With many employees in both the public and private sectors set for furlough from their jobs, at least one group of state employees has seen a reprieve — at least for now. News reported in the McAlester News-Capital.

Furloughs which had been scheduled to begin next month for state Department of Corrections employees have been lifted at least until the beginning of the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1.

The planned furloughs were lifted due to an agreement between Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry and the state legislative leadership for a $7.2 million supplemental appropriation to the DOC.

In McAlester that means DOC employees at Oklahoma State Penitentiary, the Jackie Brannon Correctional Center, the District Three Probation and Parole offices and the DOC regional office, are no longer facing the furloughs, or unpaid days off work— at least until after June 30, when furloughs could come up again because of the new 2010-2011 budget.

janchavarie Oklahoma, Personnel Issues

Penn State researchers making end-of-life care for prison inmates are the focus of a $1.27 million grant. Researchers are using the National Institute of Nursing Research grant to develop a comprehensive toolkit of tailored resources for end-of-life care in prisons, assistant professor of nursing Susan Loeb wrote in an e-mail. News reported in the Daily Collegian.

Leaders of the program plan to apply study findings at six different prisons state-wide in an attempt to improve care for inmates reaching the end of their lives, wrote Loeb, the principal investigator for the study.

“Since prisons are among the most restrictive, most complex organizations — prisons are the best context for this study,” Loeb wrote. “Our hope is that findings will benefit not only dying inmates but also others who spend their final days in a complex organization.”

Though the study is still in the early stages, researchers are quickly learning, said Christopher Hollenbeak, associate professor of surgery and health evaluation sciences and an investigator on the study.

“The real goal of it is to come up with a tool in prisons to improve the quality-of-life care,” Hollenbeak said. “We want to provide a toolkit that would be cost-effective as well.”

Current end-of-life prison programs only offer limited low-cost medications. One proposed change is the “buddy system,” where healthy inmates are paired with a terminally ill inmate to help look out for them, Hollenbeak said.

So far, researchers have visited the Philadelphia prison system for a chance to experience what it is like to be in a prison as an inmate, Hollenbeak said. Researchers are also spending time with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections in order to understand the prison landscape at all levels, Hollenbeak said.

janchavarie Inmate Health Care, Pennsylvania

When Snohomish County last year moved supervision of its jail from the county executive’s office to the sheriff’s office, not everybody was convinced the change would help morale or save taxpayers’ money. Reported by HeraldNet.

Initial feedback points to some dramatic improvements during the past year, including huge drops in mandatory overtime, sick leave and worker grievances.

Undersheriff Tom Davis said the sheriff’s office has focused on building relationships with corrections bureau employees and law-enforcement agencies who pay to house inmates in the jail.

“If we focus on the relationships, other efficiencies will start to fall into place,” Davis said. “We’re never done, but we’re very pleased with where we are after 12 months. We still have a lot to accomplish.”

The jail has an annual budget of about $39 million and employs 341 people. It locked up about 25,500 inmates last year from 19 Snohomish County municipalities, the state and other outside agencies. In January, it had an average daily population of 1,161.

Councilman Mike Cooper in September 2008 proposed taking the Corrections Department away from County Executive Aaron Reardon’s office, citing considerable cost overruns at the jail.

That fall, a majority of the council voted to make jail operations part of Sheriff John Lovick’s job, starting Jan. 1, 2009.

Council Chairman Dave Gossett voted to move the jail, but worried the council was acting too quickly. The past year has dispelled those initial doubts, he said.

“I think it’s been going very well. I’ve been very impressed with the job that Sheriff Lovick has done,” he said. “There are two key issues. One is better labor relations. Two is a better control over overtime.”

Last week, Reardon said he advocated moving the jail for years before the council acted, and that it was “an idea that I pushed for a very long time.”

In a Nov. 6, 2008, memo to the County Council, Reardon urged delay.

“Rather than making this precipitous move at this time, I urge the council to take a step back and to engage in a thoughtful analysis of the ramifications of such a decision,” he wrote. “Until and unless such an analysis is done, I cannot support this action.”

The county’s Department of Corrections had been part of the executive’s office since the 1980s. Before that, it had belonged to the sheriff, which is the arrangement in most of Washington’s 39 counties.

Snohomish County moved the jail away from the sheriff because problems there led to civil rights lawsuits. Still, the jail remained a source of legal trouble.

Former jail director Steve Thompson was hired in 2003 when the Corrections Department became the focus of repeated criminal investigations and soaring overtime bills.

He initially was greeted with support by corrections officers, but during his tenure became the subject of dozens of labor complaints filed by the Snohomish County Corrections Guild. A majority of those complaints were dismissed by arbitrators.

Thompson opposed transferring his department to Lovick’s care.

At the time, Thompson said the County Council made the change to take a jab at Reardon and predicted Lovick would face the same labor headaches.

So far, that hasn’t been the case.

“Overall, we’re very happy with the sheriff’s office management,” guild president Andy Pierce said. “It’s just a new attitude. The difference is they value their people, they value their employees. It’s just a more respectful and honest attitude.”

Under the new administration, employee concerns have been handled at the “lowest possible level,” Pierce said. Two employees who filed wrongful termination grievances related to the previous administration received $50,000 each last year, he said.

The jail also is the subject of two pending lawsuits in which female employees allege being sexually harassed by male supervisors before the sheriff’s office took over.

Corrections Bureau Chief Mark Baird said lowering overtime by a third has boosted morale and improved finances. A key component was lowering mandatory overtime shifts by 93 percent. There were 30 mandatory shifts in 2009 compared to 411 the year before.

The number of worker grievances fell more than 76 percent, he said. There were 27 in 2009 compared to 114 in 2008. Sick leave dropped about 6 percent during the same period.

The drop in overtime saved taxpayers $1.35 million, Administrative Bureau Chief Rob Beidler said. In 2009, the jail also brought in an extra $2 million in revenue — about $12.8 million in 2009 compared to $10.8 million in 2008.

That happened through signing outside contracts with places such as Skagit County and the city of Kirkland to keep the beds full, as well as supplying services such as work crews, he said.

“Keeping the beds full is the best thing for Snohomish County’s general fund,” Beidler said. “Not just for the sheriff’s office, but for the general fund.”

Councilman Brian Sullivan said having the sheriff run the jail is saving the county millions of dollars.

“I would say that the transition has been 100 percent positive,” he said. “I can attribute that to the sheriff and his staff.”

janchavarie Personnel Issues, WA Snohomish County

Three years after a 15-year-old boy died in restraints, the youth prison where he was pinned to the floor is set to be closed.The shuttering of Tryon Boys Residential Center is due to budget gaps that plague states across the USA — but also is a sign of the intense pressure on New York to improve its deeply troubled juvenile detention system. Reported in the USA Today.

