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
November 28, 2014
Idaho Prison Director Brent Reinke steps down from post; resignation effective immediately
March 12, 2012
States reject offer to buy prisons
3-12-2012 National:
Trend moving away from once-popular privatization
ATLANTA — The nation’s largest private prison company made an enticing offer to 48 states that went something like this: We will buy your prison now if you agree to keep it mostly full and promise to pay us for running it over the next two decades.
Despite a need for cash, several states immediately slammed the door on the offer, a sign that privatizing prisons might not be as popular as it once was.
Corrections Corporation of America sent letters to the prison leaders in January, saying it had a pot of $250 million to buy facilities as part of an investment. The company is trying to capitalize on the landmark deal it made with Ohio in the fall by purchasing a facility, the first state prison in the nation to be sold to a private firm.
Prison departments in California, Texas and Georgia all dismissed the idea. Florida’s prison system said it doesn’t have the authority to make that kind of decision and officials in CCA’s home state of Tennessee said they aren’t reviewing the proposal. The states refused to say exactly why they were rejecting the offer.
“Knowing the state government, it has to have something to do with the potential political backlash,” said Jeanne Stinchcomb, a criminal justice professor at Florida Atlantic University who has written two books on the corrections industry. “Privatization has reaped some negative publicity, so I can only assume that despite the possible benefits, there would be a price to pay for supporting it.”
Bruce Bayley, associate professor of criminal justice at Weber State University in Utah, said he hoped something other than politics drove the states’ decisions.
“It’s always hard for politicians to turn down the money,” Mr. Bayley said. “On the flipside, though, it speaks well to the professionalism of corrections departments of these states who don’t want to sell out to companies just to add some money to their bank accounts.”
Critics of private prisons called the offer a backdoor way to delay the sentencing reform movements that have sprung up in many states looking to cut prison budgets. Lawmakers in many conservative states that once eagerly passed tough-on-crime laws are now embracing alternative sentences for low-level offenders who would otherwise be locked up.
CCA said selling a prison to a private firm doesn’t block states from pursuing sentencing reform. The company also said it was still too early to say whether any state would take them up on the bid.
“It was an outreach letter making them aware of these offers, it’s yet another tool in the toolbox,” said company spokesman Steve Owen. “We can design and build and own facilities from scratch or manage government facilities, but this is a third business model.”
CCA said the offer was inspired by the $72.7 million sale of Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Ohio. CCA and its main competitors, which have said they don’t plan to make a similar offer, typically build their own prisons or manage state-owned lockups.
“Eligible facilities must have at least 1,000 beds, must be less than 25 years old and in good condition, and have to maintain at least a 90 percent occupancy rate.
The private prison industry boomed in the late 1980s and 1990s as states sought cheaper ways to jail people and voters began resisting building more prisons. But efforts to privatize prisons have become highly-charged political debates in many states, partly because a sale often requires legislative approval by the governor.
In Louisiana, lawmakers last year defeated Gov. Bobby Jindal’s proposal to privatize and sell several state prisons to generate $90 million. Relatives of prison employees aggressively fought the move, fearing that they would get lower pay and less benefits working for a private firm.
An effort to privatize a chunk of Florida’s prisons also met stiff opposition from lawmakers in February. They blocked what would have been the largest prison privatization in the U.S. ..Source.. by The Washington Times
February 8, 2012
Hundreds Kept Imprisoned In Georgia Despite Serving Their Sentences
If this is happening in Georgia, how many other states have the same circumstances and we have not heard about them?2-8-2012 Georgia:
Georgia penitentiaries continue to feed, clothe and pay medical expenses for hundreds of inmates who were approved for parole but cannot be released because they have nowhere to live. About two-thirds are convicted sex offenders. About one-third require mental illness treatment but otherwise they are not considered a threat to public safety.
“We have got to do something about the housing situation, about the need for these individuals to have stable housing in order to be able to assimilate back into communities,” state Rep. Jay Neal said during a recent hearing in which testimony was heard from officials at the State Board of Pardons and Paroles, State Department of Community Affairs, the Clayton County Sheriff’s Office, and Support Housing Atlanta.
Having nowhere to go means inmates approved for parole have no family able or willing to take them, and no publicly supported housing facility willing to accept them. One of the challenges associated with Georgia corrections reform is, where will released inmates go when they leave prisons?
The 2011 state Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform delivered its report before Thanksgiving. The emphasis was on establishing alternatives to incarceration to reduce budget devouring prison system costs. The new Legislature has been in town since January. The committee that will turn the special council recommendations into a bill is currently drafting the legislation.
More Millions for Prison Beds
Governor Nathan Deal’s (R) criminal justice reform cards are on the table: $35.2 million for additional prison beds, $10 million for accountability courts expansion, $5.7 million to convert three pre-release centers to residential substance abuse treatment centers, and $1.4 million to fund additional parole officers. Those priorities were named in his State of the State address and also in his proposed FY 2013 budget.
Moving away from a strategy that emphasized incarceration to one focused on alternative treatment for non-violent persons who do not pose any public safety threat means the state criminal justice system must change the tools it needs. Beds would be reserved for bad guys. Other people who need treatment more than incarceration would be placed into community settings.
A House committee met for 90 minutes during the week of Jan. 30 to discuss the lack of available housing statewide for paroled inmates. State Parole Director Michael Nail told the committee Georgia currently has 367 former sex offenders and 147 people with treatable mental illness needs who are still locked up even though they served all required time and were approved for release from the prison system.
‘Two Years Beyond Parole Date’
How long might they stay locked up? Most inmates are freed within 30-to-45 days after the parole board grants release. That is not the case for hard-to-release inmates.
Nail said, “We’ve had inmates (who) have been there two years beyond their parole date simply because they have nowhere to go.”
Patients who require mental health treatment are a special challenge. The systemic approach to help them is a larger question than the impact it has on criminal justice reform. Georgia and the federal government entered into an October, 2010 consent decree that requires the state to transfer mental illness patients out of hospitals and into community settings. The state must be able to serve 9,000 persons on a strict timetable that concludes not later than July 1, 2015.
20% Immediately Homeless
Paul Bolster is Director of Support Housing Atlanta. Support Housing conducted a survey of mental health patients being held in several metropolitan area county jails. Bolster said inmates were asked where they would live if they were released. Twenty percent said they would be immediately homeless and 12 percent more said they did not know.
“Thirty-five hundred people with serious mental illness will be discharged from metro jails within a year’s time to, probably, homelessness,” Bolster told the House committee. “This explains why you have recidivism.”
The survey was conducted in Cobb, Gwinnett and DeKalb County jails, and statistics were incorporated from Fulton County.
Clayton County’s Millions for Medicine
Clayton is Georgia’s third-smallest county by land mass, but it has the state’s fifth largest population. Last year the county processed 26,000 prisoners. Those inmates consume between $7 million to $8 million annually in medicine and other health care expenses. About 900 of the jail’s 1,700 capacity prisoners require mental health services and between 300 to 400 require intensive mental health treatment.
Sheriff Kemuel Kimbrough said those services could be provided at less expense outside a jail setting.
Kimbrough’s varied assignments have included work on the implementation of mental health community service boards and he holds an Emory University law degree.
“We’re spending god-awful amounts of money to keep them behind bars when the reality is we could probably spend less to support them in treatment, support them in housing, get them back out into the community and maybe even rehabilitate them into quality citizens,” said Kimbrough.
