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Ohio's prison population increased 6 percent in the past year, adding to concerns among some public officials about overcrowded conditions and tensions between inmates and guards.
In June, there were 46,356 inmates in 32 prisons that were built to house 35,730, according to state records. The Lorain Correctional Institution in northeast Ohio was the most overcrowded prison with 1,983 inmates. It was designed to hold 756.
The extra prisoners at the Lorain facility are forced to sleep in bunk beds placed in commons areas.
"This is a recipe for disaster," said state Sen. Robert Hagan, a Youngstown Democrat and member of the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee, which issued a new report on the Lorain facility. "When you have more and more people crowded into an area, you have more fights and more discussions on how to hurt other people and less talk about rehabilitation."
It's unclear if the increase is a random spike or a long-term trend. A team of researchers is studying the issue, and a report could be ready within a week, said Andrea Dean, spokeswoman with the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
Ohio prisons Director Terry Collins said the increase in the prison population may be linked to a 4 percent increase in felony cases - 77,042 - filed in courts across the state in 2005.
He said sentencing alternatives, such as community-based corrections programs that judges have used for years are filled, leaving prison as the sole option in many cases.
To alleviate crowding, Collins said he is looking to add nearly 1,300 more beds in six prisons - Pickaway, Ross, Warren, Toledo, Mansfield and Marion - by opening cellblocks that were closed several years ago or were built but never used.
The cost of reopening the units hasn't been determined, Collins said. The state may be able to bring in staff from other prisons, which would help save money, he said.
"But any time you shuffle staff like that, we have to make sure we're not hurting one prison to help another," said Collins, who oversees an annual budget of about $1.6 billion.
Jeff Gamso, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, argues that the state has created the overcrowding problem by incarcerating too many nonviolent offenders and drug users who "aren't hurting anyone but themselves."
"The get-tough-on-crime principle that says nobody gets out and everybody needs to be shipped off to prison is a guarantee that you're going to end up with a problem like this," Gamso said.
David Singleton, executive director of the Cincinnati-based Ohio Justice and Policy Center, said drug addicts would benefit more from treatment than prison.
Ohio is part of a trend in which the number of inmates in state prisons nationally has increased 8 percent since 2000, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
The Ohio prisons system reached its highest point in 1998, when it had more than 49,000 inmates.
Since then, the state has closed the Lima Correctional Institution in northwest Ohio and the Orient Correctional Institution, southwest of Columbus.
"Overcrowding can be devastating to a prison," said Shirley Pope, the executive director of the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee. "It can increase tensions between staff and inmates. But right now, we're not there yet. It's a serious situation, but we've seen worse crowding in the past."
Peter Wray, a spokesman for the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, which represents guards, said they work a lot of overtime and manage the situation as best they can. The prisons system has done a good job monitoring gang activity, which can disrupt the large inmate population, he said.
"You don't want to overact, but if this is a long-term problem, the state will have to figure out if it needs to build more facilities and make some very large financial decisions," Wray said.
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