Indiana Inmates Could Have Computer Tablets by End of Year

3-25-17 Indiana:

Indiana prison officials have proposed providing inmates with computer tablets in an effort to help them connect with family and further their educations.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana prison officials have proposed providing inmates with computer tablets to help them connect with family and further their educations.

The proposal includes creating a secure network and installing electronic kiosks across nearly two dozen Indiana Department of Correction facilities. Vendor applications are due by April 24. The department hopes to get the program going by the end of the year, agency executive director William Wilson told The Indianapolis Star (http://indy.st/2mMMPm9 ).

Inmates could access classwork and self-help materials on the tablets. They also could order from the commissary or pay for entertainment. The money from entertainment would help pay for the program. The department hopes a vendor will pay the costs up front, then be reimbursed and earn a profit when inmates buy music and movies. Department officials also could reward good behavior by giving inmates access to entertainment on the tablets.

"Historically, corrections has always been based on consequences," Wilson said, "but what we've learned is that sometimes through positive reinforcement you gain better performance, better behavior."

The tablets likely wouldn't be like the iPads or Kindles common at homes. Companies develop special tablets and software for use in prisons that are more secure and can be controlled by prison officials.

There are concerns, though. Indiana Public Defender Council spokeswoman Kristin Casper worries inmates might face added fees for tablets.

"There's so much potential for this to be abused," Casper said. "That's our biggest issue with this."

Wilson envisions the tablets making prison tasks easier, such as allowing inmates to contact their cases managers, which now is done with paper and pen. Substance abuse and anger management programming can be offered on the tablets, too.

"Our goal is to make sure that when these guys do go back to their communities, that they can be a contributing member," Wilson said. "If we don't allow offenders to have real-world access to education, to programming, to electronic devices — then we've become part of the problem." ..Source.. by Information from: The Indianapolis Star

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Lawmakers consider options for aging prisoners, including nursing home care

1-12-16 Vermont:

When Meg McCarthy’s husband went to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center for chemotherapy, she wasn’t allowed to be with him.

When he was later hospitalized at Springfield Hospital for pneumonia, she could sit by his side, but not touch him.

McCarthy’s husband, 63-year-old Richard Gagnon, was diagnosed with tonsil cancer while serving a 17-year sentence for second degree murder.

“It broke my heart to think of my husband in shackles going to cancer treatment,” McCarthy said. “He was so weak, so tired. What was he going to do?”

Gagnon’s situation is not unique and is likely to become more common.

Vermont’s older prison population has nearly doubled in size over the past 11 years. As of July 1, 2014, 16.1 percent of Vermont inmates were age 50 or older, up from 8.8 percent a decade earlier.

According to Human Rights Watch, Vermont is part of a national trend. Between 2007 and 2010, the number of prisoners age 65 and up grew by 63 percent, while the total incarcerated population increased by just 0.7 percent. The Economist reported in 2013 that a third of American inmates will be over age 55 by 2030.

As inmates age and their medical needs become more complex, lawmakers and state officials are considering whether the state’s correctional system is well-suited to serve the prison population.

Gagnon, who pled guilty to second degree murder three years ago, was in an out-of-state prison in Kentucky when he had a persistent sore throat. He was treated by on-site medical staff, and eventually had an appointment with an oncologist, who confirmed he had cancer on his tonsils and tongue.

The Department of Corrections transferred him back to Vermont, lodging him in Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield. He began treatment at Dartmouth Hitchcock the day before Thanksgiving last year.

McCarthy says the department told her that she could not be there for Gagnon’s chemotherapy, and she wasn’t allowed to touch him when he was hospitalized with pneumonia, she said.

McCarthy questions the need to keep older people in prison.

“People shouldn’t be incarcerated unless they’re a risk to the community, and I would maintain that people that are 75, 85 years of age and in wheelchairs are not a threat to the community,” McCarthy said. ..Continued.. by Elizabeth Hewitt

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Big FL Women's Prison Called Rife With Corruption, Sexual Abuse

12-13-15 Florida:

With nearly 2,700 inmates, Florida's Lowell Correctional Institution, the nation's largest women's prison, is rife with corruption, torment and sexual abuse, former inmates tell the Miami Herald. Inmates complain that corrections officers have spit in their faces, threatened to slam them into concrete and called them whores, bitches and porch monkeys.

They say male staffers tramp through the showers, make them flash their breasts on a whim and force them to beg for basic necessities, like toilet paper, soap and sanitary napkins. Women say both male and female officers use their positions of power to pressure inmates to have sex. Women allege that sex happens in bathrooms, closets, the laundry and officers’ stations. Sometimes officers take women to isolated areas in the middle of the night.

Many women comply because they feel they have no choice; others call it a matter of survival. Inmates say those who yield to the officers’ demands are often shielded from abuse. They can be rewarded with soap and sanitary pads, cigarettes, drugs and money. They get free-world food, like cheeseburgers, or meager feminine accoutrements that make them feel more human, such as makeup and perfume.

Inmates who don’t comply say they are harassed and humiliated; they forfeit plum job and bunk assignments. Often, they are threatened with “confinement” — a separation from the general population that isolates them and tests their sanity. They can lose their belongings, and the privilege of family visits. Corrections Secretary Julie Jones acknowledged that before she took over in January, Lowell was “poorly managed’’ and lacked proper leadership. She replaced the warden, fired an assistant warden and hired more than 100 new officers. She says officers are now being held accountable. ..Continued..

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ADOC: Hualapai Unit will house sex offenders

See Also: GV prison designated for sex offenders

12-9-15 Arizona:

KINGMAN - When the Hualapai Unit at Arizona State Prison-Kingman reopens next month for the first time since riotous inmates destroyed four of five housing pods in July, the facility won't be home to general population prisoners, but to sex offenders.

Arizona Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Lamoreaux confirmed the change in an email Monday.

Lamoreaux said the same inmate criteria put in place following a deadly escape in 2010 are in place.

That includes:

• No inmates serving life sentences (including those serving 25 to life);

• No convicted murderers or attempted murderers (including current and prior convictions);

• No inmates with an escape history;

• No inmates with more than 20 years left to serve.

James Black, a vice president with the GEO Group, a private prison operator that took over from prior operator Management and Training Corp. on Dec. 1, asked for time to consult with the DOC before commenting, as he isn't certain how much detail the DOC wants made public.

Statistics on how many sex offenders are among the more than 43,000 people in prison in the state are difficult to find.

The federal Bureau of Prisons reports more than 14,000 of its roughly 200,000 inmates are incarcerated for sex offenses, more than 7 percent. Based on Arizona's prison population - and assuming the same ratio of sex offender inmates exists in the state as it does on the federal level - slightly more than 3,000 of the state's inmates are in for sex crimes.

The prison - including the Cerbat Unit - has about 3,500 beds.