In August, a U.S. Department of Justice investigation found that the state uses excessive force on youths in custody; the federal department says it will sue the state if changes are not made. In December, a state-appointed task force said use of force and lack of mental health care are acute problems for the 1,600 children held in New York’s juvenile facilities each year. Two weeks later, the Legal Aid Society sued the state Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) on behalf of youths in custody.

Federal investigators found youths in four facilities, including Tryon, were routinely pinned to the ground and handcuffed for infractions as minor as laughing loudly, sneaking a cookie or refusing to get out of bed. The restraints caused concussions, broken teeth and broken bones.

“At this point, it’s pretty clear that the change needs to happen, it needs to be pervasive and it needs to happen now,” says Legal Aid Society lawyer Tamara Steckler.

In his budget proposal last month, Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, announced plans to close two facilities named by the Justice Department. That includes Tryon, where Darryl Thompson died in November 2006. In the incident, cited in the federal investigation, aides pinned him facedown and handcuffed him after he repeatedly asked for recreation time.

The economic crunch is forcing New York, like other states, to scrutinize a system that costs it $210,000 per child annually.

“One of the great ironies is that the economic crisis may be accomplishing what advocates like me have been saying for 30 years,” says Mark Soler of the Center for Children’s Law and Policy, an advocacy group. “It’s just too expensive to lock up the kids.”

New York’s juvenile system, which has 31 residential facilities, is one of the nation’s largest, even though New York is one of only two states that charge youths 16 or older as adults. More than half of youths in detention are there because of misdemeanors. More than 80% are black or Hispanic.

The reports and lawsuit have “focused public attention on an area of the juvenile justice system that has gone without scrutiny for years,” says Jeremy Travis, head of the task force Paterson formed in 2008.

Common Problems
Since 2000, the Justice Department has conducted at least 11 investigations into juvenile facilities in states including California, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland and Oklahoma. Its findings illustrate that the same problems persist: overreliance on physical restraint and insufficient mental health services.

A bill before the U.S. Senate would require states to track the use of restraints in juvenile detention, which some states do voluntarily.

“The research tells us unequivocally” restraint “can result in a child’s death,” says Tara Andrews of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, which is lobbying for the bill’s passage.

Without reporting requirements, “very often abusive situations do not come to light,” Soler says. Though some kids need to be incarcerated “so they don’t hurt other people and don’t hurt themselves,” he says, use of restraints is “excessive.”

Other states that have come under federal investigation, including Louisiana, have adopted practices pioneered in Missouri. There, the juvenile system converted to small facilities more like treatment centers than prisons, focused on counseling and stopped the use of restraints. Only 8.6% of youths released from custody are recommitted within three years, the Missouri Department of Youth Services says. In New York, the figure is 45%, the task force says.

“In looking at the national picture, the old model is under serious change,” Travis says. “You have places like New York saying, we want to follow (Missouri’s) lead and recognizing we’re very much stuck in an old corrective punitive model.”

‘No Tolerance’
One of the severest critics of New York’s juvenile system is in charge of it. “I don’t think that, objectively, anybody who looks at our system and systems across the country can say we are really doing a good job,” says Gladys Carrion, OCFS commissioner.

Carrion, appointed in 2007, has installed video cameras in juvenile facilities and reinstituted the office of the ombudsman, which inspects youth prisons. She requires staff to track the use of restraints.

“I personally get a weekly report,” she says. “We have no tolerance for this.” The harsh reports, she says, are “levers for change.”

Carrion has been criticized by juvenile prison employees, who say the facilities are understaffed, they haven’t received necessary training, and the agency risks public safety by closing facilities without having adequate community-based programs to accommodate youths.

“You can’t just simply do this by fiat, say we’re going to have a different model and have it happen,” says Stephen Madarasz of the Civil Service Employee Association, which represents youth prison staff.

Travis, the task force head, is “optimistic that there will be some pretty significant change, but it will take a decade,” he says. “It took a decade in Missouri; it’ll take a decade in New York.”

Legal Aid’s Steckler says Carrion has made progress, but not enough. “The video cameras and the data reporting has decreased restraints, but it obviously hasn’t stopped them.” What’s needed, she says, is to end the notion that youths in custody are prisoners. “Until that shift occurs … we’re still talking about grown men restraining children.”

janchavarie Uncategorized

A report on drug use in prisons urges the federal government to set up needle exchange programs for inmates.  Story from the CBC News.

Rates of HIV and hepatitis C infections in prison are 10 to 20 times higher than in the general population, says the report to be released Tuesday by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

“Because of the scarcity of needles and syringes in prison, people who inject drugs are more likely to share injecting equipment than people in the community,” the report said. “This significantly increases their risk of contracting HIV and HCV.”

The report noted that as of 2009, prison needle and syringe programs have been introduced in more than 60 prisons of varying sizes in at least 10 countries in Europe and Asia, producing positive results and few problems.

“In spite of the overwhelming evidence of the benefits of (the programs), at this time no Canadian prison permits the distribution of clean needles,” the report said. “This harms the health of people in prison, given the increasing presence of HIV and (hepatitis C) behind bars.

“This also creates a further risk to public health more broadly [because] the vast majority of people who spend time in prison return to their families and communities.”

The network’s purpose is to promote the human rights of people living with, or vulnerable to, HIV/AIDs.

“We’re not evil people, we’re people’s daughters, we’re people’s mothers, we’re just people wanting help,” Karen Dooks, who contracted both HIV and hepatitis C in prison, told CBC News. “If they had a needle exchange, there’d be a lot less sickness — it would work, that’s all I know, it would work.”

To bolster its case for needle exchange programs, the HIV/AIDS Legal Network spent 2008 and 2009 interviewing and gathering testimonials from 50 people who had spent time in jail to find out “what do people in prison have to say about the Canadian government’s unwillingness to address the problem?”

Testimonials strengthen message

The group said it hopes the testimonials, which form the bulk of the report, will help bring about a change in government policy.

“They describe first hand how the denial of clean needles in prison has contributed to the harm they have experienced, why (needle programs) are critical to protect their health and what they think a prison system can and should do if truly committed to people’s health,” the report said.

“The hope is that their stories will strengthen the case for change, which governments continue to ignore even as a growing body of evidence highlights the need.”

Greg Simmons, who sold and used drugs during his 20 years in prison, told CBC News his supply came from visitors, guards, volunteers and staff. Now clean and working in a Toronto youth centre, Simmons said the prison environment pushes many people into using drugs.

“It’s a breeding ground for addiction … the loneliness,” he said. “I’ve seen people literally cut themselves and get their vein open and pour it in there without a syringe, that’s how desperate, wanting to kill the pain.”

Dooks spent four years in prison for more than 500 break-ins, all to support her habit.

“I remember using a needle that was so bent and dirty, but you don’t care,” she said.

Both Simmons and Dooks said the millions being spent by the federal government to try to keep drugs out of prisons would be better spent helping inmates who are addicted.