“We could have up to 300 folks that would meet drug court parameters but for one component, one very key factor, that they have stable residential housing outside the jail,” Kimbrough said. “That is the number one thing that gets them knocked out. If they don’t have a place to stay that is stable then they are not eligible for the drug court program.” ..Source.. by Mike Klein
November 13, 2010
Former guards slam prison, culture of violence
11-13-2010 Idaho:
BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Three former employees at Idaho's only private prison say staff routinely failed to protect inmates, and in some cases put inmates in situations knowing they'd be beaten by others.
The statements from the former Idaho Correctional Center guards are in affidavits filed in a federal lawsuit against the prison's operator, Corrections Corporation of America.
The lawsuit was filed against CCA last year by inmate Marlin Riggs, who was badly beaten in his cell.
The three former employees claim the prison is understaffed, and steeped in a culture of laziness and lack of concern for inmate welfare.
They say staff at the prison, referred to as "Gladiator School," frequently assigned inmates to cell blocks knowing they'd likely be beaten.
CCA has denied the allegations in the lawsuit and is asking a judge to dismiss it. ..SOurce.. by KHQ 06 hd
November 2, 2010
Sinking Ship
Prisons Try to Improve Mental Health Services; They Cut Them Instead
THERE ARE 13,982 inmates currently residing in all 14 of Oregon's prisons. Of those prisoners, 6,844 (or 49 percent) have a diagnosed mental illness.
Concerned about the treatment of inmates who have both a mental illness and a drug addiction, the state mandated in January that prisons double their mental health programs' staffing ratio to one staffer for every 10 inmates. Ironically, the move backfired.
Anticipated cuts of up to 25 percent of its budget thanks to the financial crisis, the Oregon Department of Corrections says it will be too expensive to double its mental health staff. Instead, it is cutting the entire transitional treatment program for prisoners suffering from co-occurring mental illnesses and drug addictions. The result will be devastating, say public defenders and mental health advocates.
"It's going to increase the number of people who relapse when they reenter the community," says Bob Joondeph, executive director of Disability Rights Oregon.
"People are going to cycle back [into prison]," agrees Chris Bouneff, the executive director of the Oregon chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Three Oregon prisons currently provide 157 beds for the treatment program, which lasts six months or longer and involves group therapy, drug and mental health treatment, and life skills that help prisoners manage their addictions and illnesses. Prisoners are also referred to treatment programs and other services outside of prison.
The department of corrections stopped accepting new inmates into the program this month, and will shut it down by the end of the year.
"Almost all of our clients have co-occurring disorders," says Heather Ackles, Metropolitan Public Defender's alternative sentences advocate. The need for the program is dire, she says. "It's really a shame."
Doubling its mental health staff represented a "huge expense," says Jana Russell, the administrator of the department of corrections' behavioral health programs. Instead of increasing the program's funding, the program's resources are being reallocated to "the highest need," Russell says.
"We had to make some very big and important decisions about how to manage this population," she says.
Russell is not happy about the cut, but states that her first priority is funding treatment for inmates while they are prisoners, rather than programs that help inmates transition back into civilian life.
Russell says mentally ill inmates in Oregon's prison system frequently inflict self-harm, attempt suicide, and experience psychosis.
"The first priority is keeping staff safe, and services that allow people to reenter and not re-offend are second," says Joondeph of Disability Rights Oregon.
It's possible the program will be restored in the future, but the department of corrections could not provide information on how much more money would be needed to reinstate the program, or even how much the program currently costs to run.
Putting together a line-item budget for the department of corrections' mental health and drug addiction treatment programs would be an "administrative nightmare," says Martha McDaniel, the department's budget manager, and it would make the budget less flexible.
Meanwhile, inmates who would have been in the co-occurring treatment program will be housed with the general prison population, or in other mental health or drug treatment programs.
"The treatment won't be as broad," Russell admits.
But Joondeph and Bouneff are skeptical of how effective the care will be for inmates with co-occurring disorders.
Joondeph says, "The vast majority of people in the corrections system with mental illnesses have accompanying substance abuse issues. They need to be addressed together, equally." ..Source.. Amanda Waldroupe
May 11, 2010
Last Day to Submit Comments to Eric Holder re: Prison Rape Elimination Standards
5-11-2010 National:
The Department of Justice has solicited public comment on whether it should adopt the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission’s proposed standards, and today is the final day to submit comments. (See my earlier blog post here.) If you haven’t already, take five minutes to sign the Just Detention International petition at Change.org or submit your own comment via Regulations.gov at this link. ..Source.. Prison Law Blog
January 24, 2010
Fake electrocution of prisoner detailed in internal Corrections Department report
1-24-2010 New Jersey:
One week before Javier Tabora’s release from the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Avenel, a specialized prison for sex offenders, he was summoned to an examination room.
Once there, Tabora later told investigators, a sergeant instructed him to sit in an electronic chair used to scan inmates for contraband and pretend to be electrocuted.
Tabora sat in the chair yelling and shaking, "pretending that electricity was coming from the chair," he said. Then he placed "cream soup" in his mouth and allowed it to seep out "for added effect."
The entire ruse was allegedly conducted to frighten a second inmate, Robert Grant, a sex offender with a history of mental health problems whom officers planned to question. In a separate interview, Grant told investigators he saw an inmate with "foam coming from his mouth" and then became "upset, nervous and shaking" when officers sat him in the chair while interrogating him.
The officers involved denied the allegations, saying none of Tabora’s account was true. They told investigators they were only using the chair to search Grant for contraband before questioning him. Instead of threatening to electrocute Grant, they said, the officers were trying to reassure him by unplugging the chair, used to detect metal in objects like weapons or cell phones, because Grant’s handcuffs set off an alarm, scaring him.
The conflicting accounts of the Oct. 3 incident were contained in a confidential internal affairs report obtained by The Star-Ledger.
The investigation, which concluded this month, did not substantiate the electrocution threat or the preceding ruse, according to the report. Without a video camera in the examination room, the case boiled down to the officers’ word against the inmates’.
Earlier this month, the department moved to fire the three veteran officers involved but instead struck a deal allowing them to keep their jobs and receive transfers to other facilities, according to officials and documents.
Each pleaded guilty to multiple infractions including conduct unbecoming and violation of safety regulations, according to the settlement agreements. Sergeants Mark Percoco and Steven Russo, also charged with neglect of duty, are serving 105-day suspensions without pay, while officer Edward Aponte will be off the job for 14 days.
Officials, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal investigation, said there wasn’t enough evidence to support firing the officers if the case reached an administrative hearing.
"The investigation didn’t produce the results that we thought," one official said. "We knew we weren’t going to be able to sustain the removal."
In addition, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office declined to pursue criminal charges.
The internal documents obtained by this newspaper provide a rare glimpse at an internal investigation and the disciplinary process within the state’s prison system. Such proceedings are kept confidential: public records show when disciplinary action is taken but reveal little about the employees’ infractions or how the punishment was decided.
The Oct. 3 incident also raises questions about how inmate complaints are handled in state prisons. Officers told investigators they were questioning Grant because he was making threats against an officer, but the internal report concluded the "threats" were only the filing of "remedy forms," which give inmates a way to express concerns. And, when pressed, no one could locate the "threatening" complaints Grant was accused of writing.
Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, expressed concern that inmates were being discouraged from complaining.
"Respect for internal affairs and prisoners’ rights to address grievances is essential to the integrity of prisons and other such institutions," she said. "The only way to create a silver lining to this tragic and appalling incident is to use it as a springboard for establishing grievance and oversight systems and training programs to ensure that nothing like it ever happens again."
