“It’s like déjÀ vu all over again,” Yogi Berra

Another new prison?

Key lawmakers huddled behind closed doors at the State House last week to hear consultants suggest ways the state might reduce its swelling prison population by 500 inmates and ease the expected budget deficit for next year.

The scene was reminiscent of high-level meetings held a decade ago at the State House — and a decade before that as well — as the state persistently struggles with the rising number of criminals and the costs to imprison them.

There also came a familiar warning. This time from The Justice Center of the Council of State Governments: unless policymakers embrace more alternatives to incarceration “the state will be required to spend an additional $300 million in operating costs at the ACI over the next 10 years to accommodate the projected increase in prison population.”

That’s $300 million to build new prison beds. It does not include the millions additionally needed to operate and supervise them.

How did the state get here? Again?

Rhode Island, like most states around the country, is struggling with the ramifications of 20 years of get-tough-on-crime strategies, says a February report by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

If the trend continues, America will have 1.7 million people behind bars by 2011, an increase of 192,000 from 2006 and reflecting a growth rate three times faster than the country’s overall population growth. The increase alone would cost states more than $27 billion in new prisons and operations.

Only three states — New York, Connecticut and Delaware — expect their prison populations to remain steady during that time, the Pew report says. Those states have turned toward other, more economical approaches than the lock-’em-up philosophy of years passed.

IN THE EARLY 1980s, as drug-related crime rose nationally with the popularity of cocaine, the federal government responded with its War on Drugs campaign. The Reagan administration pushed for, and Congress passed, mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders and allocated millions of dollars to states for new prisons.

The strategy reverberated down to the state level, says Corrections Director A.T. Wall.

The General Assembly in 1986 increased penalties for minor drug violations, and the Rhode Island Parole Board tightened its guidelines, requiring drug offenders to serve more time before being eligible for release. Only about 20 percent of inmates going before the Parole Board were granted freedom then, compared with about 33 percent today.

Two years later, in 1988, the General Assembly passed legislation making possession of as little as 1 ounce of heroin or cocaine subject to a minimum sentence of 10 years.

That same year voters amended the state Constitution to allow judges to deny bail to those charged with drug offenses — a significant measure. About one-third of all new commitments to the Adult Correctional Institutions today are held without bail on drug charges.

At the same time, state prosecutors also began vigorously demanding that judges hold potential probation violators without bail, pending investigation of their cases.

All these steps, says Wall, had staggering implications.

Between 1986 and 1990, the ACI population surged upward by 85 percent, reaching 2,495, according to Corrections Department statistics.

A federal court judge declared conditions at the ACI unconstitutional and demanded changes. A building boom began.

In 1990, the state opened a $65-million medium security prison with 600 beds.

In 1991, a $34-million addition to the Intake Service Center, where suspects awaiting trial are held, opened with 784 new beds.

With almost 1,400 new beds, essentially doubling the ACI’s capacity, the state prison enjoyed a surplus of beds. For two years it rented out 75 beds to house North Carolina inmates in Cranston.

But the get-tough-on-crime policies continued. And soon enough, by 1995, the state was running out of prison space again.

Various consultants warned that the state would not be able to build its way out of the problem. It would need to look seriously at other alternatives, such as community confinement programs, halfway houses and better rehabilitation to prevent repeat offenders from returning.

Between 1997 and this year, the ACI population increased 15 percent to its historic highs of today.

Last week the population hovered around 3,797 — or about 95 percent of its “operational” capacity of 3,892. Under the limits of the federal court agreement, corrections officials can squeeze in another 193 inmates if every single bed is used, including those in infirmaries and solitary confinement.

Consultants from The Justice Center say the ACI population will increase another 21 percent in the next 10 years.

“The trend has been clear for the last 20 years,” says Wall. “There may be annual fluctuations but the growth continues. The question is: are we going to make the investments now to moderate that growth? If we don’t, we are essentially making the decision to spend another additional $300 million over the next 10 years.”

WALL SAYS it’s time to look at other options. Among them:

•Expand the eligibility for home confinement so more offenders can serve their time at home.

•Offer better transitional services and drug treatment to keep convicts out of prison.

•Use parole and probation programs more effectively so high-risk convicts are better watched and provided services to prevent them from committing crimes again. Wall says the cost would depend on which programs key lawmakers chose to pursue. But there is consensus on the national level, at least, that these measures are less expensive and more successful than incarceration, says the Pew Charitable Trusts study.

Wall’s recommendations echo what the Justice Center consultants told lawmakers last week.

They found that the average felon in Rhode Island is on probation for five years, which is about twice as long as the national average. Consequently, Rhode Island has the second highest rate of people on probation — about 3 percent of the state’s adult population — and a large potential pool of inmates if they violate probation conditions.

The state also has the third highest percentage of people needing but not receiving drug treatment in the United States, the Justice Center said.

Further, 31 percent of sentenced offenders released from the ACI are imprisoned again within one year — a rate that is 10 percent higher than the national average. Half of all offenders will return to prison within three years at an average annual cost of about $40,000 per inmate.

“Under the circumstances,” says Wall, “the time is right to take a new look at the department’s policy. If we don’t begin that process now then we are, in effect, making a decision.”

To build.

tmooney@projo.com