Sandra Chu, senior policy analyst for the HIV/AIDS Legal Network, said previous reports on the problem have concentrated on laws, policies and public health issues, but the organization felt a different approach was needed.

“What we thought was really missing was the voices of the people directly affected, the formerly or currently incarcerated people,” she said. “So we thought this report would really humanize them.”

janchavarie Canada, Drug Treatment & Diversion

The number of inmates in England and Wales’ jails should be cut by a third, and the money saved put into community penalties, a report by MPs has said. Report from The BBC.

The cross-party Justice Committee said evidence showed community punishments would have a better chance of cutting re-offending. The committee said a £4.2bn prison building plan was a “costly mistake”. But the Ministry of Justice said its current strategy was working and reoffending rates had been falling.

There are more than 82,000 people in prison in England and Wales, down from a record high of nearly 84,000 in summer 2009. With a major building programme under way, there are likely to be 96,000 prison places by 2014.

But in a detailed and lengthy report, the justice committee says prison should be a last resort, with thousands of criminals dealt with entirely in the community.

It said millions of pounds could be diverted from the prison system into improving local public services that had a more direct affect on cutting offending, including education and drug addiction programmes.

The MPs said: ”We are worried that the government seems to accept the inevitability of a high and rising prison population and remains committed to building larger prisons. We are convinced that prison building on this scale will prove a costly mistake.

”The prison population could be safely capped at current levels and then reduced over a specified period to a safe and manageable level likely to be about two-thirds of the current population.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said prisons were investing in drug treatment, training and education. “We have bolstered community punishments to ensure they are tough, innovative and offer locally based alternatives to custody,” he said. “People who commit serious offences are going to prison for longer and are being rehabilitated – and the rate of re-offending continues to fall.”

The committee said it acknowledged that its proposals to shift funding from prisons to communities were complex – but added reoffending could only be significantly cut if money was put into local authorities best placed to turn around an offender’s life.

Chairman, Sir Alan Beith, said: “Whoever forms the next government, they face a choice between unsustainable ‘business-as-usual’ in the criminal justice system, and making some radical decisions.

“It is the responsibility of governments and Parliament to protect citizens from crime by using the taxes they pay as effectively as possible. And that is not what is happening.

“A demand-led policy of building ever more prison places is being fuelled by political and media pressure for more and longer custodial sentences, diverting resources away from measures which are more likely to prevent future crime.”

janchavarie Overcrowding, United Kingdom

They may be the busiest medical clinics in Jacksonville, treating tens of thousands of patients with chronic diseases, mental disorders and drug addictions each year. Full report in the Jacksonville News.

They’re open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But they’re also very closed: hidden behind bars and bolted doors in buildings few people ever willingly visit.

On any given day there are roughly 4,000 people housed at Duval County’s three correctional facilities. And their medical issues – from a risky pregnancy or prostate cancer to AIDS or schizophrenia – must be addressed.

But beyond the legal requirements, law enforcement officials say it’s sound public policy to help inmates get as healthy as possible before they’re released.

Women who weren’t getting prenatal care while on the streets have given birth to healthy babies in jail. People have been successfully weaned from drug and alcohol addictions. Some inmates are receiving consistent treatment for a chronic disease for the first time.

“We try to see incarceration as an opportunity to intervene, because the vast majority of people go back to the community,” said Max Solano, the doctor who oversees the health services division of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.

Because of that philosophy, Solano and others say, patient care has improved and the number of lawsuits has dropped.

A change implemented last summer is also helping keep costs down. That’s when the Sheriff’s Office ended its partnership with the Duval County Health Department and brought those employees in-house. The change wasn’t because of a disagreement about patient care, but because the state and city couldn’t agree to contract terms when it was time for renewal.

Sheriff John Rutherford estimates the switch could save taxpayers up to $700,000 this year because the city is no longer on the hook for an administrative overhead fee paid to the state. Overcrowding at the jail caused that fee to rise in recent years.

Most of the jail health employees under the old system remain, including Solano, but now they’re Sheriff’s Office employees instead of state workers.

Though the community health model was embraced during the Health Department partnership, Solano said the transition to an in-house division of health services has provided even greater flexibility to meet his patients’ needs.

Cassandra Bush, founder of THORMINC Ministries, is often a witness to the end result: offenders transitioning back into the community.

“You know the old horror stories you used to hear?” she said of jail medical care. “You don’t hear that anymore.”

Community partnerships

The treatment rooms at Jacksonville’s jail look familiar – adjustable beds topped with sanitary paper linings. There’s a small pharmacy nearby, along with a room with a dentist’s chair where emergency procedures can be performed.

Some are shocked that the medical services at the jail are about the same as any other doctor’s office, only busier. The clinics at the three correctional facilities handle about 150,000 patient visits a year.

The city’s indigent-care contract with Shands Jacksonville allows inmates with injuries or ailments beyond the capabilities of the in-house clinics to be treated at the hospital. There are also partnerships with other service providers, so even services like chemotherapy or dialysis can be provided.

But while the new program has its fans, there are detractors. One recently released inmate told the Times-Union he was forced to wait two weeks to have his injury treated.

Lee Suitter said he spent six months in jail for a domestic dispute. Two months before his release, he was injured in a scuffle in his cell, which he reported the next day.

“I said, ‘Look, my hip’s killing me,’” Suitter, 49, recalled.

He said corrections officers chastised him for not reporting the incident immediately. Two weeks later, he was finally seen by a nurse. After three visits to the jail clinic, he was taken to Shands for an X-ray, he said.

“It took them that long to even think about getting me down there,” Suitter said.

Two days later, he said, he was released without ever receiving any real diagnosis or treatment. But he was still charged $5 for the clinic visits under a policy that allows the Sheriff’s Office to recover some of its medical costs.

Solano said the long delay shouldn’t have happened because the turnaround time is normally 24 to 48 hours, maybe a bit longer on weekends. He said his staff conducts quarterly surveys to ensure the clinic is meeting accreditation standards for response times.

‘Many, many chronic diseases’

There was a time when complaints like Suitter’s were more common.

Solano remembers working at the jail years ago when medical services were managed by a private company. That company began to put the bottom line ahead of patients’ rights, Solano said, and he felt himself losing the ability to make medical decisions.

He walked away from the job.

Duval County Jail Chief Tara Wildes, who has spent most of her 25-year career in corrections, also remembers the battles.

“Care wasn’t their primary concern,” she said. “But also the bigger thing is they didn’t seem to have a connection with the bigger community.”

In 2006, Rutherford ended that relationship and medical services were provided through the Duval County Health Department partnership. Embracing the community health model, Solano was invited back to serve as its head.

The sheriff said the years he served as corrections director opened his eyes to the myriad medical and mental health issues the department addresses.