During the four-month probe documented in the internal report, investigators videotaped interviews with inmates Grant and Tabora, the three officers under investigation, and several other employees in the prison.
The facility, built in 1976, provides treatment to about 650 sex offenders, including those with mental illnesses. Corrections spokesman Matt Schuman declined to comment on this case, and Russo’s lawyer did not return messages left at his office. Tabora, now under parole supervision, referred questions to his lawyer, who did not return calls for comment.
Robert Fagella, a Newark lawyer representing Aponte, said his client is a model employee whose lighter suspension shows he didn’t do anything seriously wrong.
"He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," Fagella said. "There wasn’t very much there to charge him with. I think it was a face-saving device."
The Oct. 3 incident was brought to the attention of investigators by a third inmate at the prison, the report said. The inmate told investigators Grant was being mocked by staff members who were "making a sizzling sound" like they were "frying meat." The inmate said Grant was telling other inmates he was strapped to a chair and threatened with electrocution.
The investigation found that Aponte and Russo had gone to the prison’s recreation yard to fetch Grant, then brought him handcuffed to the examination room for a strip search. Percoco told investigators he brought Tabora to the room to reorganize equipment, then sent him out when Grant arrived. Russo said they asked Grant to sit on the electronic chair to search him for metal. According to Russo, Grant has a habit of using razor blades to remove tobacco from cigarette butts in the prison yard.
Afterward, Russo told investigators, they escorted Grant from the room, providing him juice at a nearby office before releasing him.
According to the Corrections website, Grant is now serving his five-year term at South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton. ..Source.. Chris Megerian/Statehouse Bureau
October 27, 2009
OH- Glitch forces review of cases
10-27-2009 Ohio:
Victims are being notified that those who victimized them might be getting out.
Thousands of ex-offenders could be released from state supervision, and more than 200 current inmates might get out of Ohio prisons early because of a sentencing glitch.
Many of the affected current and former inmates committed felonies and some are sex offenders, an official said.
Ohio prisons director Terry Collins said that rulings in three related lawsuits handed down by the Ohio Supreme Court this year are forcing the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to review more than 14,000 other cases.
The glitch affects only offenders sentenced after the state’s 1996 “truth-in-sentencing law” took effect.
“‘If the sentencing order didn’t say they had mandatory supervision and the number of years, the order was void,” Collins said.
The judges’ sentencing oversight was cited in three specific cases and expanded, by virtue of the Supreme Court rulings, to cover thousands of similar cases.
The ruling directly affects three groups: 14,816 former prisoners sentenced to “post-release control” (the post-1996 successor to parole); more than 208 inmates sent back to prison for violating post-release control rules; and an undetermined number of inmates currently in prison.
Collins said he didn’t know the number of cases affected, or how many have sentencing problems.
“My concern is that we may well have to take some people off supervision by the Ohio Adult Parole Authority,” he said. “We would no longer have the ability to supervise them from a legal perspective.”
Agency officials are in contact with common pleas judges statewide. A telephone hot line has been set up to help schedule re-sentencing hearings, by teleconference when possible.
In addition, the agency’s victim-services department is contacting crime victims and family members to inform them that offenders who they thought were under state supervision might not be supervised for much longer.
“I’m always concerned about the victims of crime,” Collins added. “Every time something happens with one of these cases, it opens up memories again.” ..Source.. by The Valley Homepage
October 14, 2009
MI- ME- Michigan Woman Appointed to Head Maine State Prison
10-14-2009 Michigan - Maine:
The Baldacci administration has appointed the first woman ever to serve as warden of an all-male correctional facility in Maine. Patricia M. Barnhart, who is now warden of a facility in Michigan, will take the reigns of the Maine State Prison in Warren in December. Prisoner advocates are hoping the appointment will lead to a change of culture at the state's largest prison.
According to the Maine Department of Corrections, Patricia Barnhart has 20 years of experience in corrections, and is now acting warden at the Thumb Correctional facility, a 1,200 bed prison for adult males and youthful offenders in Michigan.
"Her attributes are considerable," says Deputy Commissioner Denise Lord. Lord says Barnhart was invited to tour the Maine State prison, which has a capacity of more than 900 prisoners, and a staff of more than 400.
Lord says Barnhart spoke with staff and also met with the management team. "Everyone came away from those exchanges impressed with her openness, her team-building, her leadership abilities, her desire to bring people together into joint problem-solving. Plus she has considerable experience running an institution."
Barnhart succeeds Warden Jeff Merrill, who, after 14 years, has decided to take a new position directing the Corrections Department's energy conservation efforts. Some prison advocates say it's time for major changes at the Maine State Prison.
"I don't know much about Patricia Barnhart, but I do have high hopes for her," says Zachary Heiden of the Maine Civil Liberties Union. Heiden says there are any number of continuing problems at the Maine State Prison. He points to the overuse of solitary confinement, and inadequate medical care for inmates, including treatment for mental illness.
Heiden says he hopes that Warden Barnhart will be able to create a more productive culture within the prison. "Ninety-five percent of people in prison are someday going to be out of prison, and the kind of people they are when they get out of prison has a lot to do with how they are treated in prison," Heiden says. "And I think the culture of a prison or a jail is critical in thinking about 'what are the kind of people that we want to come back into our communities?'"
"There's big issues of staff overcrowding, people having to work long hours, there's problems for everybody there," says Judy Garvey, a member of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition, which is hoping that the incoming warden will be more open to the concerns raised by advocates, workers, inmates, and their families. "They need to have more input from the outside so there's so much more transparency. It's been closed off for a long time. I know it's hard for reporters to get in."
"When my stories in the Phoenix started appearing about the abuse that was going on there, they basically shut me out," says freelance journalist Lance Tapley, who has covered the Maine State Prison extensively for the Portland Phoenix. Tapley says he has since been allowed back into the prison and is now allowed to interview inmates without having a prison official also present.
He says the problems that incoming warden Patricia Barnhart will face when she takes the keys are considerable. "She is walking into a colossal mess," Tapley says. "There has been a murder this year of an an inmate under circumstances that were perhaps implicating staff, there have been a bunch of lawsuits involved with the way prisoners have been treated, there was a suicide a while back that also resulted in another big suit. Guards have been prosecuted for assault for the first time in, I believe, history. It is a complete mess."
Deputy Commissioner Denise Lord says Barnhart will be a strong and dynamic leader at the prison. "She's open to new ideas, she is progressive in her thinking about corrections, but she's also very capable and able to make decisions and move things forward."
Patricia Barnhart could not be reached for comment. She will take over as Warden at the Maine State Prison in early December. ..Source.. by Keith Shortall
September 29, 2009
'Sick' inmates wanted to buy pedophile's court transcript
9-29-2009 Australia:
A CONVICTED pedophile has revealed how he was offered money by other sex offenders in jail to buy his transcript from court detailing his horrific crime.
The Queensland pedophile, known as ‘’John’’, spoke on 612 ABC Brisbane's breakfast program with presenter Madonna King today and said there were some ``very sick people'' in jail.
``I was offered money as such from other sex offenders to buy my transcript from court,'' he said.
``I was in protected custody ... I made a point of trying to stay away from them (other pedophiles) as much as possible.''
He served six months for sexual offences involving his step-daughter.
John said he has ``nothing to hide'' and said people living in his street do not know he is convicted child sex offender.
But the treatment of other convicted sex offenders including Dennis Ferguson by the public and media terrifies him.
