PROVIDENCE — The state Senate voted yesterday to give judges more discretion in sentencing drug offenders by eliminating mandatory minimum sentences.

Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, a Providence Democrat who cosponsored the bill, deemed the vote “a watershed moment in the criminal drug sentencing history of our state.”

Four days ago, the state prison census set yet another new record, topping out at 3,889, just three beds shy of its operational capacity. The cost is growing along with the population: The budget the Senate approved this week contains $188 million for the Department of Corrections, a 13-percent increase over 10 years after adjusting for inflation.

Lawmakers have reasons beyond the financial for approving the measure. An estimated 70 percent of state prison inmates have problems with drug or alcohol abuse. This bill would allow a judge to send an offender straight to treatment, bypassing prison, if the judge believes addiction was the chief motivating factor in the crime.

The House is scheduled to consider the companion bill today. “You can’t just keep throwing everybody in jail,” Rep. Donald J. Lally Jr., D-Narragansett, said yesterday. Lally heads the Judiciary Committee that voted Tuesday to send the bill to the floor.

The bill significantly decreases the maximum sentences for major drug offenses; the state police opposed the bill on those grounds. The bill’s backers said a 20-year or 30-year sentence — the proposed new maximums for different categories of offenses — ruins a person’s life just as much as a 50-year sentence or a life sentence — the current maximums — would, and therefore serves as just as much of a deterrent. And, they said, the authorities would still have the option of prosecuting offenders in the federal system in cases where federal law carries harsher penalties.

Several other bills aimed at decreasing the prison population are wending their way through the legislature. One, by Rep. J. Patrick O’Neill, D-Pawtucket, would let sentencing judges waive overnight incarceration at the Adult Correctional Institutions for people sentenced to home confinement.

O’Neill, who works as a criminal defense lawyer, said offenders who are sentenced to home confinement are taken from the courthouse to the ACI, where they spend the night, then attend an orientation the next morning to learn the rules of the program; O’Neill says there’s no reason they can’t complete the orientation the same day.

Public Defender John J. Hardiman submitted a letter of support for the measure, saying the intent of home confinement is to allow carefully chosen nonviolent offenders “to continue with school, employment, family obligations and the rehabilitative process.”

About 100 offenders a month are placed on home confinement, with each of those offenders spending one night in prison, according to the Department of Corrections.

But the department says O’Neill’s proposal — which has passed the full House and cleared a Senate committee yesterday — may not be much of a money saver. “By the time offenders are transported from court to the ACI and then ready for pick-up to be placed on home confinement, it may be 7 o’clock to 9 o’clock at night,” Jeffrey D. Renzi, the department’s associate director for community corrections, wrote in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee.

Renzi said the department would need to hire additional staff for the evening shift if the bill becomes law, and noted that a correctional officer’s annual salary, including fringe benefits, is $70,000.

He said releasing people onto home confinement in the evening, as opposed to during the day, “places more of a burden” on the sponsor or family member coming to pick up the offender.

Renzi’s concerns notwithstanding, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved O’Neill’s bill, which has passed the House, yesterday.

Also yesterday, the Senate approved a measure to give inmates bigger sentence reductions for good behavior. The bill would give inmates up to 10 days of credit per month, versus the one day per month currently allowed. The bill also opens up the so-called “good time” system to anyone with a sentence longer than one month, compared to six months in current law.

The measure is expected to reduce the prison census by 84 within a year, and an additional 110 the following year, Richard J. Frechette, a Department of Corrections project manager for prisoner reentry, said yesterday.

Two other bills aimed at shrinking the prison population appear to have a chance of passing before the General Assembly adjourns, which could happen as soon as tomorrow. A bill designed to cut down on debt-related incarceration — keeping people in prison solely because they lack the money to pay court fines — had been referred to the House Judiciary Committee, but not yet posted for a vote, yesterday evening. And the House will vote today on a proposal to change the law so a probation violation is automatically dismissed if a person is not convicted of the criminal charge that constituted the violation.

egudrais@projo.com