“I was amazed when I went over there to find out that not only did I run the largest residential mental health facility, but also the medical issues,” he said. “This is a sick population. They have many, many chronic diseases.”

The focus is now on helping patients receive the best care while under lock and key so they won’t overload emergency rooms or endanger the public when they’re released.

“We need to be sending them back better than when they came, or at least identify what their problems are instead of just sending them back out there to, if they’re contagious, infect the community,” he said.

A similar philosophy is employed at the 478-bed Clay County Jail. Major Craig Aldrich, who oversees the facility, said the Sheriff’s Office considered outsourcing medical services to a private company but began to worry about quality of care.

It’s illegal and potentially costly if an inmate can prove his medical problems, no matter how small, were ignored while in lockup.

“I have to be worried about the bottom line, but I also have to worry about taking care of that inmate so I don’t get sued in federal court,” Aldrich said. “We just thought it was in the best interest of the county, so we could have a lot of control of our own medical staff.”

By contrast, the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office has embraced the privatization model, contracting medical services out to Armor Correctional Health Services.

janchavarie Florida, Inmate Health Care

The 173,000 square feet of new jail space at Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning will be Riverside County’s most secure and advanced when completed next month. As reported by the Press-Enterprise.

Construction began two years ago on the $80 million, 582-bed expansion. There’s just one problem. The county hasn’t yet found the nearly $13 million a year needed to operate the new jail expansion.

If there is no new funding, the facility still could open but it would not provide the net increase in jail beds county officials had sought.

Riverside County is facing what some officials call its most challenging budget situation in history.

Supervisors are grappling with ways to bridge a $71 million budget gap and have said that over the next two years they might need to lay off as many as 1,600 workers.

The county’s discretionary revenues, which supervisors have control over, dropped to $609 million this year, while ongoing expenses top $680 million.

County CEO Bill Luna last week gave supervisors three options that would cut the county’s public safety departments, which include the Sheriff’s Department and district attorney’s office, anywhere from 3 to 10 percent in an effort to balance the county budget within two years.

The options included backfilling some of the sheriff’s losses in Prop. 172 sales tax revenue — a special fund for public safety — but not the nearly $13 million needed to run the Smith jail expansion.

Including the jail money would throw off the plan to balance the county’s budget within two years, Luna told supervisors.

Supervisors have long said public safety is their top priority, but some have said every department, including the sheriff’s, must make sacrifices and live within its means.

Sheriff Stan Sniff said he and his staff worked hard this year to find budget savings.

In a letter last week to supervisors, Sniff said the department is projected to close a $22.3 million budget gap by the end of the fiscal year on June 30. The deficit was erased through a hiring freeze, early retirements, leaving promotional vacancies unfilled and securing a large federal grant, officials said.

But Sniff said his balanced budget does not include funding for the jail expansion. Additional cuts would be hard to absorb and would come from either jail operations or patrols in unincorporated areas, he said. “We are pretty threadbare,” Sniff said in an interview.

On a recent tour, workers were busy finishing the jail’s interior. Cell walls are 2 inches thick and made of 12-gauge metal, which maximizes space and is more secure.

The expansion’s 582 beds are in three housing units that are two stories each, and surround centralized medical and mental health services.

Each cell holds two beds — not dormitory style like in older jails — and each is easy to see into. Inmates won’t have to travel far for needed services, either — something sheriff’s officials say adds security.

Recreation areas are close by, as are areas for visitations, which will be done through a video link. “This is state of the art,” said Deputy Chief Steve Thetford, who oversees corrections. “It will be the most secure facility in our system.”

Sniff said the jail expansion is critical, given space shortages and the prospect of California releasing state prisoners into county custody, a move included in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most recent budget proposal.

“We are in crisis,” the sheriff said. “We already are in a position with no space.” The expansion will make the Smith correctional facility in Banning the county’s largest, with more than 1,500 beds.

Thetford said the Sheriff’s Department must hire 142 additional people to operate the jail. Sniff said it takes time to hire and train people. He said he needs a decision on how to move forward. “I need a signal pretty soon,” he said.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Marion Ashley said finding the funding for the jail is a priority for him. “I believe that public safety is not only our constitutional duty but our No. 1 goal,” he said at last week’s board meeting.

“We need to open Larry Smith and get that operating as soon as possible. Our jails are going to be under a lot of pressure, and we really need to expand our jail.”

But Supervisor Bob Buster said the jail should be looked at closely, noting that supervisors did promise taxpayers that it was one of their top priorities.

“The sheriff in his other operations needs to participate in reductions and skillful management so that he can free up money to help staff this jail,” Buster said. “He himself came in and agreed it was a top priority.”

Where the money will come from, though, remains in doubt. Supervisors are expected to again take up the county’s fiscal troubles Feb. 9.

Sheriff’s officials said even without the extra money to operate the Smith expansion, it won’t sit idle.

The department will shift inmates and staff from existing jails into the expansion. Plus, the county must eventually vacate 289 beds in an old jail in downtown Riverside because of seismic safety issues.

janchavarie CA Riverside County, Jail and Prison Construction

Phillip Damon Arnold drunkenly hit three Lakewood police cars during a chase that ended with two bullets in his shoulder and another in his cheek. It also ended with the taxpayers of Lakewood becoming the financial caretakers of Arnold’s medical treatment. The city’s reward for capturing him without injuring bystanders: a hospital bill of $138,000. News reported in The News Tribune.

On Sept. 26, 2008, Arnold drove his Chevy Blazer toward a police officer, who responded with gunfire, according to police reports obtained by The News Tribune.

The bullets hit the Lakewood resident but didn’t stop him. Police eventually pinned his vehicle on Gravelly Lake Drive Southwest and wrestled a bloody Arnold out of the front seat. He was arrested and taken to Tacoma General Hospital for treatment of his wounds.

Arnold was convicted 11 months later of felony harassment, attempting to elude a police vehicle and three counts of first-degree malicious mischief. He was sentenced to almost three years at McNeil Island Corrections Center. A review board deemed the shots fired by police to be justifiable.

Even so, the city was on the hook for Arnold’s hospital stay, which included surgery and other care. Lakewood leaders say his care actually cost more than $138,000, but the hospital offered a negotiated rate.

The city paid the bill last fall, and City Manager Andrew Neiditz notified the City Council in an Oct. 6 e-mail that was obtained by The News Tribune. Similar incidents have played out across Washington since the state Attorney General’s Office issued a controversial opinion on jail costs in 2005.

The attorney general placed the burden of inmates who need medical care before they are booked into jail on the agencies that arrest them, as long as the inmates have no insurance or otherwise cannot afford medical treatment.

The U.S. Supreme Court had previously ruled that people behind bars have a right to health care. It also ruled that whoever has custody of a convicted inmate – a county government or the state – must pay for that care.

But up until 2005, it was unclear who was responsible for the medical bills of people who are wounded or injured during the arrest or before being booked into jail. Since then, cities including Lakewood have had to shell out thousands of dollars.