DOC uses the Sex Offenders Education and Treatment Program, which is based on a cognitive-behavioral and relapse prevention model of assessment and treatment, according to the DOC website.

The program is designed to assist the offender in "managing sexually exploitive behavior" so they don't reoffend.

DOC's website said the program includes psychological testing, getting the inmate to acknowledge the offending behavior, modifying cognitive distortions, managing deviant sexual urges and impulses, developing empathy for the victim, and acquiring relapse prevention skills.

Participants are encouraged to take an active role in treatment by attending weekly classes, group therapies and other components. ..Source.. by Doug McMurdo

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Ex-Oklahoma prison official to join Kingman prison staff

12-9-15 Arizona, Oklahoma:

KINGMAN - The departing head of Oklahoma's prison system has been hired for a top administrative post at Arizona State Prison-Kingman.

Oklahoma Corrections Director Robert Patton announced Friday he is resigning and has accepted a position in Arizona to be closer to family.

Patton didn't specify the Arizona job, but Boca Raton, Fla.-based GEO Group said Monday that Patton will be deputy warden at Arizona's Kingman prison.

Arizona hired GEO Group in October to operate the Kingman prison. The previous operator was ousted after July riots caused nearly $2 million in damages. GEO Group took over operations last week.

In Oklahoma, Patton presided over two botched lethal injections and a third that was called off because the wrong drug was delivered.

He's departing amid an investigation into what went wrong with the executions. ..Source.. by Daily Minor

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Lawyer: Release seniors convicted of sex crimes, murder

MURDER???

10-29-15 Vermont:

An attorney who works with Vermont’s aging prison population asked lawmakers Thursday to consider releasing sex offenders and murderers on furlough after they reach age 50.

People age more quickly in custody than in the general population, said Seth Lipschutz, supervising attorney for the Prisoners’ Rights Office at the Office of the Defender General.

Vermont has 70 male inmates and five female inmates in their 60s, 21 male inmates in their 70s, three male inmates in their 80s, and one man in custody who is older than age 90, according to Department of Corrections data presented to lawmakers Thursday.

Lipschutz believes many older inmates are unlikely to commit another crime. He said the change would save state general fund dollars and provide humane treatment for people who have committed serious crimes.

"They’re in my opinion highly unlikely to reoffend, but we’re punishing them,” Lipschutz said. “I question the social utility of leaving individuals in prison for such long periods of time.”

The suggestion comes as lawmakers are considering the need for a Department of Corrections nursing facility to care for senior prisoners or establishing better relationships with nursing homes for released prisoners.

“I’m trying to figure out why simply because I’m over 65 I’m less dangerous,” said Sen. Peg Flory, 67, a Rutland County Republican.

Other committee members said risk might vary according to each prisoner’s condition.

“If a person’s in a wheelchair, it’s awfully hard to run away,” said Sen. Dick Sears, 72, D-Bennington, who last year introduced a bill that would have granted furlough to nonviolent offenders at age 65 after a minimum sentence. The bill passed the Senate with some changes but did not pass the House of Representatives.

The group of lawmakers, operating as the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee, is expected to make recommendations in January about whether and how Vermont could close a prison in 2017, build a centralized prison facility or continue to reduce the number of prisoners held out-of-state. ..Source.. by April Burbank

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Utah Sex Offender Prison Population Grows under Harsher Laws while Treatment Programs Lag

10-27-15 Utah:

Utah Sex Offender Prison Population Grows under Harsher Laws while Treatment Programs Lag

Fueled by the notion “once a predator, always a predator,” harsher laws have flooded Utah state prisons with sex offenders sentenced to longer and longer prison terms, while funding for sex offender treatment programs has remained static. The dilemma has state lawmakers in a bind, caught between finding ways to reduce the state’s growing prison population and still taking the politically popular approach of appearing to be tough on sex offenders by locking them up with only limited access to treatment.

The eventual result, warned one member of Utah’s Board of Pardons and Parole, will be releasing everyone except murderers and sex offenders due to a lack of space in prison for anyone else.

According to research compiled by the Pew Charitable Trusts, sex offenders now make up one-third of Utah’s prison population – the single largest group of prisoners in state prisons, and nearly double the number of sex offenders imprisoned since 1996. Yet during that same time period, the state’s $1 million annual allocation for its sex offender treatment unit containing 200 beds has remained unchanged.

In 2012, Utah lawmakers passed tough new laws that included mandatory 5-, 10- and 25-years-to-life sentences for child rape. They also imposed harsh penalties on other child-related sex crimes, including aggravated sexual abuse of a child and sexual abuse of a child, now the top two offenses committed by Utah state prisoners. Both were classified as felonies under the new laws.

The harsh sentences, which have helped to fill up the prison system, exist despite data which shows that 78% of sex offenders in Utah had no prior convictions.

“Our culture has a very strict credo, a moral sense, of what is appropriate sexually and what is not appropriate sexually,” said state Rep. Eric Hutchings. “That may be why we incarcerate a little bit more.”

Hutchings noted that a belief that sex offender treatment is ineffective has contributed to the trend of imposing tougher sentences. “The mind-set for a long time has been, what are we going to get by putting this money into treatment? Why not focus instead on mandatory minimum sentences and keeping these people locked away?” he added.

In reality, however, sex offenders are less likely to reoffend than non-sex offenders, according to a 2003 Bureau of Justice Statistics report. Just 5.3% of all sex offenders – and an even smaller 3.3% of child molesters – were rearrested for a sex crime within three years of being released, the report found.

Similarly, a Utah study determined that 20% of sex offenders who completed treatment returned to prison within one year, compared to 42% who did not complete treatment. And the majority of both groups were reincarcerated due to parole violations, not for committing new crimes.

Investing in treatment and supervision resources is critical, said Jonathan Ririe, a Utah psychologist who treats sex offenders in the community. “The reality is we are talking about a very large group of people at the prison who are someday going to get released,” he noted.

“Our statutory scheme makes it so that sex offenders go to prison,” Salt Lake City-based defense attorney Mark Moffat told a meeting of the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice sentencing subcommittee. “And they end up serving just a ton of time where we have an excellent prison-based sex offender treatment program that works in its ability to combat recidivism, but there’s been no funding for that for years.”

In 2014, the Commission presented 18 recommendations for the Utah legislature to consider with respect to reducing the rate of the state’s prison population growth, but none had anything to do with how the state handles sex offenders – the largest single category of prisoners. The problem, critics said, is that Utah lawmakers who just a few years ago passed tough new laws against sex crimes don’t want to appear to be backpedaling by devoting more resources to treatment, despite evidence that shows treatment is effective.

“We’ve now had enough time to track these other programs around the nation and know if these programs are going to make a difference,” said Hutchings. “And the answer is yes, they will. Now it’s a matter of determining the way to do it to have the safest results for the citizens of Utah.”

