Stiffer meth sentences may open need for another prison

LINCOLN (AP) - Estimates by the state Department of Correctional Services suggest that the state will need another prison as a result of stiffer penalties for methamphetamine crimes.

"Based on our preliminary estimates, we feel like (LB117) may have a long-running impact" on state prison populations, said corrections department spokesman Steve King.

The meth crackdown comes from the passage and signing of LB117, which included store display and age restrictions for the purchase and sale of products containing pseudoephedrine, a key component of meth.

The corrections department says the tougher meth law could put into prison most of the roughly 400 offenders who otherwise might have entered treatment programs.

The department also says LB117 could help double prison ranks by 2025.

And even without LB117, as soon as next year the prison population could reach 140 percent of capacity.

Once that happens, the governor could parole inmates until the number drops to 125 percent of capacity.

"We're sitting at 134 percent of capacity right now," King said. Without curbing that growth, the department soon will have to address space problems, he said.

State Sen. Kermit Brashear thinks the corrections department alarm is premature.

"Only if you take everything in the worst-case scenario no prosecutorial discretion, etcetera, etcetera," will LB117 cause a jump in the prison population, he said.

The new law does not keep prosecutors from charging defendants as users instead of as dealers and manufacturers, who are targeted by LB117, Brashear said.

In 1997, legislators approved building a $70 million prison in Tecumseh. They also started to examine alternatives to prison for nonviolent offenders.

That study grew into the Community Corrections Council, which is led by Brashear.

"The philosophy of incarceration being a significant solution to the problem is obviously contrary to community corrections being a solution," said John Icenogle, district court judge for Buffalo and Hall counties. "But the Legislature has said this problem is so severe they don't trust it to community corrections, and we have to accept that."

Lancaster County Judge Karen Flowers, also on the council, agrees with Brashear that prosecutors still have discretion on charges and that it's too early to know how LB117 will affect the prison population.

Sen. Dwite Pedersen of Elkhorn, a substance-abuse counselor, said "the whole thing with the meth bill was this get tough on crime' message coming down from the governor's office and State Patrol."

Aaron Sanderford, spokesman for Gov. Dave Heineman, said the bill's effect on prison population was a consideration.

If the new law works as intended - cutting the manufacture of meth - it could reduce meth-related arrests, Sanderford said.