RALEIGH -- About half of the people sent to prison in North Carolina are repeat offenders who failed to meet the conditions of their probation.
Most of those inmatesweren't rearrested for new crimes, however. More than three-quarters were sent back to prison for so-called technical offenses, such as failing a drug test.
In a rare flicker of bipartisanship, state legislators from both parties are backing a bill aimed at reforming North Carolina's criminal justice system to cut costs by investing in intense supervision and treatment for those released from prison in the hopes fewer will return.
"North Carolina cannot afford to maintain the status quo in criminal justice," said Rep. David Guice, a Republican from Brevard who is a retired chief probation officer and a primary sponsor of the legislation. "This is probably the biggest reform package we have taken on in years."
The Justice Reinvestment Act is the result of recommendations generated though a yearlong study by the Council of State Governments Justice Center, the Pew Center on the States and the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance.
The study found 85 percent of people released from the state's prisons return to the community without any active supervision, including many violent felons more likely to commit new crimes.
The bulk of the state's limited probation resources are concentrated on supervising people convicted of misdemeanors and low-level felons who are less likely to reoffend.
That is one reason why even as crime rates have fallen over the last decade the state's prison population has boomed, growing by about a third to more than 41,000 inmates.
If that rate of growth isn't halted, officials estimate they will need at least $267 million by 2017 to build and operate new prisons.
The bill aims to cut costs by holding the line on prison population and "reinvesting" the savings programs aimed at turning criminals into more productive citizens.
In addition, $2.5 million annually would be spent on implementing mandatory supervision for all felons. Longer prison sentences would be imposed on repeat breaking-and-entering offenders.
But the bill would also spend an additional $7.5 million a year on substance abuse treatment and other community-based resources aimed at combating the underlying reasons people turn to crime.
Leaders in both parties have pledged to help shepherd passage of the reform package by the end of the current legislative session.
In fact, the proposed budget introduced by House Republicans this week counts on saving at least $25.5 million over the next two years by closing prisons, cutting more than 200 state jobs and finding savings from the justice reinvestment programs.
The last time legislators initiated such an ambitious overhaul effort was in 2001, when the state closed about half the beds in government-run mental hospitals before a plan was in place to shift more resources to private outpatient treatment programs.
Guice said Wednesday that the state wouldn't repeat the mistakes made in implementing mental health reform.
"This has been a thoughtful process that is data driven," he said. "It wouldn't be like flipping a switch."