“It’s been a big pain and cost to the cities,” said Jim Doherty, legal consultant for Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington. “It’s the hot potato. None of the agencies want to be responsible.”

COSTLY CARE
The hot potato has landed in the hands of various jurisdictions across Washington.

• In Tacoma, the city paid about $115,000 for health care for people arrested in 2008, almost all of which involved a man who had been shot, according to deputy city attorney Michael Smith, legal advisor to the police department.
• In Orting, Police Chief Bill Drake said the department had a nearly $72,000 medical bill for someone it arrested in 2008. The city negotiated a reduced price, but for a department with an annual jail budget of about $30,000, it still took a hit, he said.
• In Sequim, a man who eventually pleaded guilty to killing his girlfriend in a motel room was diagnosed with cancer shortly after his arrest. The city had budgeted $75,000 for all inmate medical costs for the entire year. But his chemotherapy treatments had cost the city about $37,000 by 2005, according to News Tribune files. The man later died.

“It does become an issue when these bills become substantial,” said Drake, the Orting chief. “It can be substantial for smaller cities.”

WHO’S RESPONSIBLE DEPENDS ON THE CRIME
Pierce County charges a daily fee of $80 per inmate to the agencies that use its jail – a fee that includes medical, dental and mental health services for felons.

But before an arrested person is allowed into jail in the first place, a nurse determines whether he or she is “stable enough to be cared for in a stabilized environment,” said deputy prosecutor Craig Adams, legal advisor to the Sheriff’s Department.

If he’s not, then the arresting agency must pay for the care that will make the alleged criminal healthy enough for jail.

Later, if an inmate is convicted of a felony, the county continues to cover health care costs – or the state does, if the person is sent to a state prison. If the person is arrested or convicted of a misdemeanor, medical care is the city’s responsibility.

Meanwhile, the cost of medical services at the jail continues to climb – even as county leaders have lowered the overall corrections budget.

Pierce County budgeted $3.6 million for medical services related to the jail in 2003. This year, it budgeted $6.2 million.

The jail provided 73,932 sick calls to inmates in 2009, 1,000 more than the previous year. It budgeted almost $441,000 to cover drug supplies for inmates this year, more than $25,000 above 2009.

Corrections Chief Martha Karr cited a number of factors for the rising costs.

“We’re getting older, less healthy inmates,” she said. “We have to treat them.”

“We are seeing offenders with significant medical issues,” she added. “When individuals are arrested, they may not have seen a doctor or dentist in years. Unlike in our community, while they are incarcerated, they have a constitutional right to health care.”

LACK OF INSURANCE
Hospitals first try to charge the medical insurance provider of the person arrested. The problem, city officials say, is that many of these people don’t carry insurance.

There have been efforts to implement reforms to help cities. The Association of Washington Cities has discussed everything from jurisdictions pooling money to lobbying the state to help with extraordinary bills. But no law has been passed to provide assistance to local governments.

The state Department of Corrections can release low-risk inmates who have costly medical conditions under electronic monitoring if their release is expected to save the state money.

In Arnold’s case, he didn’t have insurance coverage for the wounds he sustained during the chase.

According to police reports, officers initially stopped him because of improper lane travel in the 5400 block of 100th Street Southwest. Arnold wouldn’t follow the officer’s directions and sped off.

Eventually police cornered him in a parking lot at the 9100 block of Bridgeport Way Southwest, where he rammed two of their patrol cars, sped away again and got stuck on a fence, police records state.

Three officers got out of their cars to confront him, according to the records; that’s when he put his car in reverse, got unstuck from the fence and headed toward the officers. One officer fired three shots.

Arnold’s SUV was eventually pinned again and he was pulled, wounded, from the vehicle on Gravelly Lake Drive.

He already had a criminal history of burglary, theft and possession of stolen property.

EXTENSIVE CARE
Lakewood wouldn’t disclose what treatment the $138,000 paid for, but police reports indicate Arnold was in bad shape and needed extensive medical care.

“The suspect was covered in blood and was bleeding from the jaw,” one officer wrote in his report.

“When I told Arnold to get out of the car he replied, ‘No! You guys already shot my teeth out!’” wrote another officer. “At this point I noticed Arnold’s mouth had been injured and his shirt was covered in small white chunks of material that could have been teeth.”

Officer Ronald Owens guarded him on Sept. 26, 2008, hours after the chase. (Owens was one of the four Lakewood officers fatally shot by Maurice Clemmons in a Parkland coffee shop two months ago.)

“I could smell an overwhelming odor of intoxicants emitting from the room,” Owens wrote in his report. “I observed Arnold lying on a backboard. He was covered up with blankets. Arnold’s right side of his face was extremely swollen. He had on a clear plastic mask that covered his mouth and nose. He was in a ‘C collar’ and there was blood on him.”

The officer who shot Arnold was placed on paid administrative leave, which is standard procedure in officer-involved shootings.

In November 2008, the department’s review board unanimously ruled the shooting was “lawful and within LPD policy,” and the matter was closed, according to documents.

Today, Arnold is 31 years old and is serving a 33-month sentence at McNeil Island. He is scheduled for release in 2011.

SOLUTION DIFFICULT TO SEE
The $138,000 was the most Lakewood has paid for an inmate’s care. It has paid for other inmates’ treatments, but they amounted to a few hundred dollars each.

City Manager Andrew Neiditz said the money for Arnold’s care did not come out of the police budget; it was taken from the city’s operating budget, which in 2009 was $38 million.

Lakewood City Councilman Don Anderson said it’s unfortunate that inmates’ medical bills are an extra financial burden on local governments.

But Anderson said he doesn’t foresee reform soon, because any option will require the use of public dollars. Where the cost falls legally – city, county or state – is almost accidental, he said.

“I honestly don’t know a way around it,” he said.

janchavarie Inmate Health Care, Washington

The Department of Corrections is working on several options that will open the Colorado State Penitentiary II. Executive Director Ari Zavaras said the facility should be ready to open by the next fiscal year. Reported by the Canon City Daily Record.

“We’re looking at a plan where we can make some moves within the department,” he said. “We are looking at some possibilities at getting it open.”

The facility is on track to be completed by the end of June, with contractors mainly completing finish work, according to program manager Mark Crisman.

DOC has seen a growth of 750 high-security inmates during the last 10 years but has not added any high-security beds in that time, Zavaras said.

Currently, 1,300 high-security inmates are being managed in lower-security facilities because of lack of space in the current high-security facilities.

This situation has created security concerns for the department, which has had facilities on lockdown 176 times during the last year. “That’s a lot,” Zavaras said.

Lockdown at facilities is initiated after a major incident, such as assaults on inmates or officers. In higher security prisons, such as CSP II will be, there are more controls. CSP II will be a full lockdown facility, with inmates in their cells 23 hours a day.

