South Carolina's "lock 'em up and throw away the key" mentality has come home to haunt taxpayers who must shell out about $300 million a year to run the prison system.

While the state prison system is one of the most cost-efficient in the nation, the $12,500 per-year cost for each inmate still amounts to a whopping sum of money. The price tag would call for reform in flush years, but in cash-strapped years this demands reform.

Jon Ozmint, S.C. Department of Corrections director, and Gov. Mark Sanford are offering several opportunities for reforms within the prison system to save money and hire needed guards, but lawmakers and other elected officials don't seem to be too interested in change.

Ozmint has proposed alternative sentencing as a way to reduce the current prison population of more than 24,000 inmates. As 2003 ended, the population was 1,100 more than in 2002.

Prison officials estimate that over the next four years the prison population will surge by nearly one-third. Without alternative sentencing the $300 million cost will be $400 million or more in operating costs. Capital costs for buildings will be even more.

Yet, the idea of alternative sentencing may be all but dead this legislative year because of opposition from the state's solicitors. House leaders concurred Wednesday that solicitors don't want this because they have to face angry victims in their home districts, and they must stand for re-election -- just as senators and House members must.

In spite of this setback, Ozmint is moving forward with a proposal to save several million dollars. He has plans to privatize health care, which could reduce costs while improving service. The Department of Corrections spends about $7 per prisoner per day on health care or roughly $60 million a year. That's not exorbitantly out of line with other states, but a $1 reduction per inmate per day would result in more than $8.5 million per year in savings.

Gov. Sanford, in his State of the State address Wednesday, advocated spending $2.5 million more each year on inmate education. This would be money well spent so that inmates may be better qualified to find jobs once they are paroled or complete their sentence.

Nearly 63 percent of the state's 24,000 inmates lack high school diplomas or the equivalent. According to the Associated Press, U.S. Justice Department figures show about 68 percent of state prison inmates nationwide do not have a high school diploma.

It is "crazy to continue sending folks out of a criminal justice system with no better educational leg to stand on and expect good results," Sanford told legislators Wednesday.

South Carolinians can't allow the "lock 'em up mentality" to stand in the way of alternative sentencing for the estimated 50 percent of prisoners who committed nonviolent crimes -- unless they are prepared to pay an increasingly staggering cost.

Lawmakers must be willing to face political heat as well as the fiscal facts that it's long past time to approve alternative sentencing, privatizing health care and better education for prisoners.