"Virginia's lucrative practice of importing prisoners from out of state is expected to take a hit as the nation's state prison population is dropping and other states are building more prisons.

As of Saturday, Virginia held 3,299 inmates from as close as the District of Columbia to as far away as Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Housing such inmates grossed the state about $78 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30.

The inmates were being held at the Greensville Correctional Center and some of the state's newest, most expensive prisons: The Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women and the Red Onion, Wallens Ridge, Sussex I and Sussex II state prisons.

But by the end of next June, the Department of Corrections anticipates holding only 2,027 inmates from other jurisdictions and just 1,627 by the end of June 2003.

Virginia can accomodate out-of-state inmates because it incorrectly projected a larger-than-realized increase in inmates when parole was ended in 1995. As a result, it built too much prison space.

The number of inmates in the Virginia prison system grew 1.3 percent from 1999 to 2000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. The Department of Corrections anticipates that growth in the number of Virginia inmates will fill the space left by the decline in out-of-state inmates.

Ronald J. Angelone, director of the Department of Corrections, recently told members of the state Senate Finance Committee's subcommittee on public safety that there is an oversupply of prison beds in the United States.

Some states short of beds just a few years ago have excess space. Michigan has 'mothballed' a new $82 million prison. Minnesota, which recently opened a new prison, is offering beds to other states, and various county-run facilities across the country are advertising for inmates.

And private prison companies also have many unused beds, Angelone said.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics announced last week that during the last six months of 2000, the nation's state prison population declined by more than 6,200 inmates, the first decline since 1972."

(The Associated Press, The Daily Progress, August 21, 2001)