EDITORIAL : STANDING PAT FORMER ASSEMBLYMAN HAS GONE SOFT ON CRIME AFTER SERVING TIME.

HAVING to spend time in prison can cause people to do some thinking. Unfortunately, some of them get the wrong idea.

One is former Republican Assembly leader Pat Nolan. Nolan completed his two-year federal prison sentence last week after being convicted of accepting bribes in the FBI's Capitol ``sting'' operation. And now Nolan believes in prison reform. Nonviolent criminals should not be clogging up the prisons, he says.

``I think God's plan for me was to go to prison so I would see what was happening as a result of the laws that I supported . . . and to force me to rethink . . . the whole issue of locking up people who are not threats,'' he said.

Nolan soon will have a platform from which to speak. The former Glendale legislator has accepted the job as president of Justice Fellowship, an organization founded by Charles Colson, a former top aide to President Nixon who was convicted in the Watergate scandal.

While Nolan's prison reform stance is new, his ``I was an innocent victim railroaded by the government'' song is a tired refrain.

Nolan's self-pitying portrayal requires the record be set straight. Nolan himself signed an affidavit in which he admitted running his office as a racketeering enterprise and accepting two $10,000 bribes in exchange for his action on state legislation. A secret recording by the FBI portrayed Nolan as practically obsessed with making sure that his party's lawmakers hit up lobbyists and other interested parties for campaign funds.

Yet to this day Nolan insists that he had did nothing wrong - let alone criminal. He has never been able to accept responsibility for violating the public trust while serving as an elected representative of the people.

Perhaps Nolan truly believes that no one is really hurt when, say, a white-collar criminal embezzles millions, or just thousands, of dollars from a business. Perhaps he thinks people who lose their entire savings don't suffer on the same order as someone robbed at gunpoint of a watch, wallet or car.

We agree that the punishment should fit the crime. And there is merit in considering ``restorative justice'' - such as community service for nonviolent offenders, victim restitution and in-prison work programs - as advocated by Colson's organization.

But we also believe justice demands those found guilty of a serious crime do time in prison in most instances. That's especially true of someone who was elected to serve, not shake down, the people.

Of course, Nolan could have repaid the people of California by testifying about further corruption in Sacramento and helping restore people's lost faith in government. But he refused that opportunity to repent and repay.

So pardon us for being skeptical that Pat Nolan has seen the light. He still seems to be very much in the dark about wrong and right, crime and punishment.