By Alabama Public Radio
Montgomery, AL – The results are somewhat mixed concerning the state prison system's experiment to parole more prisoners. There was no noticeable increase in crime, as some people feared. But, the effort also has not adequately solved the prison overcrowding problem. And, the state apparently is running out of non-violent inmates to parole early. Since September 2003, more than four-thousand prisoners have been released early. That does not include the 18-hundred inmates who were paroled through the normal process. However, Alabama's prisons, work release centers and boot camps still hold nearly 24-thousand inmates. That's nearly twice their designed capacity.