Alabama's prison system is caught in a storm's swirling eye, its future married to a bleak outlook and troubling realities.

Thanks to the state's economy, those truths are worsening.

Overcrowded and under-funded, Alabama's prison system rests at the center of fiscal 2011's apocalyptic predictions. Many state agencies are bracing for more funding reductions and layoffs; that holds true for state prisons, which in recent years have resorted to unconventional methods — selling timber harvested from system-owned land, for example — to partially make up for tepid funding from Montgomery.

Now, however, Commissioner Richard Allen has told state legislators that the widespread release of inmates may become an unavoidable option if state government doesn't address the system's long-running budget shortfall — which may worsen if predictions for the next fiscal year are true.

Allen isn't advocating a budget-caused inmate release; likewise, he told legislators last week that he's comforted by Gov. Bob Riley's insistence that he won't let that happen.

Nevertheless, early Goat Hill discussions about the worsening economic storm have again cast a harsh spotlight on the depths of Alabama's prison-system troubles.

Alabama's prisons set the national standard for overcrowding. No state's prisons are worse, studies show: More than 26,000 inmates are housed in Alabama prisons, which are operating at 191 percent capacity, the Associated Press reports.

Numbers are little better for prison staff. The national guard-to-inmate ratio is 5-to-1. In Alabama's prisons, it's 10-to-1.

Added together, those facts paint a disturbing scene: Alabama's prisons are woefully overcrowded, miserably under-staffed and face a fiscal outlook that's going from discouraging to seemingly hopeless.

Unless, of course, Riley and the state Legislature can carve out enough money to keep the prison system afloat. Considering what's facing legislators when they convene for the next session in January, that's going to be a tall, if not impossible, task.

While funding is a real concern, the system's overcrowding provides more proof that sentencing reform and alternative-sentencing options must become standard in the state.

It's good to remember that Allen is a proponent of expanding drug-court programs that would accommodate eligible offenders without placing them in already-overcrowded prisons. Allen also continues to urge judges to use the state's voluntary sentencing guidelines in an effort to reduce the prison population.

Both are high-quality, justifiable ideas. Alabama would benefit from their implementation.

Imagine how lessened the prison system's plight would be if those worthwhile concepts were embraced. Alabama's prisons still would be in financial unrest, but their outlook wouldn't be nearly as severe.