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CNN Live Today

Interview with Kentucky Governor Paul Patton

Aired December 20, 2002 - 10:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Back to the story we talked about earlier, the story about the state of Kentucky realizing that to battle its budgets problems, the best tactic to take, or at least one tactic to take, is to open up the prison doors. The state of Kentucky is going to be letting out some 567 state prison inmates. And as we understand it, these releases have already begun, and it's already begun the conversation about whether this is a good or safe idea.
Now Kentucky's governor, who issued the early release orders, is joining us, and we'll talk about it with him some more. Kentucky Governor Paul Patton joins us from Frankfurt, Kentucky.

Governor, thank you for taking time to talk with us about this.

Can you tell us exactly how you came to this conclusion, that opening the prison doors was a good or safe idea for your state?

GOV. PAUL PATTON, KENTUCKY: We have severe budgets problems as most every state does. One of -- the major problem is revenue. But in the case of the corrections department, their prison population was higher than we had budgeted for, by about the 567 individuals. And so it was logical that if that was the department that had an expenditure level higher than was budgeted, that was the department we had to reduce expenditure in, and the only way to do that is to bring the population down to the budgeted level.

HARRIS: All right, well, how much money do you expect your state to save by doing this? And how do you go about picking which inmates are the ones you want to release?

PATTON: Well, first of all these are nonviolent class-D felons, the lowest level of felony sentence. They are nonsexual a fenders, nonviolent offenders. And we're taking the ones that the least time to serve, these are individuals that would be out anyway, from a few days to 146 days, I think was the longest. The average, about 80 days. We'd save, by maintaining the population, we would save about $3 million between now and the first of July. These individuals will save us about $1.3 million, but we will continue to release felons, class-D felons, to stay under the budgeted population cap.

HARRIS: Governor, do you think that -- the mandatory sentencing laws in some of the sentences that have been handed down for certain misdemeanor drug possessions and some domestic violence cases, those have been criticized as being too harsh. Is this proof it's time to revisit that issue of mandatory sentencing?

PATTON: Well, we have haven't really analyzed to find out that is the major problem with the population. I would suspect it's the economy. I would suspect that more people have resorted to crime as the economy deteriorated. That's not unusual. That would be my guess as to what the problem is. But I haven't checked that out.

HARRIS: You say that most people, these people have resorted to crime, and you're letting more of them back out on the streets early. Are you concerned at all there will be another crime wave to come down the road?

PATTON: I think we would have a crime wave. First of all, these individuals are going to be released in the next five or six months anyway. And we know that about 30 percent of them will be readmitted to the prison system because of a crime that they have committed. I suspect that's going to be true, whether we've released them early or whether they continue to serve out their time.

Keep in mind, these are conditional commutations. If they ever come back into our system on a felony conviction, whatever time has been commuted will be reinstated and added back to their sentence. So the next time they commit a crime, not only will do they have to be punished for that time, they have to come back and pick up their unserved time from their past conviction. Hopefully, that will be a little bit of a deterrent.

HARRIS: You cite the economy's downturn as being a big source of the problem you are having in your state. Many other states are having, also, this same problem. And a lot of people are saying they believe that this rash of prison building and rash of overcrowding of these prisons that we've seen happen in the country over the years is also contributing to the problem. But that's happened because people, the population, want to be tough on crime, they want more people locked up. What's been the reaction with that in mind in your state?

PATTON: Well, I will say that the crime rate in Kentucky over the last year has increased, we've doubled the prison capacity, I guess, over the last 10, 15 years. And I think that had a have an effect on the reduced crime rate. Of course, this particular problem is only one part of a large problem. Kentucky has about a $500 million problem over the next 18 months. The prison constitutes maybe $20 million of that.

So this is just one of many ways that we would have to cut state government to live with current revenue, just like other states are dealing with.

As the chairman of the National Governor's Association, I realize that virtually every state has this problem, and some of them much worse than Kentucky.

But we will be talking about cutting education, we will be talking about cutting aid to our colleges, our Medicaid program, our social services program. We talked yesterday about not replacing state police that will be retired. This would -- this revenue shortfall would require 5 percent across the board cut in every service provided by Kentucky state government. That means, maybe 1,800 fewer teachers. That means 60 or 70 fewer state police officers. That means, probably, 50,000 people not served by Medicaid. This is revenue shortfall that will affect every Kentuckian, and we're in no worse shape than the average state. This recession has hurt the states very badly.

HARRIS: Many other states grappling with the same issues. Tough times to make some tough decisions for a governor.

And we sure thank you for...

PATTON: One of the things that's complicated this, is the federal government continues to add obligations to state and so far has not voted to reimburse us for them. Homeland security, that's a major burden falls on the state government. Congress has not appropriated homeland security, election reform.

HARRIS: I'm sorry, governor, we're out of our budgeted time for the interview.

PATTON: All right, thank you.

HARRIS: You know how these things go on TV. Governor Paul Patton, thank you. Good luck.