``It scares me the vigilante type thing, e.g. Dennis Ferguson,'' John said.
``I honestly believe people (in my neighbourhood) don't need to know by background.
``The police know who I am, they keep a check of me and I report to them.''
John is one of 3000 Queenslanders registered on a national sex offender's register, but said police don't keep frequent enough checks on his whereabouts.
``I report every year, if I change my car, or job, I report that to them,'' he said.
John is continue to undergo counseling and said he won't re-offend after completing a rehabilitation course.
Ferguson has refused to complete a similar course. ..Source.. by Sophie Elsworth
September 28, 2009
MI- Michigan lawmakers approve state corrections budget with significant cuts to per prisoner expenses
9-28-2009 Michigan:
LANSING -- One of the biggest budgets, for the Michigan Department of Corrections, proved to be one the easiest to resolve as lawmakers work to fashion an overall spending agreement for state government with just three days left before the Oct. 1 start of the 2010 fiscal year.
House and Senate negotiators Sunday agreed to reduce prison expenditures by $42.7 million less than Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s recommendation by requiring department officials to find $841 in cost savings per prisoner. How reductions in health care, transportation, education, food services and other programs are reached will be up to department officials to figure out.
“They ought to be able to come up with some cost savings,” said Sen. Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt, a member of the House-Senate conference committee on corrections. “If the governor can’t bring down the cost per prisoner, she’s failing the taxpayers of Michigan.”
The budget, $98 million below current-year spending levels, is based on an inmate population of 45,433 and reflects Granholm’s strategy to accelerate the parole of about 3,500 inmates who have served 120 percent of their minimum sentences. Savings occur through the closing of three prisons in Muskegon, Standish and Kincheloe and five minimum security camps.
The spending cut is about $40 million less than the target reached Sept. 16 by House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township, and Senate Majority Leader Michael Bishop, R-Rochester. Sen. Alma Wheeler Smith, D-South Lyon, said those additional savings were predicated on reducing the time felons spend in prison by changing state sentencing laws, a move Senate Republicans opposed. Cropsey said the $40 million will made up by using federal economic stimulus dollars.
In another budget produced by conference committee Sunday, lawmakers slashed state aid to local libraries from $10 million to $6 million, a 40 percent cut.
More stimulus money may be tapped if lawmakers can’t approve cuts in more contentious budgets that have yet to be agreed to in committee, or voted on in the House and Senate.
Negotiators Sunday failed to reach agreement on cuts that slice state revenue sharing aid to local governments by 13 percent, or $163 million, and reduce Medicaid reimbursement rates to physicians, hospitals and nursing homes by as much as 12 percent.
Dillon is expected Tuesday to unveil a revenue package that would mitigate those cuts and others that have drawn criticism from Granholm and fellow House Democrats, including the elimination of the $140 million Michigan Promise college scholarship program. Sen. Mike Prusi, D-Ishpeming, said Sunday he’s been briefed on what that revenue package could contain, but declined to provide details.
Cropsey said his Senate GOP caucus was “adamant” the budget be balanced with existing revenue only. “I don’t see any votes for tax or fee increases.”
AboutTuesday, when lawmakers will have just two days to complete a budget or pass a stopgap one-month spending measure, Smith said, “I think (Republican) rhetoric will change when reality hits.” ..Source.. by Peter Luke
September 5, 2009
VA- Some prisoners elibible for parole held longer than guidelines suggest
9-5-2009 Virginia:
Some 706 parole-eligible inmates are being been held longer in Virginia prisons, at $24,332 each per year, than recommended under the current no-parole sentencing guidelines.
In a report to the General Assembly on Tuesday, the Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission also found that as of the end of last year, there were 575 prison inmates eligible for geriatric release.
However, the report also found that of the parole-eligible inmates still in prison, 88 percent were convicted of violent crimes and nearly 80 percent have not yet served longer than stipulated under the sentencing guidelines.
Inmates who committed crimes before Jan. 1, 1995, are eligible for parole. Those who committed crimes on or after that date are not -- they are sentenced under guidelines based, in part, on the terms actually served by inmates under the old parole system.
Inmates and advocates have complained that because of low parole grant rates, many parole-eligible inmates are being held in prison longer than if they had been sentenced under what are widely perceived to be the tougher, nonparole guidelines.
Jean Auldridge, president of Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants-Virginia, said the report "gives us hard data that shows a significant number of prisoners have served longer than the recommendations in the sentencing guidelines."
She said her group had suspected as much and had been urging such a study.
But Helen Fahey, the parole board chairwoman, assisted in the study and said the findings were not surprising.
She said judges sentence within the guidelines in 80 percent of all cases, but when judges impose sentences tougher than recommended by the guidelines, the reasons they give are similar to the concerns of the parole board when it considers releases, she said.
State Del. David B. Albo, R-Fairfax, a lawyer, said that when an attorney reached a plea deal with prosecutors under the old parole law, everyone had an idea of how long someone actually would serve for a given sentence. Ten years might really mean three, he said.
But, he added, when parole ended for new crimes and the parole board's grant rate remained low, there was some concern some of the "old law" inmates "were serving a lot more time than anybody ever intended."
"What the study was looking at was how many people were serving more had they pled under the sentencing guidelines," said Albo, vice chairman of the Virginia State Crime Commission.
State Sen. Janet D. Howell, D-Fairfax and co-chair of the Virginia State Crime Commission, said a primary reason for seeking the study is "to save every dime we can, consistent with public safety." The state's budget crisis has had officials consider, among other things, the early release of some nonviolent offenders.
Howell said yesterday that she only has skimmed the report and said it will be studied closely by lawmakers.
The study found 3,735 inmates among the state's roughly 38,000 prisoners who are serving time only for parole-eligible crimes (some are in prison under both oldand new-law sentences). The commission was able to assign sentencing-guideline scores to 3,341 of them.
However, the commission report said that not all of the relevant factors could be taken into account. "For offenders serving an unusually long period of time in prison, there may be one or more aggravating circumstances not addressed by the guidelines," the report says.
For example, of the 80 parole-eligible drug offenders serving longer terms than would be required now, three out of four already had been revoked from parole at least once, and one-third had two or more parole revocations.
Other factors that could not be considered in the study included inmate behavior behind bars, victim input, or other crimes for which there are no sentencing guidelines.
Of the 706 parole-eligible inmates held longer than recommended under current guidelines, 58 were given life sentences; seven had two or more life sentences; 10 were sentenced to at least 100 years; and 10 have not reached their earliest parole eligibility date and so cannot yet be considered for parole.
Almost 300 of the 706 had served less than five years longer than guideline-recommended sentences; 246 had served five to 10 years; 125 more than 10 years; and 12 more than 20 years.
The geriatric-release provision was enacted as part of the 1994 reforms that included the end of parole and the creation of the guidelines. An inmate convicted of a noncapital felony who is at least 60 and has served 10 years; or 65, having served five years; is eligible.
However, Fahey said, "they are almost all violent criminals -- they're predominantly murderers and sex offenders. . . . They're not in there for stealing cars or writing bad checks." ..Source.. by Frank Green
August 12, 2009
CO- Colorado's prison system structured to promote failure
8-12-2009 Colorado:
Mike peers from beneath the sackcloth he uses as a blanket, watching coldly as the other shelter residents ready themselves for sleep. The room is lined with beds and smells of body odor and unwashed clothes. Near the entrance, several men are laughing at another man’s banal, explicit clowning. But Mike is not in the mood for nonsense. Restless and desperate, he wonders how much longer he can maintain.
