Two Ohio prisons that were closed for budgetary reasons might reopen if the inmate population keeps growing at the current rate, the state prisons director said yesterday.

Terry Collins said it's not his current plan to resurrect the Lima and Orient correctional institutions, both shut down in the past two years. But he didn't rule it out.

"To open them back up would cost millions of dollars,'' Collins said. "But if the population keeps growing, it may turn out to be a real contingency."

As of July 1, there were 46,807 men and women in Ohio prisons, a 7.5 percent increase in 15 months. The system is adding 100 to 200 prisoners every week.
Ohio prisons are at 131 percent of capacity, although some are far higher: Lorain Correctional is at 263 percent and the Correctional Reception Center in Columbus is at 207 percent.

The prison population soared in the 1980s and 1990s, peaking at 49,029 in 1998. However, decreasing crime rates and changes in criminal-sentencing laws help steady the inmate count.

More recently, the numbers began climbing again, prompting Collins yesterday to order the opening or reopening of units at six or more prisons, plus the transfer of some inmates to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, where closed units will be reactivated.

"You get county jails full, you get your community corrections alternatives full, then (inmates) end up in prison because judges have to have a place to put people," Collins said. "We've saturated the entire system."

He also asked Management and Training Corp., the Utah company that operates the state's two private prisons, to consider taking more inmates.
The influx of prisoners — nearly 25,000 came in during 2005, although several thousand others were released — is partially because of economic conditions that boosted the crime rate, Collins said. Ohio now has far more felony cases than in the past, many of them drug crimes.

The rate of increase in women coming to prison is more than double that for men.
At the same time, the community corrections facilities that serve as outlets for the prison system are full.

Union officials, who have consistently expressed concerns about security problems caused by overcrowding, are keeping a close eye on the situation.

"This is spreading personnel very thin," said Peter Wray, spokesman for the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association. "This is a less-than-optimal way to deal with it.

"We understand it short-term. But is this a permanent increase or just a spike that will level out down the road?"

Wray said that the General Assembly might have to step in at some point to provide more money for prison personnel.