“It’s a difficult policy area, and one that everyone seems to have some type of opinion on and thought on,” stated Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice executive director Ron Gordon. “As we approach that population of offenders, I hope our approach would be the same as with all other populations. There are a number of different considerations that have to take place, and I hope we don’t shy away from any of them just because it might be tough.”

Utah’s prison-based sex offender treatment is an 18-month program with a limited number of beds. There is often a waiting list and, in some cases, offenders may be kept in prison longer in order to complete treatment.

“That’s been a constant, really, for every public hearing and in the more targeted hearings with prosecutors and victims’ advocates, prisoner advocates, everyone,” said Gordon. “They’re all advocating for increased treatment opportunities.”

Devoting more resources to treatment, however, will not stem the influx of sex offenders facing longer prison terms under the harsher laws, warned Clark Harms, a member of the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.

“I’m not saying that we ought not to punish,” he told the subcommittee. “But I’m saying that [sentences of] 25 to life, or even a presumption of 15 years to life on regular first-degree felony sex offenses, you’re going to have to, eventually, the board is going to get to a point where we have to start letting everyone else out because all we have room for are murderers and sex offenders.”

“If that’s where we want to be,” Harms added, “fine.” ..Source.. by Mark Wilson and Christopher Zoukis

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One in four Ohio prisoners are sex offenders

9-23-15 Ohio:

About one in four Ohio prisoners are serving time for a sexual offense, most for rape, a new report shows.

The Correctional Institution Inspection Committee, a legislative watchdog agency, reported 7,707 inmates are doing time for sex offenses, with another 2,415 incarcerated for parole and other violations accompanying prior sex offenses.

The vast majority are male. Just 137 sex offenders are female, 2 percent of the total.

The agency said the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has been working to improve programs and treatment for sex offenders, but gaps still exist. There are no programs for sex offenders in the highest-security level in state prisons, mainly due to the potential for “ disruptive behavior.”

The report also noticed that released sex offenders have more problems than other ex-inmates in finding housing and jobs. That often leads to new offenses, the report said.

After rape, with 4,768 inmates incarcerated, the other crimes with the most offenders were gross sexual imposition (736), failure to register (508), sexual battery (476), pandering obscenity (425), unlawful conduct with a minor (419), felonious sexual penetration (147), and promoting prostitution (68).

Among women, rape was the highest category with 77 offenders. Woman outnumbered men, five to two, in just one category -- soliciting.

Ohio began a three-tier post-release registration system for sex offenders in 2008, with the most serious offenders, Tier 3, required to register their address with the state every 90 days for life. Those with less serious offenses must register every 180 days to 12 months.

The report showed the average time served for sex offenders dipped slightly to about 10 years between 1998 and 2013. ..Source.. by Alan Johnson

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Judge orders jail to deliver mail to inmates after complaint from ACLU

8-11-15 Michigan:

A U.S. District Court judge ordered the Livingston County Jail to deliver American Civil Liberties Union letters sent to inmates in February.

Judge Denise Page Hood’s ruling on Friday came at the request of the ACLU who alleged jail administrators violated inmates’ First and 14th amendments rights by blocking and reading mail sent to inmates.

“Correspondence from an attorney is the very essence of legal mail,” Hood wrote in her court opinion, adding the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals “has noted that mail from the ACLU is confidential legal mail.”

Livonia attorney T. Joseph Seward, who represents the county, countered: “What (the ACLU) calls legal mail is not, in our opinion, legal mail. It’s another form of advertising.”

The court also set a hearing May 12 to hear the ACLU’s request for an injunction.

The ACLU said the jail’s “postcard only” policy severely restricts the inmates’ communication with the outside world. The jail policy exempts legal mail, but the ACLU alleged the jail did not deliver 25 letters to inmates that were written by an ACLU attorney in February.

The ACLU said the letters were clearly marked “legal mail” and included the attorney’s name, State Bar of Michigan member number and ACLU logo and address.

Instead, the ACLU alleges, jail administrators opened, read and shared the legal mail sent by the ACLU attorney.

Sheriff Bob Bezotte said the ACLU “inappropriately marked” the mail as legal mail to inmates the organization does not represent in current or past cases.
'Being sneaky'

“They’re trying to play they’re the victims, and they aren’t,” the sheriff said. “They’re being sneaky. ... We respect the client-attorney privilege.”

Seward said the ACLU’s mail stemmed from a lawsuit initially filed by Prison Legal News in which the county sought sanctions against the ACLU.

Prison Legal News filed suit in August 2011 alleging Bezotte’s department has “adopted and implemented written-mail policies and practices that unconstitutionally” restrict correspondence with prisoners to postcards only, which would ban delivery of the journal.

The ACLU also argues the jail’s “postcard only” policy is severe.

The county argued Prison Legal News does not have a First Amendment right to force it to distribute sample copies of the magazine because the Supreme Court has not declared that publishers have a “freestanding right to unsolicited communication with inmates,” and that the courts have upheld “outright prohibitions against bulk mail and free advertising,” according to court documents.

The ACLU, Seward said, filed a brief in the Prison Legal News case to help the court decide the issue between the two parties, but when the county successfully got the court to rule Prison Legal News’ correspondence was not “legal mail,” the ACLU changed from a friend of the court to litigator and advocate by sending a “whole host of materials to the jail” in an effort to further Prison Legal News’ fight.

As a result, the county sought sanctions against the ACLU because “it was going around the back door of the court’s earlier ruling,” Seward said.

Prison Legal News was “using the ACLU to do stuff they couldn’t do,” the county’s attorney argued.

Seward and Bezotte said the ACLU material was not confidential, privileged correspondence between an attorney and a client, but rather the ACLU’s attempt to solicit potential clients for a potential lawsuit.

“The ACLU does not have a First Amendment right to force the government, county, to spend its limited resources helping the ACLU try to solicit support for its causes,” Seward said Tuesday.

Hood, who made her decision without having a response from the county, ruled the courts have long held that the loss of First Amendment freedoms “constitutes irreparable injury” and the jail’s actions caused irreparable harm.

“There is no penological interest or security concern that justifies opening such legal mail outside the prisoner’s presence,” the judge ruled. ..Source.. by Lisa Roose-Church

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Richard Law challenges Corrections department claims

See earlier stories HERE and HERE

4-21-15 Vermont:

BARRE — Richard Laws, the sex offender recently released from prison after serving his sentence, disputes the Department of Corrections’ claims that he refused treatment, claiming that the Department instead wouldn’t allow him to participate in treatment, including during his 10-year relocation to a prison in Kentucky.

Laws spent about 23 years behind bars for kidnapping, raping and beating a woman in the early 1990s. According to court records, Laws pleaded guilty in 1993 to kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated assault. He was sentenced to serve 25 to 30 years.