It has been four weeks since he was released from prison, after serving four years for a child abuse charge. While in prison he came to terms with his problem, realizing he was addicted not only to his anger, but to the adrenaline rush it gives him. He vowed to himself when he was released that he would never go down that road again. He is prohibited from any contact with his son, and he understandingly complies. Required by his parole to attend anger management classes every week, he does so dutifully.
But the roadblocks for felony offenders in Colorado are wearing him down. He can’t secure employment beyond day labor because the ID card he was issued by the Department of Corrections is invalid for DMV or Social Security purposes. And his felony conviction has prohibited him from being accepted by every apartment he has applied for.
The only place that will accept him is the Salvation Army’s Crossroads homeless shelter, which is where many newly released prisoners end up. Entrance to the shelter is limited; residents are required to leave from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, rain or shine. Life in the shelter is not unlike prison. The other day, he watched as two former DOC inmates beat down another man in the smoking area out back and took all his money. A shelter volunteer, responsible for halting such activity, laughed as he watched and then did nothing. Very much like a prison guard.
He remembers counting the days to his release, anxious to have served his debt to society and be free. But now he worries about finding a job, or a place to live. He knows if he doesn’t do so soon, it will violate his parole and they will send him back. His existence feels like prison without the bars.
He just got back today from shoveling snow for three days, and he made a pretty decent sum of cash. But without a valid ID, he can’t open a bank account. Just like in prison, everybody knows everybody else’s business. As he peers from beneath his sackcloth, he knows it’s only a matter of time before they come to try to steal his money.
As a newly-released ex-offender on parole, he knows the last place he should be is surrounded by criminals. And they know it too. As he gazes at the shelter’s entrance, the streets beckon to him to come out and play, calling him for one last dance.
According to the Colorado Department of Corrections an average of 841 ex-offenders a month are released from Colorado prisons. The premise of serving a prison sentence is the belief that once the time has been served, the ex-offender will be allowed to pursue the rest of their lives with minimal interference, providing they succeed in staying out of trouble.
But the reality is that these former prisoners have a better chance of being re-incarcerated than they have of ever making a life for themselves. And though there are many reasons for this, aside from the fact that some of them deserve to stay in prison, most former prisoners are finding out that the structure of Colorado’s parole and judicial system is skewed to ensure their failure.
It’s a system that is costing Colorado taxpayers more than $900 million a year, and is proving to be ineffective and unsafe. Even if you don’t care about an ex-offender’s plight, it is foolish and short-sighted to not care about what happens when they get out.
“To Preserve the Public Safety”
The key argument in any discussion about Department of Corrections’ policies is always in regard to public safety. Once a criminal is found guilty and sentenced, it is DOC’s responsibility to ensure that they are not a threat to society anymore. And so long as they are locked up in one of Colorado’s prisons, this is accomplished easily enough.
The problems arise when a prisoner completes their sentence and are set free, as the majority of them eventually are. Logic might dictate that DOC’s role in ensuring public safety has been met, the prisoner has served their debt to society, and life goes on from there.
And if prisons were rehabilitative institutions, this might be a logical expectation. However, says Colorado State Public Defender Douglas Wilson, thanks largely to the “Tough on Crime” campaign inadvertently initiated by Mike Dukakis and Willie Horton, prison sentences have shifted from being rehabilitative to highly punitive. Lengthy sentences for drug offenses became the norm as “truth in sentencing” legislation emphasizes punishment over rehabilitation.
The result has been a class of ex-convict with no employment or life skills, distant and disconnected family relationships, and years of programming that has solidified an antisocial, jailhouse mentality. Suddenly, DOC’s responsibility to preserve public safety extends beyond their walls and into the community, because of the accountability they incurred by creating a legion of psychotics they are obligated to unleash onto the public.
So, what do you do with a mass of humanity unfit for public consumption?
A. Don’t ever let them out (this option may please a good portion of upscale Coloradans, but it’s not really an option).
B. Make it so impossible for any released prisoner to make it on the outside that they eventually end up in prison again.
DOC has chosen the latter option to pursue, and it has worked out spectacularly well. According to statistics compiled by the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice 2008 Annual Report, recidivism rates are at 53 percent; for parolees, it’s 65 percent. Recidivism rates are defined as the percentage of released inmates that are re-incarcerated within three years of their release.
However, it’s really expensive to do business this way, and it extends beyond the obvious costs of incarceration, because for every illegal act that prompts a new jail sentence, there is going to be a victim. According to the commission’s report, these occurrences alone cost Colorado taxpayers 60 million a year. Coupled with $30,387 a year spent on each prisoner to keep them jailed, Colorado taxpayers spend more than $900 million on incarceration, a fact not lost on Colorado Governor Bill Ritter. The Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice was commissioned by Ritter in January 2008 to investigate and submit recommendations concerning cost-effective alternatives to incarceration.
“When you talk about public safety, it depends what your definition of public safety is,” says Wilson. He says DOC’s definition is to lock them back up for any infraction at all. His would be to give them a chance to become productive members of society so that they don’t have to resort to illegal activities to survive.
The John Inmann Work and Family Center
Smith Road is a lonely stretch near the intersection of Quebec and I-70. Although miles from the shelters and parole offices downtown, this is where Denver County corrections inmates are dropped off upon completing their prison sentence. Given $100 “gate money” (a figure that has not changed since 1973, despite inflation), a DOC ID card (unless their lucky enough to have their driver’s license reissued), and a color-coded polo shirt issued by DOC that signifies to law enforcement authorities the severity of their offense, they are told to report to their parole officer.
Some are lucky enough to have family or friends ready to pick them up and give them somewhere to stay while they pull their life together. Many end up in the homeless shelters, such as the Crossroads at 29th St. and Broadway. DOC will pay for the first two weeks to stay there, but after that it costs $130 every two weeks.
After their parole officer makes it clear that they are expected to obtain a stable residence and employment so that they can begin making restitution and child support payments if necessary, they are generally referred to the John Inmann center at 877 Federal Blvd. to hopefully obtain employment and housing.
“It’s sort of a one-stop shop for ex-offenders.” says Katherine Sanguinette, public information officer for DOC. Housed in an aging, bright-yellow building that still bears signs and poster boards from its out-of-business predecessor, the center professes to offer many vital services to its newly-released clientele. It also performs case management services for parolees. “We do a lot of good work here,” a receptionist chirps to an otherwise empty lobby.
Partnerships are formed with government agencies, private companies and individuals, say Sanguinette. For instance, a partnership was formed with the Department of Labor to help procure employment. “If any of our offenders need employment, they can visit one of our work force centers. There are case managers on hand at these centers to help them find a job.”
They’ve also formed partnerships with specific landlords to help obtain housing, or to find bed space at a shelter. This service is limited, however, because most corporate owned housing, along with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and most of the Denver metro area’s housing authorities, refuse housing to anyone with a felony conviction. This leaves only privately-owned properties and, according to Sanguinette, “they go fast.”
A partnership with the Department of Revenue has made it possible for ex-offenders to obtain drivers licenses and ID cards. “In the past year, we’ve helped obtain over 1000 IDs,” says Sanguinette.
“We work hard to help with the re-integration process,” says Sanguinette. It’s hard to doubt the passion and commitment of anyone associated with the John Inmann center. After all, the old building on Federal is the only Colorado Department of Corrections re-entry facility in the entire state.
