90 ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

Q. What about the length of the session of the legislature; don't you
think there ought to be additional days?

A. No, I think the 70-day session meets the requirement. There is a
tendency to always want more time. I don't think that any useful
purpose is necessarily served by having sessions extended. Until I
would see some real evidence of the need for further extension of
regular sessions, I wouldn't be in favor of it. We still have a special
session technique to resort to in dire emergency, and while I would
be a Governor who would never frivolously summon the Legislature
into special session, I think it's there if it's absolutely necessary to use
it. I would think it is necessary if we get into any tax reform delay.

Q. On the basis of your efforts for tax reform in Maryland, do you
have any comment on the problems Governor Reagan might face
trying to raise 950 million dollars?

A. I sympathize with Governor Reagan because he's obviously got
an extremely difficult problem, not only in the magnitude of the
money he has to raise but in the fact that the people of California have
reached a level of tax obligation that makes them extremely hostile
to any suggested spending regardless of how important it is. Since
you mentioned California, I might tell you that we're interested and,
as you know, we're looking for a Director of Correctional Services at
the present time. I had a conference the other day with Mr. Bennett,
former Federal Prison Chief, and I asked him what states he thought
had the finest penal systems in the country. California was one of the
states he mentioned. He also mentioned Massachusetts, Florida, Wash-
ington, Oregon, and Minnesota. They are some that I recall and
we're turning our recruitment efforts in those directions.

Q. Governor, what else did Mr. Bennett discuss with you?

A. We talked a bit about what he considered to be a bad situation
in the Maryland correctional system. Apparently we have per 100, 000
of population more people incarcerated than do most areas. I think
that our figure is, and don't quote me on the figure without checking
it, around 177 people per 100, 000. Some of the states with more pro-
gressive systems are only retaining within their prison systems as few
as 82 people per 100, 000. Now the point that Mr. Bennett made, and
I think this is an extremely legitimate point, is that whatever your
figure is you can do better with people out of the system as long as
they are followed and supervised. And this is where our correctional
system needs assistance. We don't have the mechanics or the personnel
or the procedures presently to follow the people who have been re-