1-10-2011 Washington:
The impact of budget cuts at the Department of Corrections has been well documented, particularly at the state’s largest prison, Monroe Correctional Complex. There have been layoffs, positions have gone unfilled, and there’s a smaller administrative staff and less money for supplies, training and equipment.
I don’t mention any of this to gain public sympathy. Families across the state, including here in Snohomish County, have less money to spend in the wake of the Great Recession. My goal is to provide a local perspective of how statewide budget cuts have impacted the men and women who work at Monroe Correctional Complex.
Since 2008 DOC has reduced its spending by more than $270 million. By next spring we will have closed our third prison within a year. We’re still responsible for incarcerating more than 16,000 offenders — we just have fewer resources with which to do so.
Monroe Correctional Complex has not been immune from the multiple rounds of budget cuts. There is less money for offender programs like chemical dependency and education. That means offenders have more idle time and have less access to programs that are proven to reduce the likelihood that they return to prison. Most staff members must take one-day temporary layoffs each month. Some staff members have been relocated to other prisons or field offices elsewhere in the state because someone with more seniority had a right to their position. Some staff members have been displaced multiple times within the past year.
It’s not like Monroe Correctional Complex was a bloated bureaucracy to begin with, either. When I left the agency in the mid-1990s Monroe had three superintendents and six associate superintendents. Today the offender population is 20 percent higher, yet there is only one superintendent and three associate superintendents who manage a prison that houses more than 2,500 offenders in five distinct units.
The sheer size of the facility — 2 million square feet of building space located on 340 acres — makes Monroe an inherently challenging place to operate. It houses a large, diverse offender population that ranges from minimum-security offenders who are near their release date all the way to high-risk offenders who remain in their cells 23 hours a day and everyone in between. The multiple rounds of budget cuts and uncertainty have made a difficult job even more so. ..For the remainder of this story.. by Bernie Warner
January 10, 2011
Staff at Monroe Correctional Complex overcomes adversity
January 7, 2010
Rader Center to cut staff, available units
1-7-2010 Oklahoma:
SAND SPRINGS — The Office of Juvenile Affairs will begin closing units at its maximum security facility, cutting the number of staff needed at the L.E. Rader Center.
Gene Christian, the agency’s executive director, met Tuesday with staff at the Rader Center in Sand Springs to inform employees of the changes. He said the number of juvenile offenders at Rader will shrink from 106 to 66 by July.
All state agencies are working with reduced funding while the state’s revenue collections are hard hit in the slumping economy. All agencies have seen their monthly allocations cut by 10 percent in December and January. The budget cuts are expected to continue into the next budget year, which begins in July.
To deal with the cuts to the agency, some cottages that house juvenile offenders at the Rader Center are being shuttered. The cottages are in need of repair, Christian said, and the department does not have enough money to make the repairs,. The Sand Springs facility will keep its maximum security beds and a unit that houses sex offenders at Rader. The rest of the juveniles will be sent to facilities in Manitou and Tecumseh.
That means less staff will be needed to care for youth at Rader. That includes employees who work directly with the juveniles, teachers and food service employees, he said.
The agency plans to cut staff initially by not filling vacant positions and cutting contracts between now and July. Agency employees could be offered a voluntary buyout plan before layoffs, if necessary, begin in July, Christian said. OJA already has offered a buyout and is furloughing employees to cope with budget cuts.
"Money is the remedy and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any more coming,” he said. "We’re taking to heart the Legislature’s recommendation to make changes to the agency. OJA will not look the same in five years as it looks today.”
So far, the agency has absorbed $7.5 million in cuts. Additional cuts are expected next year, Christian said. The agency’s other sources of revenues also have decreased. Parents of children in custody are required to pay child support, and those collections are half as much as they were last year at this time, he said.
While all state agencies are struggling to absorb the budget cuts, agency officials and lawmakers should look at the whole picture, said Scott Barger, deputy director of the Oklahoma Employees Association.
"There’s a great need to modernize state government,” he said. "But we don’t think agencies should be overzealous. They should wait and see what the Legislature does. Reducing the beds at the juvenile level may mean that people aren’t rehabilitated and end in the Department of Corrections, costing us more in the long run.” ..Source.. JULIE BISBEE The Oklahoman
April 26, 2009
WA- Wash. lawmakers approve less offender oversight
4-26-2009 Washington:
The state would save millions of dollars by cutting back supervision of released criminals — including murderers and rapists — under a bill that has passed the Washington Legislature.
Lawmakers are scrambling for virtually every dollar they can find to patch a $9 billion deficit, and the trimming of community supervision could save about $48 million through mid-2011.
The measure calls for the state to supervise fewer criminals when they're not behind bars, and cut the maximum length of supervision for those who are watched. Senators passed the bill Saturday on a 26-23 vote, sending it to Gov. Chris Gregoire for final approval.