The cost of doing business
Douglas K. Wilson, Colorado State Public Defender, is perusing the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice 2008 Annual Report when he points out recidivism rates, which he feels are an indicator of failed re-entry. “That is the parole return to prison in Colorado,” he says. “That percentage is pretty damn big and is an indictment of the re-entry program.”
Wilson is a member of the 27 person commission appointed by Ritter to analyze the DOC system and make recommendations. Although passionate about curbing the runaway spending that has become a staple of the judicial system and DOC, he understands the concerns the public has. “I am not one to say there is not a place for prisons, because I think there is. But I think the information that we have is that it should be a place for violent offenders, not non-violent offenders. Not the property taxes, not the thefts, not the habitual traffic offenders, that makes no sense to me when we can supervise people on the streets for $9 a day in community-based programs.”
Wilson’s main contention is that low-level felony offenders are being given unreasonable expectations that result in them being re-incarcerated. “If you are required to report at two in the afternoon on Monday, and you got to drop a UA at 3 o’clock on Thursday, and you have to see your treatment provider at 8 o’clock on Friday, then you can’t hold a job. And if you can’t hold a job, then you can’t make the money to pay the restitution and to pay the treatment and to pay for the program. And if you can’t do that then they’re going to send you back.”
Sanguinette says that the parole department is more flexible than in the past about scheduling times for ex-offenders to meet the obligations of their parole. “We have shifted the parole officer’s focus from the office to the street,” she says. “Officers now spend their day meeting offenders at their place of employment or their residence.” As for UAs, she says when a parolee is notified to submit urine for testing, they are given four to five hours to comply.
However, several parolees interviewed said they are often notified to submit a UA in the morning, more than six to seven hours before they are off work. In addition, they say that although a surprise visit by their parole officer to their place of employment will take the place of the mandatory weekly or monthly meeting they must go to the parole office for, they feel like they are being spied on, and that the visits inspire suspicion about them from their employer.
When an offender arrives at prison, their driver’s license and social security card are confiscated. If they don’t have anyone to mail them to, or no one to pick them up, the documents are destroyed. They are issued a DOC ID card and told that it is a valid state ID. But neither the Social Security Administration nor the Department of Motor Vehicles recognize it as valid identification. They are told they need to produce an original birth certificate from their state of birth. And though not impossible, the process is time-consuming; time that they cannot secure employment because they have no identification.
“There’s no correlation between what we take drivers licenses away for,” says Wilson. “If you’re out on a possession for coke, they take your driver’s license. Well, why? What’s the rehabilitative nature there of taking your driver’s license?”
Parolees are mandated to conform to many requirements. They are expected to secure and maintain gainful employment and housing, abstain from using alcohol or drugs, attend all meetings and treatment programs specified by their parole officers, and pay all court-ordered fines, restitution and child support. Any deviation from these responsibilities, any missed meeting or payment, any hot UA, is a technical violation of their parole and serves cause for them to be sent back to prison.
According to DOC statistics, 65 percent of all parolees are returned to prison within three years of starting their parole. Of this 65 percent, 60 percent are returned on technical violations, not for committing a new crime.
“I think that for guys and gals to come out and make it in today’s world is tough, and that’s why we have such a huge revocation percentage on technical violations, not new offenses,” says Wilson. “They can’t make their appointments, they can’t get a job and they can’t do their treatment.”
“But if you hit the street and you got no drivers license, you got no place to live, you got no job and you’ve got to go to the parole department or drop UAs and get treatment three times a week, you don’t have much of a shot. You’re set up to fail.”
The Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice
The commission was convened by Ritter to conduct a five year study and report, on a yearly basis, its findings and recommendations concerning the criminal and juvenile justice system. The first year is dedicated to reducing recidivism and curbing the costs of corrections. These issues were given first priority because they are the most critical to enhancing public safety. According to Wilson, it’s simply not enough to incarcerate people for five to ten years and then let them go. If they aren’t given an alternative to the life style of crime they had before, they will invariably pick up where they left off when they are released.
“What the community seems to have forgotten is that most guys are coming out,” says Wilson. “So you better start working with them as they’re going in to make sure that they don’t go back in, because we cannot continue to pay $30,387 a year per inmate to keep people in prison.”
In their report, the commission recommends 66 changes to the judicial system and DOC’s business practices and work processes that are designed to improve the transition from prison to society for ex-offenders and maximize the chances of their success. Eight of these deal specifically with giving them the opportunity to learn a new skill, which includes job training and community college classes while they are still in prison and job placement assistance when they get out.
One might wonder why Colorado taxpayers should pay to educate, and then give jobs to, a group of deviants whom were recently incarcerated for committing crimes against a society they now wish to rejoin.
One reason is it’s simply less expensive in the long run to do business this way. Studies by the commission have shown that strong ties to employment and family reduce recidivism considerably. Less recidivism means less people going back to prison, and less that has to be spent on corrections. It also creates a larger work force, which creates more commerce and a healthier economy.
A more important reason is safety to the community. A well-known adage between convicts is that the only thing they learned in prison was how to be a better criminal. And, as stated earlier, sooner or later, they’re coming out. Do we want an institutionalized thug whose primary concern is who their next victim is? Or do we want someone who is anxious to start a new career and become a productive member of society?
“You can’t look at re-entry from the day the guy gets out,” says Wilson. “You got to look at re-entry the day before the guy goes in. And that’s when re-entry should start. If somebody’s going in, you should start working with them at that point with the idea of a successful reintegration into society.”
“I’m not advocating that murderers and rapists and aggravated robbers and drug dealers should get much of a break, but I still think we need to look at the reintegration program from the day they went in.”
Mike might have appreciated such considerations, but he managed to pull himself up. He met up with his birth mother, whom he had never met before, and together with his brother they rented a two-bedroom apartment. The situation is somewhat tenuous, however. Because of his felony, Mike is not on the lease. If the property owners found out he was living there, they would all be evicted immediately.
He secured a job with a fast food restaurant, and has been employed with them for over a year. Mike clings to his job. He knows between the job and his residence, they are the only things keeping him from being sent back to prison. He uses the light rail and bus systems to get himself to and from work. Fearing reprisal from the parole office, he asked that his real name not be used for this story.
He spends all of his free time playing computer games on an old computer he found and refurbished.
He has no friends.
And though under control, he is still really angry. ..Source.. by Denver Criminal Justice ExaminerAugust 11, 2009
At least 23 states spend less on prisons
8-11-2009 National:
A $1 billion cost-cutting plan announced last week by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) will translate into layoffs for more than a thousand state prison workers.
In Oregon, a voter-approved plan to hand longer prison sentences to those who commit property crimes was delayed by state lawmakers who said they could not pay for it.
Tennessee’s department of corrections has sought to save money by offering inmates less milk and meat in their daily meals.
And in Kansas — which has received national attention in recent years for shifting resources from locking up prisoners to rehabilitating them — the state eliminated 85 percent of the slots in its substance-abuse treatment program for inmates, citing budget constraints.
The national recession is taking its toll on what had been one of the fastest-growing areas of state government spending: prisons. Even though state corrections budgets have ballooned in the past two decades amid a surging U.S. prison population, at least 23 states slashed funding for prisons this year, according to a new survey by the nonpartisan Vera Institute of Justice, a research organization based in New York. Thirty-three states responded to the survey, paid for by The Pew Charitable Trusts, which also funds Stateline.org.
Six states — Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska and Washington — cut funding for corrections by more than 10 percent from last year’s levels, according to the study. Kansas saw the biggest recorded decrease, spending 22 percent less than it did last year.