PATTON: Thanks, Leon.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired December 20, 2002 - 10:34   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Back to the story we talked about earlier, the story about the state of Kentucky realizing that to battle its budgets problems, the best tactic to take, or at least one tactic to take, is to open up the prison doors. The state of Kentucky is going to be letting out some 567 state prison inmates. And as we understand it, these releases have already begun, and it's already begun the conversation about whether this is a good or safe idea.
Now Kentucky's governor, who issued the early release orders, is joining us, and we'll talk about it with him some more. Kentucky Governor Paul Patton joins us from Frankfurt, Kentucky.

Governor, thank you for taking time to talk with us about this.

Can you tell us exactly how you came to this conclusion, that opening the prison doors was a good or safe idea for your state?

GOV. PAUL PATTON, KENTUCKY: We have severe budgets problems as most every state does. One of -- the major problem is revenue. But in the case of the corrections department, their prison population was higher than we had budgeted for, by about the 567 individuals. And so it was logical that if that was the department that had an expenditure level higher than was budgeted, that was the department we had to reduce expenditure in, and the only way to do that is to bring the population down to the budgeted level.

HARRIS: All right, well, how much money do you expect your state to save by doing this? And how do you go about picking which inmates are the ones you want to release?

PATTON: Well, first of all these are nonviolent class-D felons, the lowest level of felony sentence. They are nonsexual a fenders, nonviolent offenders. And we're taking the ones that the least time to serve, these are individuals that would be out anyway, from a few days to 146 days, I think was the longest. The average, about 80 days. We'd save, by maintaining the population, we would save about $3 million between now and the first of July. These individuals will save us about $1.3 million, but we will continue to release felons, class-D felons, to stay under the budgeted population cap.

HARRIS: Governor, do you think that -- the mandatory sentencing laws in some of the sentences that have been handed down for certain misdemeanor drug possessions and some domestic violence cases, those have been criticized as being too harsh. Is this proof it's time to revisit that issue of mandatory sentencing?

PATTON: Well, we have haven't really analyzed to find out that is the major problem with the population. I would suspect it's the economy. I would suspect that more people have resorted to crime as the economy deteriorated. That's not unusual. That would be my guess as to what the problem is. But I haven't checked that out.

HARRIS: You say that most people, these people have resorted to crime, and you're letting more of them back out on the streets early. Are you concerned at all there will be another crime wave to come down the road?

PATTON: I think we would have a crime wave. First of all, these individuals are going to be released in the next five or six months anyway. And we know that about 30 percent of them will be readmitted to the prison system because of a crime that they have committed. I suspect that's going to be true, whether we've released them early or whether they continue to serve out their time.

Keep in mind, these are conditional commutations. If they ever come back into our system on a felony conviction, whatever time has been commuted will be reinstated and added back to their sentence. So the next time they commit a crime, not only will do they have to be punished for that time, they have to come back and pick up their unserved time from their past conviction. Hopefully, that will be a little bit of a deterrent.

HARRIS: You cite the economy's downturn as being a big source of the problem you are having in your state. Many other states are having, also, this same problem. And a lot of people are saying they believe that this rash of prison building and rash of overcrowding of these prisons that we've seen happen in the country over the years is also contributing to the problem. But that's happened because people, the population, want to be tough on crime, they want more people locked up. What's been the reaction with that in mind in your state?

PATTON: Well, I will say that the crime rate in Kentucky over the last year has increased, we've doubled the prison capacity, I guess, over the last 10, 15 years. And I think that had a have an effect on the reduced crime rate. Of course, this particular problem is only one part of a large problem. Kentucky has about a $500 million problem over the next 18 months. The prison constitutes maybe $20 million of that.

So this is just one of many ways that we would have to cut state government to live with current revenue, just like other states are dealing with.

As the chairman of the National Governor's Association, I realize that virtually every state has this problem, and some of them much worse than Kentucky.

But we will be talking about cutting education, we will be talking about cutting aid to our colleges, our Medicaid program, our social services program. We talked yesterday about not replacing state police that will be retired. This would -- this revenue shortfall would require 5 percent across the board cut in every service provided by Kentucky state government. That means, maybe 1,800 fewer teachers. That means 60 or 70 fewer state police officers. That means, probably, 50,000 people not served by Medicaid. This is revenue shortfall that will affect every Kentuckian, and we're in no worse shape than the average state. This recession has hurt the states very badly.

HARRIS: Many other states grappling with the same issues. Tough times to make some tough decisions for a governor.

And we sure thank you for...

PATTON: One of the things that's complicated this, is the federal government continues to add obligations to state and so far has not voted to reimburse us for them. Homeland security, that's a major burden falls on the state government. Congress has not appropriated homeland security, election reform.

HARRIS: I'm sorry, governor, we're out of our budgeted time for the interview.

PATTON: All right, thank you.

HARRIS: You know how these things go on TV. Governor Paul Patton, thank you. Good luck.

PATTON: Thanks, Leon.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com