Supporters said the changes will make supervision schemes more efficient, eliminating practices that are not shown to improve public safety. But minority Republicans, including some who supported earlier versions of the reforms, found the version approved Saturday unacceptable.
Sen. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood, read from a list of crimes for which community supervision could be cut, including murder, manslaughter, assault, kidnapping and rape.
"The number one thing that we should be doing is public safety," Carrell said.
Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, countered that studies show no significant effect on crime rates under the kind of supervision changes spelled out in the bill. Hargrove also pointed to support from prosecutors and sheriffs for the changes.
"At some point in time, all of these heinous crimes you are talking about, people will be off supervision," Hargrove said. "We do not supervise them for life."
The bill would remove the current blanket requirement for community supervision of anyone sentenced to probation in superior court for a misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor.
The measure also would remove the requirement that Washington's Department of Corrections oversee released felons who rank in the two lowest risk categories for committing other crimes.
Instead, the state would supervise:
_Sex offenders, whether convicted of a felony or misdemeanor.
_High-risk felons and felons serving indeterminate sentences.
_Offenders considered to be dangerously mentally ill, and those required to be sentenced under agreements with other states.
_Criminals subject to alternative sentencing programs for drugs, sex crimes and first-time offenses.
_Those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence, if they have certain prior convictions.
Community supervision also would be assigned as a flat term, rather than in a range of time set by corrections officials.
For example, sex offenders would be supervised for three years, rather than a range of three to four years. Serious violent offenders would get a flat three years of supervision, rather than the current two to four years.
..News Source.. by CURT WOODWARD
March 8, 2009
MI- Budget cancels extradition of top sex offender
3-8-2009 Michigan:
Budget cuts have led the Livingston County prosecutor's office to decide not to extradite a Green Oak Township man listed on the state's Most Wanted Sex Offenders list.
William L. Tyrer, 44, who was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, was wanted on a 2005 warrant in Livingston County for failing to register on the state's sex offender registry.
He was arrested Dec. 30 in Reno, Nev., where he was subsequently sentenced to 12-32 months in prison for violating probation and providing false information to police while he tried to register as a sex offender there.
Prosecutor David Morse estimated it would cost about $2,500 to extradite Tyrer, who has not registered on the Michigan sex offender list since 1999.
"We knew when we had to take budget cuts there would be fugitives we wouldn't be able to bring back," Morse said Thursday.
Morse does not lay the blame for lack of funding at the Livingston County Board of Commissioners' feet, but rather on himself because he submitted the budget — which was eventually approved by the county commission — that had no extradition funding.
He hopes that the department will find ways to fund extradition in the future.
County Commissioner Jack LaBelle, who chairs the commission's Finance Committee, said he believes the commission would find the money if Morse felt not bringing a fugitive back would "reverberate throughout the community."
"I'm sure we'd support him," LaBelle said. "I can't imagine the board not supporting him."
Overall, Morse is pragmatic about the Tyrer situation.
"He'll be incarcerated in Nevada, so it's not like he'll be running free," Morse said. ..News Source.. by Lisa Roose-Church
Sex offender on most-wanted absconder list back in custody
2-26-2009 Nevada:
A former Livingston County man on Michigan's list of most-wanted sex offender registry violators is back in custody.
William L. Tyrer, 34, will be sentenced next week and likely faces prison time in Reno, Nev., where police picked him up in December for failing to register.
The former Green Oak Township man pleaded guilty in 1995 to first-degree criminal sexual conduct and was released in January 1999.
The 34-year-old victim told police she was walking home from a Whitmore Lake bar when Tyrer grabbed her, forced her to the lakefront and raped her.
Police said Tyrer never registered as a sex offender after he was released, and he's been sought on a felony warrant since.
Tyrer has been arrested twice in Nevada and has been in jail there since December for failing to register in that state. It's unclear whether Michigan officials were notified of the arrests; they said they only learned Tyrer was in custody last week after they received an anonymous tip.
Tyrer faces a minimum of one year and maximum of four years in prison at his March 4 sentencing, officials said. He could get additional time for violating his probation, which he was placed on after a 2006 arrest in Nevada, officials said. ..Source.. by MLive.com
VA- Fairfax County budget cuts would nix sex-predator monitoring team
3-6-2009 Virginia:
A team of four detectives that closely monitors nearly 400 registered sexual predators in Fairfax County would be dissolved under County Executive Anthony Griffin’s proposed budget.
The Sexual Predator Enforcement and Detection team is one of the many potential casualties in a brutal round of budget cuts to public safety, the hardest-hit sector in the fiscal 2010 spending proposal. Reassigning the team to other duties would shave $330,000 off a $648 million shortfall.
The loss of the team would shift its responsibilities to the Virginia State Police, which is stretched even thinner than Fairfax County in its ability to track offenders.
