"Sentencing is a national scandal" she told the convention of the South Carolina Bar. "We are at a financial as well as a policy crisis right now. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the costs are simply draining resources from everything else we do."
Toal said sentencing reform in North Carolina has had good results, reducing the total prison population at the same time violent prisoners are serving longer sentences.
"I will approach the General Assembly and the governor to set a policy summit on this issue," Toal told the assembled attorneys. She said the summit would consider the economic and social impacts as well as alternatives to prison.
"We simply cannot afford in South Carolina to continue to do what we are doing," she said.
Prisoners are putting a huge burden on the state and "at the county level where county resources are drained as so many people sit in county jails waiting to be sentenced."
Toal also proposed the state review judicial salaries as part as a wider study of pay for all state workers.
The question of how much judges should make is a difficult one across the nation "and especially for us," she said. "But I think the conversation has got to be tied to a discussion of public compensation for the other two branches."
Toal said when she became chief justice six years ago, the courts were paid for entirely from state general revenue funds of about $41 million. Now the courts get only about $32 million from the state while it costs about $54 million to operate the court system.
The difference comes from surcharges, fees and fines.
"This is an unstable way to fund your court system," said Toal, who added she would ask state lawmakers for a more stable way of paying for the courts.
She said she'll also ask for money to add three new circuit court judges and three new family court judges. There has not been an increase in the number of circuit judges in a decade.
The state also needs to work to get more women and more black judges, Toal said.
"We as a profession have got to ... do a better job of marketing the legal profession to young South Carolinians," to attract more women and minorities, she said.