He was released earlier this month, but before he was freed police conducted a public information campaign to educate people about him, including his alleged refusal to seek treatment and his being deemed a high risk to re-offend. Police distributed flyers with Laws’ picture and some of his criminal history to local businesses.

In an interview Monday, Laws said the Department has misled the public regarding his efforts to get treatment.

“That’s just not the truth,” he said. “The truth is they left me out of state until I was seven months from maxing out and they wouldn’t let me program out of state. They just left me out there. By the time they brought me back there wasn’t even any time to program.”

Laws was eligible for release on his minimum date back in April 2005, but because he had not had treatment, he spent 10 more years behind bars.

“You’d have to be pretty foolish to believe that I would choose to spend an extra 10 years in prison because I didn’t want to do some 18-month program,” Laws said. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done to avoid spending an extra 10 years in prison. Think about it, I’m 49 years old, I would have been out when I was 38. How could you even consider that to be plausible?”

In an effort to reduce overcrowding in its prisons, Vermont sends some of its inmates to Kentucky and Arizona under a contract with the private, for-profit Corrections Corporation of America. The Department had no comment about Laws for this story, saying he is no longer under their supervision. However, Commissioner Andrew Pallito said Monday that Vermont inmates housed in other states who need treatment for substance abuse or sex offender treatment are brought back to Vermont to get that treatment in time before the inmates complete their sentences.

Laws has sued the state multiple times for treatment-related reasons. In one case, Judge Helen Toor dismissed a suit in 2009 in which Laws claimed the Department of Corrections gave the parole board inaccurate information about his willingness to get an assessment that would get the ball rolling for treatment.

According to court records, the Department told the board in 2007 that Laws had refused to take the assessment twice. However, by the state’s own admission, it neglected to tell the board that Laws had indeed done the assessment at a later date. Court records show Laws had declined the assessment at first because he had appealed his case and didn’t want to disclose information that could hurt that appeal. Once that case was finalized, Laws took the assessment.

After the state made that admission, Toor dismissed the case because the state had rectified the error. The state noted that the parole board denied Laws parole because of major violations he committed while behind bars, not because of what it had said to the board about Laws. Court records did not go into detail about what those violations were.

Since his release from prison, Laws said, he has been overwhelmed by all the attention focused on him. Most of the media attention directed at Laws has focused on the fact that Laws is an “untreated” sex offender and therefore presents a bigger risk to the community than a sex offender who has undergone treatment.

“Corrections is sounding the alarm for a situation they completely created themselves,” he said, adding he was absolutely willing to participate in treatment programming.

Laws is currently spending nights in Barre and traveling to Burlington during the day to look for work and get mental health treatment. Because of the heightened attention on him, he says he avoids downtown Barre because people recognize him from fliers that were posted just prior to his release from jail and yell at him.

Laws said seven businesses have issued no-trespass orders against him. He also says he can no longer take the bus to Burlington because it stops at the University of Vermont, which also has a no-trespass order against him.

“You couldn’t do more to alienate me from the community than you’ve done,” Laws said. ..Source.. by Eric Blaisdell

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Missouri activists lobby to shorten prison time

4-7-15 Missouri:

Missouri groups are working to shorten prison sentences for nonviolent offenders who are good candidates for parole but are denied access to the parole process. The groups lobbied at the state capitol March 11 for amendments to two mandatory-minimum state laws that toughen the release process for first-time, nonthreatening offenders.

Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE) and the NAACP proposed revisions to two state mandatory minimum sentencing laws: life without parole, and a provision that ensures inmates with Class A felonies serve at least 85 percent of their sentence before facing the parole board. The groups lobbied for three house bills that include these revisions.

"So many of these men and women were arrested when they were teenagers -- they did one violent crime when they were very young, practically children," said Hedy Harden, chair of Missouri CURE. "Many of them have already been there for 20 years and have changed their way of thinking. They're just not a threat to society anymore and deserve a second chance. We're not talking about letting everyone out. We're talking about just letting them have a chance for parole, where the board will still have to make the final decisions."

Harden said more than 120 people attended the lobbying event. Other participating coalitions included Empower Missouri, End 85% Law, Families and Friends Organizing for Reform of Juvenile Justice, Family United Transportation Services, Human Dignity and Economic Justice Coalition, Kansas City Criminal Justice Task Force, Mothers of Incarcerated Sons and Daughters, Show-Me No 85, and Stop Mass Incarceration.

Missouri-CURE and the NAACP proposed revisions to state legislators for the 85 percent statute, supporting three bills aimed to modify the current laws:

--House Bill 491 presses to reduce sentences to 50 percent for first-time offenders before they are eligible for parole.

--House Bill 657 proposes exclusions for those guilty of second-degree murder and for sex offenders -- provisions that CURE doesn't favor, but supports for legislative momentum.

--Senate Bill 189 would provide a possibility for a parole hearing for those who have served at least 15 years, including those with sentences of life without parole.

"The current law impedes crime prevention efforts and compromises public safety," the CURE and NAACP proposal states. "It creates not only an unwarranted burden on taxpayers by not considering these efforts [toward rehabilitation], but also makes no real common sense to the meaning of rehabilitation."

It also notes that longer sentences with shorter parole periods hinder the offender's chance to partake in educational and vocational programs meant to ease reentry into society.

"We believe that prison should only be for those who must be incarcerated, and prisoners should have all the resources needed to turn their lives around," Harden said. "The only purpose to be in prison should be for rehabilitation and education."

This year, challenging the mandatory minimum laws in Missouri originated with prisoners, with donations from them and their families funding these efforts through the NAACP in Jefferson City.

Harden said that many of the prisoners fighting the 85 percent minimum are not doing so just to be released, as their extensive sentences provide little hope for that.

Joseph Williams, president of NAACP Branch 44AC at the South Central Correctional Center in Licking, Mo., wrote to NCR from prison, because "our branch has a strong belief in the church's role in bringing about change in the world." Williams is currently serving a 700-year sentence, yet is still fighting to reduce the mandatory minimum to 50 percent.

"They're doing this because they've grown up and realized it's the right thing to do," Harden said.

In 1994, Missouri passed the Truth-in-Sentencing Act, designed to lessen the disparity between court sentences and actual time served in prison. The mandate ensured that an offender guilty of a Class A felony -- including assault, arson, robbery, murder, forcible rape of a child, and some drug crimes -- must serve at least 85 percent of his or her sentence before facing a parole board. Life without parole, on the other hand, denies an offender the chance of ever facing the board, despite progress in rehabilitation.

Harden said states were motivated to impose the 85 percent requirement when the federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 authorized grants to states that passed truth-in-sentencing legislation. Missouri received millions of dollars from the government and built five maximum-security prisons.

"Now Missouri is trying to keep people to fill up those prisons," Harden said. "It's like they don't want to let anybody go, as expensive as it is to keep people in there."

