Next month Governor Pawlenty is to decide whether to support the State Corrections Department in its call for new funds to expand Minnesota's prisons. Corrections officials say the state's capacity to accomodate a rising inmate population with current facilities is near an end. As Deputy Corrections Commissioner Dennis Benson put it in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio. "our backs are against the wall with only 85 vacant beds in the entire statewide system." That means states eight prisons are filled to 99 percent capacity.