Corrections is the fifth-largest area of state spending after Medicaid, secondary education, higher education and transportation. State spending on prisons has swelled as the nation’s jail and prison population has climbed to 2.3 million people, or about one in every 100 adults. But grim budget realities are forcing state lawmakers’ hand.
According to the Vera survey, many states are wringing savings from their correctional systems by trying to reduce the huge operational costs of running prisons — including by laying off workers, freezing their wages or cutting services to inmates. They also are exploring new ways to reduce recidivism and achieve long-term savings, in some cases easing sanctions on “technical violators” who break conditions of their parole and frequently are sent back to prison. Some states, including Colorado and Oregon, are allowing more prisoners to reduce their prison sentences through “earned-time credits” for good behavior and other forms of early release.
Some of the cost-cutting moves — using videoconferencing to avoid physically transporting inmates for court appearances, for example, and cutting back on inmates’ meal offerings — have targeted the basics of daily prison life and reaped relatively modest savings. But other changes will save tens of millions of dollars and have not come without political fights.
According to Stateline.org’s annual review of states’ legislative sessions, at least seven states — Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Washington — this year decided to close prisons. In some states, those plans touched off resistance among prison unions and in hard-hit communities anxious about losing even more jobs.
New York’s prison workers’ union earlier this year accused the administration of Gov. David Paterson (D) of creating “the most dangerous conditions ever” for correctional officers by closing 10 prisons and packing inmates into other facilities. In Michigan, which has the nation’s highest unemployment rate, Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) is trying to avoid closing some prisons — and laying off prison guards — by accepting inmates from California’s teeming system. Some state officials have backed the idea of housing detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Early releases also have caused alarm, particularly in California, where a federal panel of three judges last week ordered the state to free more than 40,000 inmates — or about 27 percent of its prison population — within the next two years to ease dangerous overcrowding. Attorney General Jerry Brown (D), who is widely expected to run for governor next year, attacked the decision and could appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court. The early release of thousands of inmates also is being considered in Illinois.
While some criminal justice advocates contend that early releases and other cost-cutting moves could endanger public safety, others say states have not gone far enough in cutting inmate numbers.
Some advocates say state lawmakers have avoided what they see as the “elephant in the room” — tough sentencing policies that have put many low-level offenders behind bars for longer and been a major factor behind the explosive growth in the nation’s prison population since the 1970s, when many of the laws were passed. The federal panel that ruled on California’s prison overcrowding cited sentencing laws as a factor behind the Golden State’s huge prison population.
While New York this year revised its drug sentencing laws to give judges more discretion to keep offenders out of jail, other high-profile sentencing changes in the states have been far more limited in their scope. Texas, for instance, eliminated life without parole for juveniles, a penalty that currently affects only seven inmates. New Mexico abolished capital punishment, but had only two men on death row when the bill was signed into law in March.
Washington state’s legislative session this year was “completely upside down in terms of criminal justice policy,” said state Rep. Roger Goodman (D), vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Goodman said lawmakers cut funding for the wrong programs — such as housing and other transitional services that can help ex-inmates stay out of trouble — and refused to make substantial changes to the sentencing policies that he said have put too many nonviolent and drug-addicted people in prison in the first place.
Goodman explained lawmakers’ distaste for making sentencing changes this way: “There aren’t enough political points to be gained by taking this issue on. There are political points to be gained by attacking it.”
While broad changes to criminal sentencing laws remain a tough sell issue in many state capitols, corrections officials are pushing other, less controversial changes to reduce prison populations. Many states have made sick or dying inmates eligible for early parole. Other states, including Florida and Tennessee, have invested more heavily in drug treatment courts and community supervision programs in the hopes of keeping offenders from returning to prison.
“Changing sentences is a very difficult thing to do. And so we’ve gone around it,” Pennsylvania Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard said during an annual summit of state legislators in Philadelphia last month. ..Source.. by John Gramlich, Stateline.org Staff Writer
August 6, 2009
CA- Jerry Brown denounces court order on release of California prisoners
8-6-2009 California:
The attorney general says state officials are deciding whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a ruling requiring a reduction of nearly 43,000 prisoners over the next two years.
Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown has denounced a court order to release more than one out of every four state prisoners in California as counterproductive interference by judicial activists, and said state officials were still deliberating Wednesday whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
While acknowledging that Tuesday's ruling by a three-judge federal panel aims to resolve the same problems with severe prison overcrowding that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to, Brown said the court's latest edict on how to improve the corrections system has only contributed to the "Kafka-esque nightmare" confronting the cash-strapped state.
Federal court edicts already have imposed 19 consent decrees on state agencies trying to improve conditions in the prisons, requiring state officials to devote scarce resources to legal reports and to pay the costs of prisoners' lawsuits as well as those of the state attorneys who defend against them, Brown said.
"There are too many cooks in the kitchen here," Brown said of the court orders governing prison management. "There's no limit to what the courts want the state to spend on its prisoners."
Brown, who is expected to run for governor next year, said he would recommend to Schwarzenegger that the state appeal the court decision imposing a cap on California's prison population that will require the release of nearly 43,000 prisoners over the next two years.
The judges gave the state 45 days to come up with a plan for reducing the number in state custody or face a court order on how to do it.
Asked if Californians were in peril if the state meets the court's demand to bring the prison population down to 137% of designed capacity, or 115,080 instead of the roughly 158,000 currently in state prisons, Brown wavered, noting that about 10,000 prisoners are already released every month after completing their sentences.
A 70% recidivism rate keeps them coming back though, he said.
"The formula for letting out 40,000 prisoners and cutting cops is not a smart one," Brown said, referring to the budget crises forcing local communities to make trims in law enforcement.
Although he excoriated the judges' order as unnecessary and costly interference in a problem already being tackled by the governor and the Legislature, Brown acknowledged that state lawmakers also were to blame for letting partisan politics prevent their agreement on reforms needed to improve rehabilitation programs, pre-release screening and parole.
The judges' involvement in the prison crisis contributes to "an endless process of bureaucratic regulation," Brown said, but he also conceded that the order could provide the necessary "stimulus" for lawmakers to work out a long-overdue reform plan. ..Source.. by Carol J. Williams
July 28, 2009
FL- Get-tough stand is too expensive, isn't productive
7-28-2009 Florida:
It's not enough to know we've overreacted. Not hardly. Not when it comes to criminal justice.
Not even when it becomes obvious that ``get tough'' policies have become counterproductive and insanely expensive.
Florida's get-tough sentencing policies have packed the state's 60 prisons with 100,000 prisoners, too many of them of the non-violent, drug-addicted variety. We'll spend $2.4 billion this year to warehouse state prisoners. The trend lines indicate we'll need another 15 prisons within the next five years to maintain our irrational exuberance for harsh sentences with no rehab.
PRISON COSTS RISING
Prison costs go up in a budget-slashing year because we insist on packing druggies and juvies off to prison while spending relatively little on counseling or drug treatment or job training or in-prison education. Half of Florida's inmates, released unprepared to cope with the outside world, re-offend.
Earlier this month, Florida's Collins Center for Public Policy sent ``an open letter to the governor, the Legislature and the people of Florida,'' asking for ``a bold and serious conversation about justice reform.''
Florida, the letter stated, has ``too many prisons needing to be built at an astounding cost.'' Too many non-violent individuals get locked up. Too many youngsters are tried in adult court. Too many ex-offenders go back to prison ``because while behind bars, they received little or no job training, mental health and substance abuse treatment and the necessary life-skills tools to legitimately re-enter civil society.''
