Prison Funding

State lawmakers created the overcrowding and funding problem currently plaguing state prisons and jails. State senators decided last week they aren't going to fix it.

South Carolina lawmakers have been requiring longer sentences and stricter sentencing guidelines for years. They have sought to establish their tough-on-crime credentials by making sure more people went to prison and stayed longer.

Yet they were also quick to cut funding for the state Department of Corrections. It's hard to believe they couldn't see the obvious contradiction in these moves. But a decision by the Senate Finance Committee shows they still don't get it.

Friday, the committee voted to cut the Corrections Department's budget again. It decided to include $1.9 million for additional capacity and staff, but then it voted to cut $4.5 million from the rest of the department's budget.

State Sen. Glenn Reese, D-Spartanburg, a member of the committee, says the cuts "shouldn't affect the operations of the prisons." He explained: "These are cuts for maintenance, communications and vehicles."
Does Reese really believe that maintaining facilities, communications and transportation are not vital to the operations of prisons and won't have any effect?

Corrections Director Jon Ozmint calls the cuts "a recipe for disaster." He says he needs the money to replace worn-out locks, broken radios and cameras and unsafe vehicles.

Reese and his cohorts need to recognize that there are consequences to their actions. They can't continue to pile people into state prisons while they starve those prisons of funds and expect those facilities to remain stable and secure.

They will invite state or federal courts to come in and oversee the state prison system again. Or worse, there will be an incident of violence in a prison. If that incident results in a guard being harmed, lawmakers will be responsible. The state asks its prison guards to do a difficult job. When it refuses to provide the support necessary for them to do that job successfully, it has failed in its obligation to these employees and to the state as a whole.

It is difficult to understand the funding priorities of the Senate. It has more than $1.2 billion in new money to spend this year. Senators are unwilling to give more than a pittance back to taxpayers. They are only willing to make a minimum down payment on the unfunded obligation in the state retirement system, and they can't find $4.5 million to enhance security at the state's prisons.