PHOENIX - A proposed change in state laws could allow three fourths of all inmates to get out of prison early

Legislation awaiting a House hearing would allow any prisoner classified by the Department of Corrections as a low or medium risk to participate in transition programs which could knock up to six months off their sentence. That is an expansion of current law which limits those programs to non-violent drug offenders.

"This bill would allow the Department of Corrections to release out the back door the repeat felons we are sending them through the front door,'' Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas complained Tuesday. "It is a dangerous scheme designed to help the state avoid the cost of paying to lock up career criminals.''

Thomas said three fourths of the more than 35,000 inmates now behind bars would become eligible for release up to six months early.

Rep. Bill Konopnicki, R-Safford, sponsor of HB 2298, acknowledge his measure - at least at this point - could vastly expand existing early release programs. But he said the legislation, designed to provide programs to help inmates transition back into society, will be significantly narrowed.

Konopnicki said, though, there has to be a change in the attitude of Thomas and some other prosecutors that the state has to keep on incarcerating more and more people.

"Unless we make some changes about what we do, over the next five years we're looking at at least $1 billion in expenditures jus for physical plants and prisons,'' he said. And that doesn't count the cost of hiring the guards and the other people to staff the facilities.

Konopnicki also suggested that Thomas - who didn't bother to contact him before calling the press together on Tuesday - is more interested in publicity than actually dealing with the underlying problem.

"I think if we work together and not spend a lot of time pointing fingers at each other we can come up with some things that are responsible and still make a difference in the prison population,'' he said.

Thomas, however, made no secret of his belief that more people incarcerated is better. Nor does he believe that cost should be a factor, chastising Gov. Janet Napolitano for not asking for more money for this coming budget year to build new prisons so there need not be any talk about overcrowding - and possible early release.

"You're talking about the people that, frankly, we're trying to send to them under our repeat offender policy because they're out stealing people's identities, stealing people's cars, burglarizing homes, selling drugs to children, selling drugs to children,'' Thomas said. And he said anything which allows them out before serving their full sentence means they will be out preying on the public that much earlier.

Konopnicki, however, said Thomas is ignoring history.

"We realize that isn't working,'' he said. "That's what we're doing now and the prison population is continuing to grow.''

The other reality, said Konopnicki, is that 97 percent of those now behind bars eventually will be released sooner or later "an will be our neighbors again.''

"The question is how do we do that so we can have them back into society so that they can be productive and not be returned prisoners to the system,'' he said.