In his state of the state address, Governor John Lynch threw his support behind a plan to add 500 beds to the prison in Berlin. Many people think it's a good approach to reducing overcrowding. But others say while adding prison space might be the path of least resistance, it spends too much money on the wrong part of the problem. New Hampshire Public Radio's Jon Greenberg has more.
Plenty of people see lots of reasons to double the number of beds in Berlin.
The Concord men's prison has about 400 more inmates than it was built to handle. To Governor Lynch, this makes adding to Berlin a logical choice.
CUT LYNCH: The Berlin prison was built with the notion of expanding it. It was built in modular design which means that we can add on to it. I think it's a way that we can deal with our overcrowding we experience right here in Concord.
For Berlin City mayor, Bob Danderson, expanding the prison isn't just a good idea. It's a great idea. More beds mean more jobs.
CUT DANDERSON: The nice thing about the state prison, it's a job that provides benefits, retirement and good pay. And those are very hard to come by in the most northern district.
And for lawmakers like Representative David Welch, building in Berlin would save money. Welch says, there's no space at the Berlin prison to put people who break the rules into isolation cells. The current solution is to bus the offenders down to Concord.
CUT WELCH: Figure that out. The cost of the trip. How many correctional officers it takes to handle this individual. We'd save the cost of a minimum security building in, I'd say, two years, maybe three. By eliminating the need to cart people down to Concord for disciplinary reasons.
There's no way to check Welch's math. The department of corrections will give no estimate of the cost of the new beds. The original facility cost over 40 million dollars in principal and interest. But it was overbuilt, with the idea of expansion in mind. The addition would probably cost less but how much less, no one has said.
But there is one number which is not in doubt. The main reason the state has so many prisoners is because many of them have been there before. People who violate parole, and to a lesser extent, probation, account for over 40% of prison admissions. And most of those violations are what are called technical violations– not new crimes.
Former House Speaker Donna Sytek says this is why spending money on new beds misses the point.
CUT SYTEK: To have 40% of you admissions from people who are violating probation or parole. I mean, that's where I would look first.
Sytek's involvement with corrections policy dates back to when she was chair of the House Judiciary Committee and she remains engaged today. She says the real problem is the lack of drug treatment and vocational training to help inmates succeed on the outside -- more beds in Berlin won't meet that need.
But John Sanfilipo, Acting Director of Operations for the department of corrections, says the new space in Berlin would give the department the breathing room to work with inmates in new ways so that their trip to prison won't resemble a spin through a revolving door.
CUT SANFILIPO: We're not talking about increasing the number of beds, anticipating a larger number of offenders coming into our system. This is to handle the population that we presently have in place. And then to be able to unravel what we've got here and to be able to do more in the community and less in the institutions.
Sanfilipo imagines a future with comprehensive treatment programs inside and outside the prison walls. He'd like to transform the state prison in Laconia into a place where inmates would be sent to prepare them for the world of work.
But history offers a cautionary note.
Former House Speaker Sytek says the state has been here before. In 1998, she remembers the vote on the package deal that committed the state to the first 500 beds in Berlin.
CUT SYTEK: I came down from the speaker's rostrum and spoke in favor of the bill because it was a comprehensive bill. It was the 500 beds in Berlin. It had half-way houses. It had more probation and parole officers. We had thought it through and we said, this is the comprehensive solution to our problems. GREENBERG: You built the 500 beds. What happened to the halfway houses and probation-parole officers? SYTEK: Even though it was authorized, they didn't fill all the positions, they took back the money and they had real problems locating a halfway house. Nobody wants a halfway house in their neighborhood.
Sytek says, lawmakers find it easy to approve a prison built with borrowed money. And once it is built, the money to operate it is first in line. When budgets get tight, the money for programs to help inmates stay out of prison is the first to go.
In 1998, the year the Berlin prison was approved as part of a comprehensive plan to reduce the prison population, the state had about 2-1 hundred prisoners. Today, it has about 2-5 hundred.
The discussion on the expansion of Berlin will take place through the remainder of the session.
For NHPR News, I'm Jon Greenberg