In a country that contains one in four of the world's prisoners, Missouri's state prison population is 16 percent higher than the national average, having more than 31,500 state inmates, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Between 1990 and 2013, the state's prison population doubled (nearly half the inmates being nonviolent offenders), while the corrections budget has more than tripled since 1994.

A 2000 statement by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops indicated that parole and probation systems should be prioritized as alternatives to incarceration, especially for nonviolent offenders.

"Abandoning the parole system, as some states have done, combined with the absence of a clear commitment to rehabilitation programs within prisons, turns prisons into warehouses where inmates grow old, without hope, their lives wasted," the bishops stated.

Tougher restrictions for parole not only increase the prison population, but age it.

"We in the U.S. have the highest incarceration rate of any country, so certainly these issues at some point are going to have to come into play," said Rita Linhardt, senior staff associate at Missouri Catholic Conference.

Though the conference hasn't taken an official stance on the 85 percent requirement, its focus has been on life without parole for juveniles.

"If we keep sentencing people to life without parole -- juveniles or adults -- we'll have a geriatric prison that's basically a nursing home," she said.

According to a 2014 study by Urban Institute, prisoners age 50 and older can cost about three to five times more than younger prisoners per year, largely due to treatment for chronic diseases. In 2011, about 5,000 prisoners in the United States were more than 65 years old -- a number projected to triple by 2019.

Not only are the mandatory minimum provisions keeping nonthreatening offenders behind bars, but it's also making it harder to imprison parole violators, causing overcrowding in Missouri county jails.

"Wouldn't it make more sense to allow first-time offenders to earn their way out at 50 percent by showing good behavior, than to allow repeat offenders to continue to walk our streets?" noted End 85% Law on its website. The group adds that the 85 percent provision gives prisoners no incentive for good behavior, and likely encourages them to adapt to prison culture for survival.

The U.S. bishops noted in their 2000 statement that punishment for punishment's sake is never justifiable: "Punishment must have a redemptive purpose."

"We believe that both victims and offenders are children of God," the bishops stated. "Despite their very different claims on society, their lives and dignity should be protected and respected. We seek justice, not vengeance. We believe punishment must have clear purposes: protecting society and rehabilitating those who violate the law."

The bishops' statement noted that U.S. history tells us the prison system was "built on a moral vision of the human person and society -- one that combined a spiritual rekindling with punishment and correction. But along the way, this vision has too often been lost. … Our society seems to prefer punishment to rehabilitation and retribution to restoration."

Vital to proper rehabilitation, the bishops said, is ensuring inmates keep in contact with family members -- a difficult task when facilities are purposely located in remote areas, undermining family ties that could aid in restoration and help them understand the harm they've done, which would better prepare them to reintegrate into society.

Fighting Against Mass Incarceration Yearly (FAMILY), an affiliate of Missouri CURE, began in December with the intent to accommodate transportation out of Kansas City and St. Louis to Jefferson City for those interested in lobbying March 11. Ashley Parker, a student at Texas Southern University in Houston, organized carpools for those who either couldn't drive themselves or didn't have the funds.

Parker said she hopes FAMILY will become a platform to provide prisoners with supplies or help families visit loved ones.

"When a lot of people go away to jail, they lose contact between family and friends, so we wanted to be a go-to support system," said Parker, who was inspired to join CURE when her boyfriend was sent to prison. "We want to help prisoners who are trying to reach out, trying to prove that they have rehabilitated themselves over the years, especially for the first-time offenders -- people who went to jail at a young age and can show themselves capable of being law-abiding citizens now." ..Source.. by Soli Salgado

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Michigan fighting claims of sexual abuse by teens in prison

2-2-2015 Michigan:

Michigan's prison system is the target of a class-action lawsuit alleging that guards and other workers failed to prevent the sexual assault of male teen inmates who were locked up with adults.

Inmates under 18 were forced to engage in sex acts with adult prisoners and staff, according to the lawsuit, with some abuse "open and obvious." The Corrections Department disputes the allegations, and state attorneys have argued that employees shouldn't be held liable.

But after more than a year of litigation, the inmates have some important victories. Judge Carol Kuhnke agreed to make the case a class-action and declared that Michigan's civil rights protections apply. More than 200 potential victims have contacted the lawyers, who also plan to hold meetings at prisons.

The case in Washtenaw County court is led by a legal team that negotiated a $100 million settlement in 2009 for hundreds of female prisoners who said they were assaulted or harassed by male guards.

Corrections Department officials "implemented this intermixing policy knowing that they were creating hell for these younger people inside these adult prisons. Their eyes were wide open," attorney Michael Pitt said in court last fall.

"It's a case of gross negligence, deliberate indifference, intentional misconduct — you name it," he said.

The attorney general's office has fought back at many turns. It has repeatedly appealed Kuhnke's key rulings, even challenging whether Washtenaw County is the appropriate place for the case, but hasn't prevailed so far. By December, the cost of providing prison documents to lawyers and meeting other requests was nearly $500,000 and growing.

"We are confident the assertions made in the lawsuit are false," Corrections Department spokesman Chris Gautz told The Associated Press.

In court, the state has argued that officials can't always be held responsible.

"There are inherent risks of being incarcerated, whether someone is under 18 years old or they are over 18 years old. ... Prisons are not where you want to spend your time," Assistant Attorney General Mark Donnelly told the judge. "Just because someone is in our custody and they get injured, it does not mean we are liable for that injury."

Teens can be charged as adults in Michigan, especially for violent crimes. The lawsuit involves allegations of sexual assault at prisons throughout the state, from Marquette in the Upper Peninsula to Gus Harrison in southern Michigan, mostly before the Corrections Department assigned all males under 18 to a prison in Lapeer. That transition began in 2012.

Inmates, typically 16 or 17, were "forced to shower, eat, recreate and work with adult prisoners without adequate supervision to ensure their safety," attorney Deborah LaBelle said.

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has reported that about 2 percent of teens — male and female — were victims of sexual misconduct by other inmates in U.S. jails and prisons in 2011-12. The number was higher for assaults by staff.

After the lawsuit was filed, the attorney general's office said it interviewed roughly 200 young inmates and found no widespread abuse or mistreatment. Lawyers on the other side protested when they learned about the meetings, saying the inmates could have felt coerced into giving answers that would keep them out of trouble.

The case still has a long way to go. More appeals of the judge's rulings are pending, and talks aimed at a possible settlement have been scheduled for later this year.

"We're eager to begin the process of bringing these issues to trial," LaBelle said. ..Source.. by Ed White

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R.I. prison system lacks resources to care for mentally ill inmates

12-15-2014 Rhode Island:

CRANSTON — To reach D-mod, a specialized unit at the High Security Center of the Adult Correctional Institutions, you must pass through a series of steel doors manned by guards inside fortified control booths. You must be escorted by at least one correctional officer — on this day, William Galligan, a lieutenant. Louis A. Cerbo, the Department of Corrections’ clinical director, joins him on a tour.

