12-8-16 Colorado:
The Colorado Department of Corrections has several gaps in its behavioral health programs that need addressing, a state audit revealed Tuesday.
The department’s mental-health and sex-offender programs were lacking on several fronts, most of which could be attributed to lack of staff for each, the State Auditor’s Office told legislators.
On the mental health side, department staff were sometimes late in assessing and recording offender mental health needs, did not always have proper mental health treatment plans in place for offenders and did not maintain sufficient evidence that offenders were seeing mental health professionals enough or were receiving adequate out-of-cell time.
State law bars inmates with serious mental health issues from spending too much time in isolation.
“Limitations of the department’s databases used to track offenders’ mental health information and out-of-cell time contributed to the problems we found and hampered the department’s ability to monitor staff,” audit manager Trey Standley told the Legislative Audit Committee.
On the sexual offender end, the audit found that department staff were not adequately assessing and addressing treatment needs as required by law for sexual offenders.
The number of sexual offenders enrolled in treatment each year decreased from 484 in 2012 to 465 in 2015, while the number of inmates eligible for that treatment rose during that same time period from 1,527 to 1,979, the audit said.
In 2015 and 2016, the department had a staff vacancy rate of more than 20 percent for its mental health program and more than 30 percent for the sex offender program, the audit found.
“Staff constraints contributed to a number of the problems we identified,” the audit said.
The audit made 11 recommendations, including improving oversight of out-of-cell time, prohibiting offenders with serious mental issues from being housed in long-term isolation and maintaining adequate staffing to run both programs.
This year, the department received about $16.8 million to operate its mental-health program, and $4.4 million to run the sex-offender program. ..Source.. by Charles Ashby
Showing posts with label Recidivism - Audit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recidivism - Audit. Show all posts
December 8, 2016
Audit finds flaws in state prison psych programs
October 9, 2010
Audit questions corrections spending
A federal audit released Thursday questioned how the Illinois Department of Corrections spent half of a $2.2 million grant to help violent offenders adjust to life outside prison.
The review also said there was no way to say whether the program succeeded because Corrections didn’t keep statistics on its participants, according to auditors, although one set of documents showed nearly half failed.
The Justice Department’s inspector general took issue with $1.1 million in spending of the federal grant from 2002 to this year, including $708,000 in “unallowable and unsupported payroll expenditures” to outside contractors.
Corrections spent some money for unapproved purposes, can’t document how it used other funds, or both, auditors said.
“IDOC did not ensure expenditures were adequately supported or allowable,” the audit said.
Corrections said in a response that it agreed with the findings and would “remedy” the questioned amount, meaning it would find sufficient documentation for the spending or try to recover funds from contractors.
A spokeswoman for the prison system did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The “Going Home Project” initially aimed to help 214 “serious and violent” offenders being released in Chicago by providing education, job and life skills training, and substance abuse treatment.
Auditors said they couldn’t report on the program’s success because Corrections didn’t keep any statistics, although they found documents that indicated 105 participants, or 49 percent, “failed” because they were “re-arrested, dropped out or showed no interest in class.”
Auditors’ own check found 43 percent were either charged with or convicted of new crimes.
Illinois’ overall recidivism rate in 2008 was 52.3 percent, down from 54.4 percent in 2003.
The federal Office of Justice Programs, which administered the grant, allowed Corrections to change the grant’s focus in 2008 to juvenile sex offenders throughout the state. The audit said the majority of juvenile participants still were in the program when the review was completed, so there was no report on the success of the new direction. ..Source..
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