PARENT'S RIGHTS NOW!

Certain nonviolent offenders, such as drug users, should be given alternative sentences, including probation and community service, and geriatric and terminally ill inmates should be released to make room for murderers, drug traffickers and rapists, according to the commission's long-awaited report (emphasis added).

Such moves would save more than $92 million dollars in prison operations in the next five years and prevent the need to build a $317 million jailhouse, the report said.

The savings could be shifted to the currently overwhelmed probation and parole system, but the money to keep a better watch on criminals out on the street won't be immediately available.

The report** calls for the Legislature to adopt a package of 24 recommendations that came from the commission's study of the upsurge in repeat offenders, the overcrowding of state and local jails, the increase in inmates incarcerated for nonviolent offenses, the lack of alternative sentences and the impact of the prolonged budget slump in South Carolina.

Key findings also include classifying 24 additional crimes as violent offenses and requiring probation and parole agents to perform specific risk assessments that evidence has found strongly indicate a person's likelihood to commit future crimes.

State Sen. Gerald Malloy, a Hartsville Democrat who led the commission through it's yearlong study, said he is optimistic that the Legislature can put significant reforms in place before its adjourn this summer.

"We can do better," he said. "'We cannot afford to build new prisons in South Carolina, but we also can't afford not to keep our citizens safe."