FAMILIAR ISSUES
Old stuff, really. Corrections experts have been saying this for years. But this was signed by three former Florida attorney generals, the directors of Florida TaxWatch, the Florida Police Benevolent Association, the Florida Chamber Foundation, Associated Industries of Florida, the Florida Association of Counties. Not a bunch of bleeding-heart egg-head academics, but conservative leaders who can't stand frittering away billions on bad prison policy.
Still, finding politicians brave enough to undo get-tough policies won't be so easy.
Miami knows that too well. South Florida cities and counties have clung to ill-considered ordinances that by now have forced upwards of 80 sex offenders to live under the Julia Tuttle Causeway -- recasting Miami into a place given to medieval justice.
Newsweek, in this week's issue, became only the latest national publication to eviscerate Miami's image, describing the causeway camp as ``a squalid and dreary place. The air is thick and stifling, reeking of human feces and of cat urine from all the strays that live there . . . Makeshift dwellings sprawl out in every direction -- tents clinging to concrete pylons, rickety shacks fashioned out of plywood, a camper shell infested with cockroaches. There is no running water or sewage system; inhabitants relieve themselves in shopping bags and toss the sacks into a pile of refuse that they burn periodically.''
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
The Newsweek article describes how Ron Book, the lobbyist who had pushed for the Draconian residency restrictions for sex offenders, now recognizes the escalating unintended consequences.
But even Book may find that city and county commissioners who originally voted for his get-tough ordinances won't be so receptive to a softer approach.
Policitians are not easily convinced to back off the concept of getting tough, even when the policy equates to getting stupid. ..Source.. by FRED GRIMM
July 21, 2009
PA- Pa. Supreme Court upholds state prisons' porn ban
7-21-2009 Pennsylvania:
HARRISBURG, Pa. - A sex offender's bid to overturn the state prison system's pornography ban was ended Monday by the state Supreme Court, which sided unanimously with the Department of Corrections.
The justices said inmate Shannon R. Brittain, 34, failed to refute the department's arguments in a meaningful way. They reversed a lower court ruling that had allowed Brittain's case to continue.
"Brittain's submission of self-serving non-expert averments of fellow prisoners, which merely assert that they do not believe their rehabilitation and treatment are hindered by viewing pornography, were insufficient," wrote Justice Max Baer.
Baer said it is conceivable that some other inmate might be able to make a compelling argument against the prohibition on obscene materials, but "the burden of doing so is high" and Brittain did not meet it.
The Corrections Department in November 2005 announced a ban on "materials in which the purpose is sexual arousal" as well as images of human nudity. The policy was later amended to allow a case-by-case review of items that may have literary or educational value.
Brittain, convicted of rape in Luzerne County, filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court two years ago in which he argued his constitutional rights had been violated. To back up his claim, he offered the statements of six other inmates that nudity did not affect their rehabilitation or treatment, cause them to sexually harass anyone or create a hostile work environment for prison workers.
Commonwealth Court declined the prison system's attempt to throw out the lawsuit, but the state appealed and won the reversal issued by the high court on Monday. Brittain, who is serving as his own lawyer in the case, is currently in the Mahanoy State Prison and could not immediately be reached for comment.
State prison system spokeswoman Sue McNaughton hailed the ruling for aiding "corrections professionals' ability to set and to change policies that affect the prison system."
The Corrections Department has offered statistical evidence that assaults and sexual misconduct cases declined after the porn ban was imposed, Baer said. McNaughton said a number of factors are credited with lower assault rates. ..Source.. by MARK SCOLFORO
July 19, 2009
CA- Calif. Leaders Urged to Reform Costly Prison System
7-19-2009 California:
The leader of a Christian organization dedicated to criminal justice reform is urging California’s “irresponsible leaders” to pull the state’s prisons out of the vicious cycle they’ve been in over the past decade or two.
“Even ‘tough on crime’ Texas has made dramatic changes that will reduce their prison population by punishing many offenders in the community, where they have access to treatment programs, and are close to their families and work,” noted Prison Fellowship Vice President Pat Nolan, who leads Justice Fellowship, Prison Fellowship’s public policy arm.
“California on the other hand is going in the opposite direction,” he added in a commentary that appeared this week in the Huffington Post.
In total, California spends $10 billion a year on its prison system, which – as NPR’s Laura Sullivan recently pointed out – was once a model for states to follow but now is a model of what to avoid.
To keep one inmate locked in jail, the state now requires around $46,000 each year – not including substance abuse treatment, mental health programs, educational or vocational training.
To reduce its $26.3 billion budget deficit, the state of California has proposed a cut of $1.2 billion in the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation budget.
But according to Nolan, significant reforms of department have so far been off the table, and to date the trend in California has been to eliminate drug treatment programs, sex offender counseling, “and virtually every program which prepares inmates to live healthy, productive lives after they are released.”
“These cuts allow the prisons to keep the maximum number of inmates incarcerated, but with no programs to occupy their time productively. Why? It certainly isn't making us safer,” Nolan added.
Furthermore, in 2006, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the state prison system had reached "a crisis point," the governor called for the construction of at least two more prisons and the addition of thousands of beds in existing facilities to deal with what he called "dangerously overcrowded" prisons.
At the time, California was housing more than 171,000 inmates and had the highest recidivism rate in the nation, with 70 percent of parolees returning to prison after their release.
“As California's irresponsible leaders have reduced the Golden State to issuing IOU's, one would think they would be looking to the prison budget as a place to save money,” noted Nolan this week.
But as Nolan and other experts have noted, many of the cuts California has made has been to health care and other programs that help rehabilitate inmates and keep them from coming back to prison.
And as a result, more parolees are returning – many of which for violating their parole on technical terms, such as missing an appointment with a parole officer – and prisons continue to be overcrowded.
Meanwhile, in states like Texas, reforms have been made to cut down on the number of returning inmates, thus creating a positive cycle that allows more money to be saved and more to be directed to programs that will continue to bring down the number of people incarcerated.
“These reforms have allowed Texas to scrap plans to build three more prisons, saving hundreds of millions of dollars,” Nolan noted. “Texas is investing one-third of the savings into these community alternative punishments and treatment. The other two-thirds will go to roads, hospitals and schools.”
“[I]ntelligent policies,” such as those in Texas, “keep the public safe while also saving the taxpayers significant dollars,” Nolan added. “Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, and South Carolina have also reduced their prison population while reducing their crime rates.”
“It's time for California to follow suit,” he concluded.
Aside from California, Nolan and his organization say America as a whole is in need of significant intervention when it comes to the prison system.
“The soaring costs of imprisonment are hindering spending on other vital programs-such as schools, basic health care for children and core community services,” Justice Fellowship reports.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Americans will spend $62 billion this year to incarcerate their fellow citizens and more than half of the 700,000 inmates who will be released will be re-incarcerated within three years unless there is significant intervention.
Since it was founded in 1983 by evangelical leader Chuck Colson, Justice Fellowship has sought to change America’s criminal justice system at every level so that it reflects the principles of restorative justice, which requires the system to do more than warehouse offenders.
“Restorative justice teaches that crime harms victims, communities, and offenders,” the organization states. “We promote a system that effectively repairs these injuries and brings greater peace and security to lives and communities.”
Other restorative justice organizations include Just Alternatives, Justice and Mercy, the Victim Offender Mediation Association, and Awana Lifeline. ..Source.. by Lawrence D. Jones, Christian Post Reporter
