THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Thursday, January 9, 1997             TAG: 9701090354
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 
SOURCE: BY DENNIS PATTERSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: RALEIGH                           LENGTH:   47 lines

MORE SPACE, SENTENCE LAWS SOLVED PRISON CROWDING, OFFICIAL SAYS

North Carolina's longstanding problem with prison overcrowding could be resolved by the end of the year, Correction Secretary Franklin Freeman told a legislative panel Wednesday.

``This year we're going to get over the hill on this issue,'' Freeman told the Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations. ``We will be in balance in the prison system by the end of the year.''

Freeman said ``in balance'' means that there will be enough space to house the criminals sent to prison by the court system.

The state will add 3,000 beds to its prison system in the next six months, he said.

Those beds are part of a massive building program the state began in the 1980s as it faced a federal lawsuit on prison overcrowding. The state settled the lawsuit, agreeing to eliminate dormitories with bunk beds stacked three-high.

It also began releasing inmates early to free up beds for prisoners entering the system. And it rented prison space in other states to house North Carolina inmates.

The out-of-state rentals are coming to an end, Freeman said.

``We certainly should be out of the out-of-state business by the end of the year, if not sooner,'' he said.

More than 500 prisoners kept in Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee have been returned to North Carolina prisons since October, he said. The last prisoners from Texas will be back in the state before the end of the month.

In response to crowded prisons, lawmakers also approved ``structured sentencing,'' a program that reserves prison space for violent, repeat offenders. Nonviolent offenders facing a first or second conviction are sentenced to intensive probation, electronic house arrest or other alternatives to prison.

``We're getting in better shape because of structured sentencing,'' Freeman said. ``The admissions, as predicted, are starting to decline.''

Courts were sending 30,000 inmates a year to the prison system in the early 1990s, Freeman said. With structured sentencing, the admission rate has dropped to less than 25,000 a year.

As a result of the new prisons, new sentencing laws and a relatively flat crime rate, the state Sentencing Policy and Advisory Commission predicted that North Carolina prisons will have 2,000 empty beds by 1998 and as many as 5,500 by 2000.