Each of D-mod’s 12 cells holds a single prisoner. Each cell has cinder-block walls, a high ceiling, one fluorescent light, a camera, a tiny window facing outside, a larger window facing in, and a bunk and steel toilet/sink fixture, both bolted to the concrete floor. The metal mirror, warped by age, distorts your reflection. The total floor space of each cell is 76 square feet. There are no radios, televisions, or computers. It is eerily quiet, except when someone is in crisis.

A small number of D-mod inmates, diagnosed with severe mental illness, spend most of their days alone in these cells.

During the hour or sometimes more that they are out, they take outdoor “recreation” in steel cages, watch a group TV, visit the library or classroom, or receive counseling and related services. When they shower, liquid soap is poured into their palms, since a bar could be used to attempt self-asphyxiation, or, wrapped and swung in a towel, used as a weapon.

These men on D-mod, home of the Observation and Stabilization Unit, are among the sickest people at the ACI.

Galligan says their care has improved since Cerbo was hired in late 2011: correctional officers have undergone training and they belong to mental-health teams created by the clinical director. Galligan says his job these days includes what he calls “a social-worker aspect.”

“We don’t throw them in a cell and forget them,” he says. “We try to make it a little bit better, rather than exacerbate the situation. We get them medicated, we get them compliant, we get them stabilized.”

“We work together,” Cerbo says. “We have to understand their perspective and they have to understand ours.”

The same approach, says Cerbo, is used elsewhere at the ACI, including in High Security’s other modules. According to department spokeswoman Susan Lamkins, 17 of High Security’s 94 inmates, as of last Monday, were classified as “high risk” — men diagnosed with schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and other severe disorders who have exhibited unruly, self-injurious or suicidal behaviors. Another 31 were classified as “moderate to low-risk mentally ill offenders.”

Treatment teams include doctors, social workers, and education and discharge-planning specialists, according to Cerbo. ..Continued.. by G. WAYNE MILLER, JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

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Corrections Officials Revise Policies to Release More Violent, Sex Offenders

12-13-2014 Oklahoma:

Pushing to reduce prison overcrowding, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections has quietly changed its policies to give early releases to greater numbers of violent and sex offenders, according to agency documents obtained by Oklahoma Watch.

The department is doing so by relaxing policies that determine which types of inmates can receive early-release credits, when those credits can be given, and how many credits offenders can receive, corrections department records show.

Previously, for example, inmates convicted of violent or sex crimes, such as murder, robbery, or rape, who lost early-release credits because of “misconducts” in prison were not eligible for restored credits. They are eligible now.

These types of inmates are among the more than 1,500 offenders, convicted of violent or non-violent crimes, that the department has released since March using restored credits.

At least dozens of those prisoners have since been arrested for other crimes, including murder, bank robbery and sexual assault, according to a check of court and county-jail records in a sampling of counties. One prisoner charged with bank robbery in June had been denied parole twice, in 2012 and 2013.

Some law enforcement officials say the stepped-up early releases are putting public safety at risk, but corrections officials maintain that’s not the case.

Officials have said publicly that accelerated releases of inmates through restored credits did not represent a policy change, only a more efficient use of existing policy. But Oklahoma Watch’s review of copies of department memos and a comparison of old and new policies show the agency granted exceptions to policies, then revised the policies, to enable the early releases. The DOC has revised its policies on restored credits four times this year.

Department memos and other records show the Corrections Department made other key changes to increase releases of inmates:

• The agency doubled the maximum number of certain early-release credits that can be earned by or restored to inmates.

• The DOC altered a policy to allow credits to be earned for inmates serving “split life sentences,” which typically require inmates to spend 20 to 30 years in prison and the rest of their life on probation. The change was retroactive, meaning credits were awarded going back to the first day of incarceration. One sex offender was given 12 years worth of credits and released on Dec. 10.

• The department reversed a policy that banned restoration of credits to inmates who are in a punishment period following a misconduct in prison. Now inmates can regain credits within those periods -- six months to two years, depending on the infraction -- and be released early. That includes inmates with violations for escape, assaulting a staff member, rioting or possessing a weapon.

• Officials decided that a state law banning inmates convicted of drug trafficking from getting credits does not apply to those convicted of aggravated drug trafficking, a worse crime. Aggravated means an additional factor was involved, such as a large amount of drugs – 1,000 pounds vs. 25 pounds of marijuana, for example -- or a prior criminal record.

The changes were part of an effort to reduce overcrowding in prisons. In August, two-thirds of prisons were officially over capacity, in part because about 3,000 state inmates had been moved from county jails into prisons. Prisons also were full because efforts to reduce incarceration, such as a Justice Reinvestment Initiative offering alternative treatment for nonviolent offenders, had stalled, advocates of the initiative said.

Speedy Exits

Department records reveal a sense of urgency to get inmates out of prison.

A March 10 memo sent by Ed Evans, associate corrections director, to all facility heads had an attachment saying registration paperwork for sex and violent offenders whose credits were restored must be “completed immediately and forwarded to the Sex Offender Registration Unit so that their release is delayed no longer than necessary.

“Due to the short notice, staff will need to assist the offenders in contacting family and/or friends to arrange their transportation home,” the attachment said.

Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater said he’s concerned that accelerated releases are causing a danger to the public.

“I think what you’re going to see within a year, maybe less, is a spike in crime by the offenders released to the street,” said Prater. “They’ve shown they can’t behave behind the walls. They’re certainly not going to behave on the outside without supervision.”

Corrections Director Robert Patton maintained the releases are not a threat to public safety. The department is simply fulfilling the law for early-release credits approved by the legislature, he said.

“Am I going to tell you that everyone I release will never come back to prison again? Of course not,” Patton said. “But what I can tell you is that the only way the system can be effective is if there’s a way to earn (early-release credits) back.” It is a “carrot and stick” approach, he said.

Gov. Mary Fallin told Oklahoma Watch, “There has to be a fine balance between having the system and protecting the public … If there’s an incentive for an inmate to behave because they have the opportunity to earn good time credits, that certainly helps correctional officers and employees with those inmates.”

Easing a ‘Jail Backup’

When Patton took over the director’s job on Feb. 18, the backup of state inmates in jails was already a serious concern.

County jail officials were criticizing the state’s low reimbursement rate for housing state inmates and slow response in picking them up.

Minutes from a November 2013 Board of Corrections meeting show staff and board members were looking at the problem. Terri Watkins, director of DOC communications, said Patton immediately began working on the issue and meeting with law enforcement officials.

Prater said that shortly before taking over as director, Patton visited with him and others at the District Attorneys Council meeting and talked about using restored-credits to step up releases.

