs and Are monitored daily to assure thai they Are Al Home when they Are supposed to be. Home confinement says David e. Lang the program s supervisor has helped reduce the Rale of prison commitments by 180 a month. And officials like Jack Nichols administrator of parole and probation services in Dade county say the supervising is Tough not Token. He recalled a Case from Miami last year i m not saying i m proud of this he said. Some kid got five years in prison Lor going Down to the Corner and getting his aunt a Chicken dinner in a similar program in Alabama 800 convicts live at Home commuting to their jobs and paying $10 a week to the state plus any assigned Legal costs or restitution ordered by the court. Two thousand inmates have been through the program in the last two and half years and 13,250 More have lived under supervision in one i 11 state run centers paying 25 percent of their net wages to Alabama. Community work centers begun in a Small Way in the late 1970 s in Mississippi have proved so popular that two years ago the legislature authorized 12 More. There Are now 16, in Cilles end Lowns. They House nonviolent saturday january 25, 1966 inmates convicted of crimes like burglary or Helt. The convicts work for no pay each Day at City or county jobs collecting garbage maintaining water systems serving As emergency medical technicians in county ambulance systems or As dispatchers in sheriffs radio rooms. We be got Mare communities applying for these lha Nwe reauthorized to  Thigpen said. Mark d. Coni Gars director of the National Institute for sentencing alternatives based at Brandeis University in wat Ham mass. Said he saw important trends emerging in the South. Throughout the South he said the new programs share common characteristics. It s got to to Sale it s got to be Lough or punitive and in s got to be inexpensive said Corrigon. Whose Institute conducts workshops for stale officials. South Carolina where the prisons Are dangerously crowded has asked the Institute to help develop a statewide program of intensive probation supervision Lor people who would otherwise be sent to prison. The state Hal led tha Way Corrigan said was Georgia and the most common new program spreading across the South and the nation is modelled on the Georgia program of intensive supervision. Under the usual terms of probation a criminal might have two or three contacts with his probation officer each month some by Telephone and the probation Allicer May have 75 or More such cases to supervise. But under the intensive supervision policy the Allicer is required to see his client lace to face at least five times a week by Day and by night the officers work in teams of two. With a combined caseload of 25, and they have Broad Powers to discipline and help we re Given authority by the courts to Sel a curfew to change the hours to order someone into drug treatment or to put them under House arrest said Alan Adams an intensive probation supervisor in Atlanta. We can Lind these people jobs if they Are at All  and tha probationer know that ii they break probation Adams said they will be sent to prison. The program costs the Sale $4.50 a Day Lor each client As against $30.43 a Day to keep a person in prison. The probationers pay whatever restitution i he courts have ordered As viol As a probation Lee of $10 a month. This year Georgia estimates that ii will get $3.3 million in fees to help pay Lor the program. Developed administratively without need Lor financing or approval by the state legislature the intensive probation program is now capable each year of supervising about 2,000 of Georgia s less violent criminals who would other else go to prison. The stars and stripes Page 13