The bulk of the team’s time is spent going door to door and checking whether predators live where they say they live and work where they say they work. The team also performs computer checks, stakeouts and has other investigative responsibilities.
And they’ve steadily made progress, sharply cutting rates of noncompliance — which occurs when an offender fails to notify police of changes in relevant information, even a new e-mail address. That rate fell from 35 percent in 2005 to 11 percent in 2008, according to 2nd Lt. Lance Schaible, who heads the team.
“We attribute that more than anything to the fact that our people are going out there and physically checking on these people,” he said. “It encourages them to stay up to date, because they know they’re going to be monitored more closely than they have in the past.”
The detectives were closely involved in the February 2008 arrest of David Lee Foltz, a registered sex offender who police had tracked with a GPS device on his vehicle and caught as he allegedly attacked a woman in Falls Church.
At least two county supervisors are troubled by the cut, as part of a larger dissatisfaction with the extent of reductions to police and fire departments in the fiscal 2010 budget, which they will vote on in late April.
“I think it’s a bad policy decision,” said Jeff McKay, who represents the Lee District. “I think honestly the cuts to public safety that have been proposed globally are a bad decision.”
Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity said the cut reflected a failure to set priorities at a time when the board is setting aside cash to “build a government housing bureaucracy,” a reference to the county’s multimillion-dollar affordable housing program.
“I can’t believe that with the troubles that the county’s having with Internet sexual predators that we’d be cutting that particular area of law enforcement,” Herrity said. ..News Source.. by William C. Flook, Examiner Staff Writer
November 16, 2008
NV- Budget cuts may be endangering our community- particularly children
11-16-2008 Nevada:
In light of budget cuts and hiring freezes, can parole officers keep our community safe? Certain members of our community may be in particular danger.
Parole and Probation Division of Northern Nevada says that with more than 13,000 Nevadans on parole or probation and fewer than 200 officers statewide on staff to supervise, each one carries a caseload of about 65 offenders.
According to the PPD, for each case, officers are responsible for: conducting drug tests, confirming employment, setting up interviews, conducting home visits and making sure offenders are compliant with all conditions attached to their freedom.
"There is no magic bullet," Department Chief Mark Woods said, Northern Nevada's Parole and Probation Division. "We are feeling the effects-we're not hiring and we will have to start adjusting how we supervise people, putting more resources toward the high-risk offenders."
Since they can't hire any more officers and they're seeing some leave for other agencies, they have to constantly do more with less.
For now, they say they are shifting resources over to supervising the most dangerous offenders while still keeping track of less violent ones.
Dwindling staff is not the only challenge Northern Nevada's parole officers are facing.
Right outside the door of their current office, school buses line up filled with students attending productions at the Pioneer Theater. One block south is the library and the children's museum, one block north is the river walk and beyond that, the ice-skating rink.
Dozens of sex offenders are required to report to the parole and probation building within sight of these places where children congregate.
"Our own internal guidelines say we should be at least 1,000 feet away from places where children meet," Sgt. Tiran said. "And when we first moved here in 2000, the Pioneer Center was here-but most of the other places weren't."
Sgt Tiran says they need to move but that creates another problem.
The lease on their current residence is up in July 2010 and with the state in financial meltdown, there is no money to buy or build a new place. Officers say they worry that their own lives and the well-being of children in the area are at stake. ..News Source.. by News 4
October 9, 2008
UT- Corrections to lay off workers to make budget cuts
10-9-2008 Utah:
Approximately 35 jobs will be axed when the Utah Department of Corrections submits its proposed budget to the state.
The majority of the jobs were already unfilled or addressed through voluntary retirement or reassignment to other jobs within corrections, said department spokeswoman Angie Welling.
While the number of employees who will be laid off has not yet been finalized, Welling expected "just a few" would end up ultimately losing their jobs.
"This has obviously been an arduous process, and one that we have sought to carry out with fairness to and respect for the entire Department of Corrections staff," she said in an e-mail to the Deseret News on Wednesday. "We value our dedicated staff and recognize that these changes will be difficult for those directly impacted, as well as for those staff members who will be asked to shoulder more responsibility in the future."
Corrections has been ordered to make cuts to address part of an overall $272 million state revenue shortfall this budget year. The governor called the Legislature into special session last month to address a budget shortfall. The cuts will not slow any expansion of the prison system, however.
It also may not help a department that has struggled to hire officers for the prison facilities.
Beyond job cuts, corrections has had to make cuts to prison programs being offered to inmates. Those include employment workshops for prisoners about to be released, substance abuse therapy and behavioral therapy for parolees. Some inmates will now be required to pay for their electronic monitoring devices and halfway houses will lose about 40 beds for sex offenders, Welling said. ..News Source.. by Deseret News
