CRANSTON — A new law that treats 17-year-olds as adults on criminal charges may not save as much money as the governor and the General Assembly had hoped.

The 2007-2008 state budget, passed last month, assumes the change will save $3.6 million over the next 12 months by sending 17-year-olds to the Adult Correctional Institutions rather than the Rhode Island Training School, where the average cost of detention is higher.

As lawmakers contemplated the change, they relied on figures comparing the average cost of housing a youth at the Training School — $98,000 a year — and the average cost of housing an ACI inmate — $39,000 a year. The Training School is generally more expensive because it offers a wider range of educational and social services than the ACI.

But youths sent to the ACI don’t serve their sentences with the general population. They are put in the protective-custody unit, housed within the prison’s high-security center. Sometimes called “Super Max,” high security has the greatest degree of supervision of any of the state prison’s six buildings. It is also the most expensive. The average cost of keeping a prisoner there, not including administrative overhead or capital costs, is $100,552 a year.

The state may save money on probation costs if it is able to shrink the number of cases in the comparatively expensive juvenile system. But the budget for prisons only seems bound to increase.

“This was extremely ill thought out,” said Mimi Budnick, who lobbied for the advocacy group Direct Action for Rights and Equality against lowering the age of majority from 18 to 17. “I think the cost savings just aren’t going to be realized at all.”

In anticipation of more 17-year-old offenders beginning to arrive, the Department of Corrections has been examining its options for housing them at a lower cost while still protecting their safety. But with a prison that’s already filled close to capacity, those options are few.

The high-security center is expensive to run because its cell blocks are so small — 12 inmates, compared with 72 inmates per cellblock in the medium-security facility, and 80 to 116 at the intake center. Running each cellblock requires a minimum number of staff.

If the prison could consolidate two small cellblocks into one larger one and house minors there, it would save money on staffing. But the prison population continues to set new records. “At this point,” said Department of Corrections Director Ashbel T. Wall II, “we’re so close to capacity that we have no vacant cellblocks.”

Prior to the law change, the ACI housed a small number of inmates under age 18 — 5 people, as of June 30 — whose cases were waived out of the juvenile system because of the graveness of their crimes. Officials made a philosophical decision to house the young inmates in such a secure setting to protect them from hardened criminals and older inmates in general.

The prison already offers some services to address youths’ unique needs, including engaging the services of a psychologist and a dietitian. Officials are exploring contracting a pediatrician. Other than that, they are maintaining the status quo, keeping the minor inmates in protective custody.

“Our fundamental obligation here is to keep everybody safe,” said Wall. “We recognize that juveniles, by virtue of their size and lack of maturity, are more vulnerable.”

The minors housed at the ACI before the law changed were there for charges such as murder and first-degree child molestation. As minors begin to arrive on less-serious charges, Wall said, the prison will continue the current practice of referring them to protective custody immediately, so they aren’t required to stay at the intake center for more than a few hours.

“As we become more aware of the numbers of 17-year-olds and the types of individuals we receive,” Wall said, “we’ll adjust as needed.”

The prison moves youths from protective custody into the general population as soon as they turn 18. Adult inmates would be placed in protective custody if they have served as police informants or if their cases have gained notoriety and being housed with other inmates poses a threat to their safety.

The high-security center at the ACI has sterile white hallways and heavy blue metal doors that swing shut with a slam. High-security inmates aren’t allowed outside except for recreation periods — twice a day for one hour each time — in a small enclosed courtyard where the only vegetation is a few stray weeds growing from cracks in the blacktop.

They are allowed out of their cells for several hours each day, to take showers, eat meals, socialize and play cards. They can make phone calls — capped at 20 minutes — to a pre-approved set of numbers. They get up to five 90-minute visits each week, and visit the prison library three times a week.

Some hold on-site jobs — painting or cleaning, for instance — but the jobs must be inside the building.

Other than housing them in protective custody, there is no official policy for treating minors differently. They are subject to the same conditions as the adults in high security. But James Weeden, the warden in charge of the high-security center, said his correctional officers tend to watch out for the prison’s youngest inmates and treat them a bit more patiently.

“The staff understand that they’re kids and expect them to act like kids,” Weeden said. “The discipline process is probably a little more forgiving.”

PRISON OFFICIALS were already seeing the new law’s impact last week. Last Sunday, 17-year-old Johny Joseph was arrested in Central Falls on a robbery charge. Over the July 4 holiday, 17-year-old Stephanie Rivera was arrested in Providence on charges of shoplifting and disorderly conduct. Thomas Edwards, also 17, was arrested on a drug-possession charge. Rivera and Edwards each spent one night at the ACI; Joseph is still there.