“Just the threat of a higher security bed is a deterrent,” Zavaras said. “They don’t want to go there.”

When CSP II is fully operational, it will have 948 high-security beds. These are single-occupancy cells set in five towers. Each tower has two cell houses with eight pods per cell house.

The layout of CSP II is similar to that of CSP with some updates to fit with modern standards. For example, cell windows in CSP provide three square feet of natural light; that has been increased to four square feet in CSP II.

Unique to CSP II is a in-cell “kiosk” system, said Mike Fowler, physical plant manager for the prison. Each cell has a computer monitor, keyboard, mouse and headphones that allow the inmate to have their video visitations, as well as provide staff communication abilities, television and allow them to control their offender bank account. The system reduces the amount that inmates will need to be transported out of their cells.

The prison also will contain a full medical clinic that will allow officials to deal with basic medical care on-site without depending on St. Thomas More Hospital, Fowler said.

By the time the facility is complete, offenders from other prisons will have completed $18 million worth of work on the building, including painting, concrete, building the cells and general clean up.

Zavaras said Gov. Bill Ritter is working closely with the department to determine budgetary needs to be able to open the facility. He said Ritter has a good understanding of the work of the department and the tools necessary to get it done.

He added the highest priority in the department is the safety of staff and inmates. “We take that responsibility very seriously,” he said.

Zavaras is fairly confident that CSP II will open, at least partially, in the next fiscal year. “We’re looking at every conceivable option,” he said.

janchavarie Colorado, Jail and Prison Construction

A board that oversees vocational training and work programs in California prisons has voted to stop allowing undocumented immigrant inmates set for deportation to participate. News reported in the Sacramento Bee.

California Prisons Industry Authority spokesman Tom Collins said the aim of the Prison Industry Board action Thursday is to “ensure that the effective vocational training that CalPIA provides is first applied to inmates who will return to California’s communities following their parole, rather than training individuals who will not.”

The certification program, established in its current form in 1982, provides training and jobs in the manufacturing and agricultural industries for inmates in 22 prisons across the state.

Approximately 427 of the 5,700 inmates now participating are under an Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold and will be deported once their sentence is completed. Fifty-two of the 727 inmate workers enrolled in certification programs are also under an ICE hold, according to a staff report recommending the change.

Collins said he did not know why inmates with ICE holds were not previously deemed ineligible for the program but that the recommendation for the change came up as the board was exploring options for lowering costs and improving the effectiveness of the program.

Recidivism rates for inmates who participated in the program are significantly lower than inmates who do not – 12 percent of certification program participants paroled in fiscal 2007-2008 reoffend, compared with 42 percent of the general prison population paroled during that time, according to the report.

The report also estimated that limiting the program to inmates eligible for parole in California could translate to fewer inmates reoffending and a savings of $784,000 a year in corrections costs.

“The Board’s action allows CalPIA to focus on what is best for the taxpayers of California,” Collins wrote in an e-mail.

“CalPIA would welcome funds from any government, foreign or otherwise as allowed by law to pay for vocational training of inmates who will subsequently be deported.”

The change takes effect March 1, though undocumented inmate workers now enrolled will be allowed to complete the program.

janchavarie California, Illegal Aliens, Inmate Programs

With his swollen legs and a throaty rasp that whistles like a kettle through his broken teeth, Eddie Jones is an unlikely man to make history. News reported in the NY Times.

He is 89 and dying, a former loan shark who, at 69, shot another man dead on a Harlem street in what he claimed was self-defense. Now he is serving a sentence of 25 years to life in a prison hospital bed in this upstate town, riddled with heart disease and probably cancer, though his doctors are not certain about the cancer because Mr. Jones has refused most every medical test.

Mr. Jones’s original parole date was in 2015, but he stands to go free in the coming weeks under a new state law that makes chronically as well as terminally ill inmates eligible for early release. Inmates must be deemed physically or cognitively unable to present a threat to society.

The law, passed with the state budget last April, expanded the eligibility list to add those convicted of violent crimes including second-degree murder (like Mr. Jones), first-degree manslaughter and sex offenses, so long as the ailing inmates have served half of their time.

But despite fanfare within the corrections industry about the humanitarian and financial benefits of compassionate release — New York is one of a dozen states that have expanded, enacted or streamlined programs over the past two years — the policy shift has had minimal effect. Experts attribute this to the fear that no matter how sick, freed inmates might commit further crimes, as well as to the difficulty of placing dying criminals in nursing homes.

“The problem is, when we start trying to put people out, there are others in the community who are sure we’re trying to make more crime in the community,” said Dr. Lester Wright, chief medical officer for the New York State Department of Correctional Services. “We’re also competing for beds. Some people think my patients aren’t as valuable as other people in society.”

The embrace of compassionate release comes as the nation’s prison population is at a historic high — 1.6 million people as of 2008, according to the Justice Department — compounded by a surge in aging and sick inmates serving longer sentences. In 2008, there were 74,100 inmates ages 55 and older, a 79 percent increase from 1999. New York estimates the cost of caring for a gravely ill inmate at $150,809 a year. Once released, they are usually cared for by family members or placed in nursing homes or hospices, their expenses largely covered by Medicare or Medicaid.

But while the new state guidelines led to a surge in applications for medical parole — 202 inmates last year, compared with 66 in 2008 — they have hardly changed the outcome. Mr. Jones would, in fact, be the first freed under the new guidelines (the seven inmates released last year were eligible under the old rules).

The National Conference of State Legislatures said 39 states had compassionate release programs, but many of them also have minimal impact.

In California, where federal judges ordered the state to cut the prison population by 40,000, three people were granted compassionate release last year. In Alabama, where prisons are at double their capacity, four sick inmates were let out on compassionate release in fiscal 2009; 35 other prisoners in Alabama died while their applications were being reviewed.

Since New York adopted medical parole in 1992, at the height of the AIDS crisis, 364 people have been released.

“Medical parole was designed to consider the humanitarian needs of inmates as well as the safety of the community,” said Brian Fischer, commissioner of the State Department of Correctional Services. “Anybody can tell us they want medical parole, but the numbers who qualify are going to be a lot smaller than the ones who want it.”

Advocates for prisoners argue that fear of recidivism is unreasonable, especially for convicts close to death. Corrections officials said during the 18 years the program in New York has been in effect, three medically paroled inmates have ended up back in prison, none for violent crimes.

“Politicians and high-level officials and bureaucrats don’t want to be accused of being soft on crime, even if the prisoners are terminally ill and there’s no possible risk to public safety,” said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, a prison advocacy group.

Indeed, the release last summer in Scotland of an ill Libyan man convicted in the bombing of an airplane over Lockerbie created an international furor. Last fall, anger over New York’s new law erupted when Gregory Felder, who was convicted of murdering a Radio Shack employee on Long Island in 2004 and is now gravely ill, was considered for parole. (He was turned down; and a legislative loophole that had made him eligible despite having not yet served half of his sentence was subsequently closed.)