“Patton told us they were going to be very careful about who they released and would use evidence-based assessments of who they released,” Prater said. “I don’t believe that’s occurred.”

Patton has said the department initially believed the jail backup was about 1,900 prisoners, but the number turned out to be closer to 3,000.

At a corrections board meeting on April 3, Laura Pitman, division manager for field support, said that restoring early-release credits to shrink the prison population was the first phase of emptying the jails, board minutes show. Beginning March 10, offenders who had lost credits because of violations “were reviewed for possible restoration of those lost credits if the return resulted in an immediate discharge,” she said.

Between March 10 and March 28, the prison system released 436 prisoners using restored credits, the April 3 minutes show.

In October, Patton told a legislative panel that removing inmates from the jails had saved at least $11 million. However, “it’s much more than about the dollar figure – it’s preparing inmates for release into society,” Patton told legislators, referring to lack of rehabilitative programs in jails. “It is my responsibility, to the best of my ability and within my budget, to prepare offenders for release. That’s what correctional systems are about.”

Relaxing Restrictions

Most inmates can earn early-release credits. There are two basic types: credits for just being incarcerated, and “achievement credits” for good behavior or participating in prison programs, such as education and substance-abuse treatment. Each credit represents one day of early release. Some prisoners accumulate hundreds or thousands of credits.

The credits are used as an incentive for inmates to behave well and to seek rehabilitation as well a way for prison officers to control the inmate population.

When state inmates break rules or laws in prison or in a county jail, they can lose credits. Credits can be restored, with restrictions.

Corrections Department memos and policy records obtained by Oklahoma Watch document the loosening of restrictions for earning and restoring credits.

In July, for example, the department made a policy change that eliminated the maximum number of early-release days – 365 – that could be restored to an inmate. The maximum became unlimited. As a result, some prisoners released earlier this year had thousands of credits restored to them. In November, the department reinstated a cap, at 730 days.

The only inmates ineligible to have credits restored are those with active misconducts in prison – meaning the violation occurred within the previous six months to two years - that would also likely lead to criminal charges: killing another person, participating in an act that killed another person, or rape/forced sex.

The department also doubled the number of achievement credits that can be earned in some programs, such as halfway-house work release. It doubled the number of credits awarded for continued good behavior, too, from 30 to 60 for four months without a misconduct.

Another change involved inmates serving time for “85 percent” crimes – violent, drug or sex crimes requiring that at least 85 percent of sentences be served. Those offenders generally cannot receive early-release credits until after they have reached the 85 percent mark.

Under old policies, such inmates who violated rules in prison and lost their credits could not have any credits restored. The new policy allows for restoring credits if the inmate meets certain requirements related to time left on the sentence and the nature of their crime and misconduct, a copy of the new policy shows.

Prisoners with split-life sentences used to be lumped in with those serving life imprisonment sentences and thus were not eligible to earn credits. However, a tally of the credits was still kept in case their sentence was modified. The new corrections policy retroactively applies all of the credits.

An example is a 58-year-old sex offender, Ricky D. Smothers, who had 4,444 credits, or more than 12 years, awarded to him this month because of the policy changes, according to department records.

In September 1997, a Lincoln County judge sentenced Smothers to life in prison with all but 30 years suspended after the offender pleaded guilty to raping and molesting his 4-year-old, mentally disabled stepdaughter near Chandler. The crime was covered by the news media.

Smothers had very few misconduct violations in prison and, after serving 17 years, was released on Dec. 10 under probation, records show.

Another early release, first reported by The Oklahoman, involved Antonio Ray Mason, who in 1994 was sentenced to 35 years in prison for second-degree murder. Mason shot another man with a pistol during a robbery. During his time in prison, Mason committed 25 misconducts, 10 of which were major, “Class-X” misconducts ranging from possession of a cell phone to committing battery on a staff member without injury, department records show.

In August, Mason was given eight and a half years of restored early-release credits and released.

Other prisoners released through restored credits have since been accused of new crimes, according to a sampling of court and jail-roster records checked by Oklahoma Watch in Comanche, Garfield, Grady, Okmulgee, Osage, Roger and Tulsa counties. Thirty-eight accused re-offenders were found.

Aaron J. Rock, 24, was released in April after serving three years of a seven-year sentence for drug, weapons and robbery charges. Rock’s application for parole had been denied by Gov. Fallin in 2012 and by the Pardon and Parole Board in 2013. In October, he pleaded guilty in federal court to a June 14 bank robbery in Sand Springs.

John M. Hensley, 27, was released from prison in April after serving four years of a six-year sentence for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. In October, he was arrested in Ardmore and charged with attempted rape and various aggravated assault counts.

In April, 30-year-old Desmond La’don Campbell, serving time for attempted kidnapping, exited prison after receiving 362 restored credits, as first reported by the Tulsa World. Corrections records show he had lost the credits for possessing a cellphone or its paraphernalia or posting to a computer site, considered a major violation because of some prisoners’ use of cellphones to coordinate gang activity. His credits were restored under an exception to the restored-credits policy. He was later suspected in at least seven rapes across Tulsa in June. He died on July 8 after a single-car crash on June 29.

There is insufficient data to determine whether the recidivism rate is higher for inmates released so far this year through restored credits than for all inmates released from the prison system. The department says 21 percent of offenders released in fiscal year 2010 returned to the system by the end of fiscal 2013.

It’s also not clear how many inmates have been given an early release under each policy change. The corrections department provided to Oklahoma Watch a list of 1,497 inmates released from prison because of restored credits from March through September but provided no details about each inmate’s credits or misconducts. About 12 percent of the offenders had names common for females; about 10 percent of Oklahoma’s inmate population are women.

Reports of Light Punishment

Sean Wallace, director of a correctional workers group, and some corrections department employees say besides the early releases, corrections officers are being told in many cases not to report offenders or take away early-release credits for misconducts.

“There’s all this pressure on them not to write people up,” said Wallace, who heads Oklahoma Corrections Professionals. “…Even if they do pull the trigger and write someone up, it’s often waived by their superiors.”

Wallace said the policy changes increase the danger level in prisons already facing staffing shortages and make it hard for officers to maintain control.

“I think everybody already feels they’re in a precarious position,” Wallace said.

Watkins, corrections department spokeswoman, said she knows of no directives to staff members to not discipline, or not deny restoring credits to, inmates who commit violations in prisons. She also said early releases are not causing correctional staff to lose control of the prison population.

“I believe the director talked to staff, talked to wardens, talked to facilities and asked to be informed if it was creating any problems,” Watkins said. “I understand (Oklahoma Corrections Professionals) has said there’s been concerns, but I am not aware of any that have been directed to us.”

Sequoyah County Sheriff Ron Lockhart said his office contacted the Corrections Department in late November after a state prisoner being held in the jail to attend a court hearing attacked another jail inmate. Lockhart said his office requested that the prisoner be given a misconduct and have early-release credits taken away as punishment.

