Pennsylvania's long delay in adopting a budget was prompted by severe revenue shortages and an insistence on cutting spending.

Yet, before the spending plan was approved, the Department of Corrections was shopping for out-of-state cells to house Pennsylvania prisoners -- a move that would cost tens of millions of dollars and do little to alleviate growing and dangerous overcrowding.

If this were an episode of the television sitcom "Seinfeld," they would describe this logic as bizarro. It's like going out for dinner after losing your job.

The state's prison population has been swelling steadily for the past year. The 27 prisons hold some 51,000 inmates but have capacity for just 43,000. By 2013 the population is projected to exceed 58,000. That means the four prisons on the drawing boards -- at a cost of $200 million each -- will be filled as soon as they open and the system will be at least as overcrowded as it is today.

In September, the department sent letters to six states -- Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Oklahoma and Virginia -- asking them to submit bids for housing up to 1,500 inmates. Pennsylvania already is paying as much as $50 a day to house more than 300 state prisoners in several county jails and expects to accommodate up to 900 in this way.

Even reducing the population by 2,500 at a cost of close to $50 million a year will do little to reduce the strain on the state system which has slowed parole releases, absorbed prisoners traditionally in county jails who serve between two and five years and seen a steady flow of new inmates and returning parole violators.

What we should be asking these six states, as well as others that have gotten control of their prison systems, is how they developed excess capacity. One response, almost certainly, would be the use of alternatives to incarceration.

Prisons are expensive to build and even more costly to operate with staffing around the clock. There is no reason to use such expensive facilities to sanction non-violent offenders who account for thousands of prisoners. Community-based treatment programs are alternatives to prison that not only cost less but also increase the prospect of successfully addressing drug and alcohol addictions and thereby reducing the recidivism levels and the future prison population.

New York recently made early release available to some 1,500 nonviolent drug offenders by repealing mandatory sentences. At the bill signing, Gov. David Paterson noted: "Under the Rockefeller Drug Laws, we did not treat the people who were addicted. We locked them up. Families were broken, money was wasted and we continued to wrestle with a statewide drug problem. The reforms that take effect today address those problems. By returning judicial discretion to the courtroom, we are reuniting families and fighting criminal activity and addiction in our communities."

Another alternative is removing the mentally ill from prisons, where their impairments are often made worse, to secure facilities equipped to meet their needs. Some 16 percent of the prison population is diagnosed with mental health issues.

Also, a halt should be put on the practice of returning to prisons individuals who violate technical aspects of parole. Except for extraordinary cases or where new crimes have been committed, tightened restrictions in the community should be used.

Parole violators and non-violent offenders are said to account for almost half of the prison population. The exact number is uncertain because of disagreements over what constitutes a violent offense. Still, the picture is clear that huge savings could be made without compromising public safety by adopting some of these strategies. And, because treatments have a better chance of correcting problems that lead to crimes, Pennsylvania's overwhelming cycle of crime and incarceration could be disrupted.

Prisons should be used for people who are a danger to society -- not for those with whom we are angry or annoyed.

Legislative action would be needed to adopt some of these changes. Implementation of other measures already on the books should be expedited. The severity of the economic climate challenges us to be serious about effective changes to improve the criminal justice system.

Anything else is just bizarro.

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