Other cases have unfolded far from the public glare. Cinderella Marrett, 74, who was caught at Kennedy International Airport in 2007 smuggling cocaine in her girdle — to offset medical expenses, her daughter said — was released in May 2009. Stricken with cancer, she is living in a nursing home in the Bronx.

Since 2005, at least 16 New York inmates have died while waiting for the parole board to decide their fate.

Timothy McGowan, a once-burly high school dropout from Deer Park, N.Y., spent half of his 50 years behind bars for 11 felony convictions, including robbery and second-degree manslaughter. By the time he was thrown back in prison for a parole violation in April 2009, cancer was consuming his lungs, whittling away his body and creeping up his brain stem.

In July, when Mr. McGowan could barely walk, his prison doctors applied on his behalf for compassionate release; his final wish was to have one last cup of tea with his mother in their Long Island home. Instead, he died at Fishkill Correctional Facility on Nov. 7, two days before the parole board was to hear his case.

Among the prisoners in New York newly eligible but denied release last year was Sergio Black, 38, a former Marine who said he had fought in the first Gulf War.

Mr. Black was convicted in 2005 of raping his former companion, which he denied. In 2006, his spinal cord was injured in a prison basketball game. Now a quadriplegic at the Walsh Regional Medical Unit of the Mohawk Correctional Facility in Rome, N.Y., Mr. Black is a “poster boy for medical parole,” according to his lawyer, Stephen Dratch, because it would be difficult for him to commit another physical crime. But the parole board rejected his application, saying Mr. Brown “exhibited little or no insight or remorse for the victim.”

Mr. Jones, the near-nonagenarian and former loan shark known by his hospice aides as the Harlem Knight, was supposed to go before the parole board in December, but the hearing was pushed back twice because the court had not yet sent a transcript from his sentencing. His next scheduled parole date is next month, and he remains bedridden in the hospice at Coxsackie Correctional Facility upstate.

A long-lost niece, Marcy Jones, who lives in Washington, has poured her heart into pushing corrections officials and the governor’s office to grant the parole. She is optimistic enough that she has bought her uncle a new wardrobe and has set up a battery of medical appointments for him.

“Once I get him out, I’m going to advocate for others,” Ms. Jones said. “There are other Uncle Eddies out there.”

janchavarie Early Release, New York

While re-entry and skill-building programs offered by the New Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC) at its 11 prisons are heavily used and generally viewed favorably by inmates, many anticipate a difficult return to society due to their underlying health conditions and concerns about finances and support systems. Story reported in the R&D Magazine.

To improve their chances for success in the community, a Rutgers researcher recommends that NJDOC adopt a policy of universal re-entry preparedness during each inmate’s mandatory minimum term and a reallocation of funding to increase skill-building capacity on-site rather than in ultimately more costly halfway house programs.

Rutgers Professor Nancy Wolff, director of the Center for Behavioral Health Services and Criminal Justice Research, reaches those conclusions in a new study, Re-entry Readiness of Men and Women Leaving New Jersey Prisons. “Approximately 10,000 men and women leave New Jersey prisons each year. Many of them return to jail and prison for parole violations or new convictions within days, months or years post-release,” Wolff observed. She added that the criminal justice system’s current emphasis to “stop the revolving prison door” is on re-entry preparedness, with special funding under the federal Second Chance Act set aside to improve re-entry services around the country.

“While re-entry-related funding is flowing into states, its target efficiency and ultimate effectiveness in terms of public safety depend on whether it goes to the right people in the right places and in the right ways,” Wolff explained. “For this, it is critical to know the population – its needs, strengths and resources.”

Wolff conducted a Re-entry Readiness Survey from June through August 2009 of 4,000 men and women in the state’s prisons due for release within 24 months. Among the findings:

• “A sizable minority” of soon-to-be-released respondents had chronic health and/or mental health problems or chronic pain that would require follow-up treatment.
• A majority would be released with drug-related convictions that will constrain their ability to receive cash assistance, food stamps and public housing.
• More than one-third had no one helping them find housing or a job.
• More than one-quarter reported their ability to manage money, work for a living, be a responsible adult and control drug or alcohol problems as fair or poor.

Despite these impediments to success upon release, many respondents viewed favorably and utilized NJDOC re-entry and skill-building programs:

• Nearly 70 percent reported receiving needed behavioral health services.
• Nearly 70 percent knew about the STARS (Successful Transition and Re-entry Series) program; 80 percent of STARS enrollees or graduates rated the experience good or higher and would encourage a peer to enroll.
• More than 80 percent admitted to social functioning skill programs rated instruction and materials good or higher.
• More than 87 percent of participants in educational and vocational programs rated instruction and materials good or higher.

To meet the twin goals of effectively preparing soon-to-be-released prisoners to “make good” and to protect the public, the department must re-examine how it spends limited funds dedicated to re-entry-related services, Wolff said. The report recommends that the skill-preparedness of inmates be maximized during their mandatory minimum terms.

Currently, NJDOC provides less than half the functioning, educational and vocational skill-building services needed by the soon-to-be-released population. To reduce recidivism and chances of compromising public safety, Wolff recommends creating a Re-entry Preparedness Checklist at all prisons that would measure key skills and resources expected upon release and monitor the progress of individual inmates toward these goals. Results would be posted on the department’s website.

She also advocates for increased funding and skill-building capacity within NJDOC to the scale of need of prisoners during their mandatory minimum sentence, and to establish re-entry preparedness standards to determine if an inmate is eligible for parole consideration upon completion of his or her mandatory minimum term.

The research also finds that by keeping more re-entry-related services on site, rather than outsourced to halfway houses that provide community-based residential treatment for a minority of released inmates, NJDOC can accrue considerable savings. The FY 2009 budget allocated about $61 million for residential services that support an average daily halfway house population of more than 2,600 people.

“While it is often argued that a community-based halfway house bed is cheaper than a prison bed, this is true only if the services provided by the halfway house could not be provided by the Corrections Department while the inmate was serving the mandatory minimum term,” Wolff said. “Adding off-site re-entry preparedness costs to the back end of a mandatory minimum sentence term adds $23,000 per year per inmate.”

Wolff added that reduced reliance on residential service providers will free up additional funds for on-site re-entry preparedness programming and pay for a Re-entry Preparedness Performance Monitoring System. She also called for a Community Service Vouchering program that will enable parolees to buy residential, vocational and treatment services as needed in the communities to which they are returning.