“They said, ‘We can’t take his (early-release credits) away. We might be able to re-classify him, but thanks for calling,’” Lockhart said.

The Sequoyah County jail population is higher now than it was before the department pulled state prisoners from the jail, Lockhart said. Offenders released from prison are showing back up in the jails charged with new crimes.

“It’s basically those who are getting let out early and re-offending,” Lockhart said. “Our jail has been near capacity since the DOC started this.”

Prater, the district attorney, said probation and parole officers also are being discouraged from reporting some offenders who violate release conditions to district attorneys.

He said he believes the early-release efforts are circumventing the authority of the Pardon and Parole Board and the parole process. The parole board’s role is to screen inmates for release under parole supervision; inmates released through restored credits won’t have the need to apply for parole.

Some public officials expressed concern about the releases.

Rep. Bobby Cleveland, R-Slaughterville, said some legislators want to repeal the law allowing prisoners to have early-release credits restored.

“I think the law’s good. You’ve just got to really be careful,” Cleveland said. “I wouldn’t be in favor of it (repeal), but some people are.”

“They were letting out some people they shouldn’t have let out,” Cleveland said.

Asked about the possibility of new legislation, Gov. Fallin said, “If the legislature wants to have a discussion and look at how our current earned credit system works, I think that’s certainly a reasonable conversation we can have … The end goal is to keep the public safe.” ..Source.. by Clifton Adcock

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Official tells Kansas lawmakers about staffing shortages in state prisons

11-28-2014 Kansas:

TOPEKA, Kansas — State correctional officers are being put at risk because of critical staffing shortages in state prisons, the interim director of the Kansas Association of State Employees told a legislative committee.

Rebecca Proctor told the Joint Committee on Pensions, Investments and Benefits about instances of inmates attacking guards at the Hutchinson and Lansing prisons, the Lawrence Journal-World (http://bit.ly/1ACBJ6Q) reported. She said that recently at the Topeka Correctional Facility, which houses female inmates, employees were required to stay over for a second full shift because there was no one to relieve them.

The legislative committee may consider measures to standardize the pension benefits of Corrections Department employees. But Proctor said wages are part of the staffing problems and should be addressed before pension benefits.

"Improving retirement benefits for correctional officers is a great goal, but retirement benefits are meaningless if employees cannot be retained on the job long enough to earn those benefits," she said.

The wage issue is particularly noticeable in Lansing, where the state prison is just a few miles away from a federal prison, where the minimum starting pay is more than $39,000 a year and can be as high as $51,702, depending on experience. By comparison, the starting pay for a state correctional officer is $13.61 an hour, or about $28,000 a year.

"Many employees stay at Lansing long enough to gain some experience and training, and then make the move to the federal facility," she said.

Proctor said the state also competes with county jails for employees because many of the jails also pay more than the state.

Department of Corrections spokesman Jeremy Barclay confirmed that job vacancy rates in the state prison system range from 10 to 15 percent at each facility. He says low wages and dangerous working conditions are a big part of the problem.

"Being a correctional officer is a difficult and challenging job," he said. "We can't hire just anybody for the job. Every day, they face the challenge of working with inmates who've been deemed fit to be incarcerated for felony crimes, and the inmates do not have the best behaviors."

Sen. Ty Masterson, R-Andover, who also chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee, suggested that if the officers want more pay, they should consider volunteering to become unclassified employees, which would mean giving up their civil service protection. They then could join a new kind of retirement plan being launched next year that requires a smaller contribution from the state.

Proctor said she did not think most members of her union would accept that tradeoff. ..Source.. by AP

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Idaho Prison Director Brent Reinke steps down from post; resignation effective immediately

11-28-2014 Idaho:

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho Department of Correction Director Brent Reinke announced that he was stepping down from his post Tuesday after leading the department since 2007 through a highly public scandal involving a private prison, overseeing two executions and enhancing the department's oversight of contracts.

Reinke submitted his resignation letter during a special meeting of the Idaho Board of Correction.

"It's been an incredible run, but it's time for me to serve in a different way," Reinke wrote in his resignation letter. "I'm grateful to the Board of Correction, lawmakers, and the Governor for supporting corrections. We have truly made a difference for public safety in Idaho these past eight years. The work is not done, but we have a great start."

The news was announced shortly after the three board members met in executive session via teleconference for nearly an hour. The executive session agenda item was added Monday after the members sent out the original meeting alert late Friday afternoon.

The board adjourned immediately after reconvening from executive session and almost everyone from the room —including Reinke— left, which was unusual compared to most board meetings where correctional staffers usually linger in the room talking and answering questions.

Instead, department spokesman Jeff Ray remained in the room to inform reporters that the board did not accept Reinke's resignation and declined to take any official action. He added that the board's members will meet sometime next week to finalize the details surrounding Reinke's departure. Even though the board still needs to accept the resignation, Kevin Kempf —the department's deputy director— will become the interim director starting Wednesday.

Reinke and Kempf declined to comment to The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Reinke's resignation comes after a 2013 Associated Press report revealed a private-prison scandal involving the Corrections Corporation of America wrongly telling the state that guards were working shifts that were actually left vacant. The company has since pulled out of Idaho, but the FBI is currently investigating the situation for possible criminal fraud charges.

The scandal became the main talking point of the midterm election during the gubernatorial race. Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter's Democratic opponent criticized the governor's administration's handling of the scandal and the $1 million settlement Otter's top staff made with CCA.

Meanwhile, Reinke has lobbied over the years to allow the agency to put together its own proposal and cost analysis for running the prison. However, he went against Otter's preference of championing privatizing certain sections of government, including prisons, and was rebuffed by the governor-appointed Board of Correction.

Board Chairwoman Robin Sandy has said that, like Otter, she was against the state takeover of prisons and wants to limit government growth. But the state was forced to take back the formerly CCA-managed prison this year after CCA declined to renew its contract and the state couldn't find any other company to take its place.

Otter issued a statement Tuesday saying: "I have appreciated Director Reinke's effort, enthusiasm and empathy throughout my tenure as Governor. It's a tough job, and nobody in Idaho history has done it longer. Brent has my thanks for his hard work and commitment. I wish him the best in all his future endeavors."

Reinke became the correction director after Idaho had been contracting with CCA, one of the nation's biggest for-profit prison companies, since 1997. The company was contracted to manage the state's largest prison for $29 million each year.

In 2007, only one part-time Idaho Department of Correction employee was responsible for monitoring the private prison. Reinke bumped that number to 24 staffers to help increase oversight of multimillion-dollar contracts.

Along with increasing contract monitoring, Reinke was the head of the department while the state executed two prisoners by lethal injection for the first time since 1994. ..Source.. by KIMBERLEE KRUESI

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