At least initially, the change is expected to cause only a small increase in the overall number of inmates. Every 17-year-old who is arrested and charged now goes to state District Court, rather than Family Court. (Felony cases will ultimately end up in Superior Court.) But even youths who have juvenile records will be treated as first-time offenders, because their earlier records are confidential and not admissible as evidence in the adult system.

Lawmakers, the governor and corrections officials have all said they expect most of the arrested 17-year-olds to be placed on probation, rather than be incarcerated, if they are convicted.

Officials say it’s hard to predict the new law’s impact because it depends so heavily on judges’ sentencing decisions. At the Training School, the 17-and-over population numbered about 120 in March, but officials said that number does not necessarily represent the number of additional young inmates the ACI might eventually receive.

For one thing, the number includes youths who were sentenced when they were 16 or younger. Family Court still has jurisdiction over offenders younger than 17.

In addition, House Finance Committee Chairman Steven M. Costantino says he expects judges in the adult system will use probation in cases where a Family Court judge might have sentenced a youth to the Training School. “Not every kid in the Training School has committed a crime that is so severe that they need ACI incarceration,” Costantino said.

If more youths are sentenced to adult probation rather than prison time, the new law could result in a substantial savings for the state. Juvenile probation costs much more than adult probation — $4,000 per person per year for juveniles versus $900 for adults. Patricia Martinez, director of the Department of Children, Youth and Families, said juvenile probation is more expensive because DCYF probation officers have much smaller caseloads than their counterparts in the adult system.

As of March, there were about 700 youths age 17 to 21 on probation through DCYF. Again, this number won’t directly translate into 700 adult probation cases. Just as youths already at the Training School will complete their sentences there, youths on juvenile probation will complete their probation terms with DCYF. (Previously, state law allowed DCYF to retain jurisdiction through age 21 for sentences imposed before age 18, but that too changed last week. The Family Court can now sentence youths only through age 19 for any offense committed before age 17.)

OPPONENTS of trying 17-year-olds as adults contested the proposal as a child-protection issue and did not initially question whether the measure would actually save money.

When they realized lawmakers were serious about adopting the proposal, they began examining it more closely and raising objections, but by that time, the budget had come out of the Finance Committee, and the opportunity to make major changes had largely passed.

Wall says the Department of Corrections was not involved in crafting the cost-savings projections, which were part of the governor’s budget proposal. The governor’s office says it’s up to the General Assembly to revise projections if circumstances change. And Costantino says he relies on government officials and other interested parties to raise concerns during the months-long budget hearing process if projections don’t seem realistic.

Jeff Neal, a spokesman for Governor Carcieri, said the entire budget — including the projected cost savings associated with lowering the age of majority — was based on a goal of reducing the number of inmates by 500, and giving Corrections Director Wall the flexibility to get inmates out of some of the prison’s more expensive areas.

The 17-year-old issue is the tip of the iceberg at the Department of Corrections, whose fiscal 2008 budget assumes a population of 3,289 inmates. The daily average population in May was 3,822.

In a group that studied the issue this spring, officials from various arms of state government failed to agree on a solution. The Assembly did allocate $1 million for drug treatment for parolees, a program that could free roughly 30 inmates who are eligible for parole on the condition they get treatment.

The Assembly passed two laws that will also affect prison numbers — eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for drug charges and ending the practice of having offenders spend one night at the ACI after they’re sentenced to home confinement. The governor vetoed the first measure last week. As for the second measure, corrections officials say it may cause a slight drop in the number of inmates, but it will require additional staffing costs. They say the department will need more staff for the evening shift to conduct home-confinement orientations after offenders are returned from court.

Corrections officials expect to overspend the department’s $197-million annual budget by at least $4 million if population numbers don’t come down, according to Joanne M. Hill, associate director for financial resources for the Department of Corrections.

“There’s no evidence that the population is going to decline,” said Wall. “It is wreaking havoc with our budget. … I’m concerned that if the numbers continue to rise, that we are facing a looming operational and fiscal crisis here.”

Neal says the administration will watch the situation at the ACI closely. He said officials still hope to bring down prison costs eventually, but current conditions don’t allow it.

If there were extra space in the prison, and 17-year-olds could be kept together in a separate area, the new law would almost certainly be a money saver. But combined with everything else happening at the ACI, the financial implications are blurrier.

The measure’s impact “is directly affected by” the overall space crunch, Neal said. “You can’t look at it in a vacuum.”

egudrais@projo.com