“Contracting for residential rehabilitation services has resulted in a concentration of services in such urban areas as Camden, Newark and Trenton,” Wolff said. “A vouchering system is consistent with community reinvestment strategies and goals to distribute service capacity more evenly across the state.”

janchavarie Inmate Programs, New Jersey, Re-Entry

The Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2008-09 presents data from the 2008-09 National Survey of Youth in Custody (NSYC), conducted in 195 juvenile confinement facilities between June 2008 and April 2009, with a sample of over 9,000 adjudicated youth. Complete report available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The report provides national-level and facility-level estimates of sexual victimization by type of activity, including youth-on-youth sexual contact, staff sexual misconduct, and level of coercion. It also includes an analysis of the experience of sexual victimization, characteristics of youth most at risk to victimization, where the incidents occur, time of day, characteristics of perpetrators, and nature of the injuries. Finally, it includes estimates of the sampling error for selected measures of sexual victimization and summary characteristics of victims and incidents.
The report and appendix tables provide a listing of results for sampled state and large locally or privately operated facilities, as required under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-79). Facilities are listed alphabetically by state with estimated prevalence rates of sexual victimization as reported by youths during a personal interview and based on activity in the 12 months prior to the interview or since admission to the facility, if shorter.

Highlights include:

• This report presents findings from the first National Survey of Youth in Custody (NSYC), representing 26,550 adjudicated youth held nationwide in state operated and large locally or privately operated juvenile facilities. Overall, 91% of youth in these facilities were male; 9% were female.
• About 12% of youth in state juvenile facilities and large non-state facilities (representing 3,220 youth nationwide) reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another youth or facility staff in the past 12 months or since admission, if less than 12 months.

About 2.6% of youth (700 nationwide) reported an incident involving another youth and 10.3% reported an incident involving staff.

janchavarie Juvenile Justice

A new state law that took effect Monday is expected to reduce supervision of more than a quarter of Barstow’s parolee population. As reported in the Desert Dispatch.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill into law last October which created a non-revocable parole status for low-risk parolees. Parolees who didn’t receive serious disciplinary action while incarcerated, weren’t convicted of violent or sex crimes and have not been proven to be members of a gang can qualify for non-revocable parole.

Gordon Hinkle, press secretary for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said that qualified parolees will not be sent back to prison for parole violations and wouldn’t be directly supervised by a parole agent. However, if a parolee commits a new crime they could be sent back to prison, according to Hinkle.

Hinkle said that although non-revocable parolees will have less supervision, parolees will still be subject to searches by law enforcement at any time.

“People seem to think we’re just letting them go free,” Hinkle said. “They are still monitored and have to let us know where they live. We keep a database of all parolees and that system will include non-revocable parolees. If a police officer hears something on the street about a parolee breaking the law they can just go search without a warrant.”

Hinkle said CDCR hopes the new law will reduce the case load for parole agents in the state. The average parole agent currently oversees 70 parolees, but that number is expected to drop to 45 a year after the law takes effect, according to Hinkle. The new program is also expected to save the state $100 million, according to a CDCR report.

“Non-revocable parole will allow parole agents to focus on the more serious offenders,” Hinkle said. “Right now our agents have the highest average case load of any state.”

The new law also increases the amount of early-release credits inmates can earn for completing education programs and training for or working as inmate firefighters. Hinkle said the CDCR is anticipating a reduction of 6,500 inmates from the state prison population in the next 12 months due to the new incentives.

“If inmates are rewarded for improving themselves when they are incarcerated they will hopefully continue on that road, and they will not become repeat offenders,” Hinkle said.

janchavarie California, Community Corrections, Parole

A proposed private prison with 5,000 beds will be an economic boon by creating thousands of jobs during construction and operations and generating tax revenues, according to a Scottsdale-based economist. News reported in The Daily Courier.

Elliott D. Pollack & Co. projected construction for the proposed prison would create 3,945 direct, indirect and “induced” jobs with $172.2 million in wages and a total economic effect of $469.9 million during the construction period. Construction alone would cost $300 million, according to the report.

Once the prison opens, it will create 885 direct jobs, and 425 direct and induced ones with $49.3 million in wages, Pollack stated in the report. The annual economic output would be $109.3 million.

Indirect jobs refers to employment that businesses create when they provide goods and services for operating the prison, and include manufacturers and wholesalers, Pollack explained in a 12-page economic analysis released Monday. The spending of wages on goods and services from direct and indirect jobs in turn creates induced jobs.

The private prison also would generate $25.2 million a year for state, county and local governments during construction, and exceed $7.9 million a year in revenues from operations, Pollack’s report states.

Pollack produced the report for the Prescott Valley Economic Development Foundation, which has held talks with Corrections Corporation of America to build a private prison off Fain Road near the Grapevine Industrial Park. He based construction estimates, job and inmate figures, taxable corporate income and an estimated utility budget on information that CCA supplied.

Pollack staffers are scheduled to speak about the report during a meeting of the Town Council Thursday evening.

“I think it is very impressive,” foundation Executive Director Gary Marks said.

Marks issued a press release Dec. 17 in which he stated the prison would create 400 full-time jobs. He and other business and civic leaders met that day with a CCA official.

CCA would create more full-time jobs because Marks based that figure on a prison with 1,000 to 1,200 beds – not 5,000 – CCA spokeswoman Louise Grant said.

“If CCA were to submit a proposal to build a 5,000-bed prison, that would mean more than 800 stable careers for locally hired people from Yavapai County,” Grant said.

Grant noted the state government has not issued the request for proposals (RFP) from prison companies to house a maximum of 5,000 inmates. The state could award 20-year contracts to CCA or other companies to house the inmates at existing prisons, new prisons or both.

She also said CCA, which operates four prisons in Eloy and two in Florence, likely would hire an outside general contractor because a prison requires specialized construction skills. She added CCA cannot guarantee that it will hire local subcontractors or recruit employees strictly from the tri-city area, which has an official unemployment rate of 9.3 percent.

“We always make every commitment to hire local subcontractors,” Grant said. “Our culture and commitment is to hire as many (people) locally as possible.”

Grant spoke hypothetically because her company awaits a decision from the state. Pollack qualified its report as well.

“The analysis outlined in this study is based on currently available information and estimates and assumptions about long-term future trends,” the report states. “Such estimates and assumptions are subject to uncertainty and variation. Accordingly, we do not represent that the results will be achieved.”

The analysis also does not consider costs associated with providing services to the prison, the report stated.

janchavarie Arizona, Jail and Prison Construction, Private Prisons

The Tulare County jail system has been overcrowded since 1988, and it’s unlikely a revised law that will result in more releases based on good behavior will help, a local jails official said Tuesday. News from the Visalia Times.

The Tulare County Sheriff’s Department was forced to release 205 inmates Monday under a modified state law that gives inmates more credit for good behavior.

“We book 30 to 50 inmates a day. The overcrowding issue will not go away with this one law change,” Capt. Jim Hinesly said. “We will be releasing more as soon as we are over capacity again.”

The law is expected to save more than $5,300 per day each housed inmate would have served. However, Hinesly says the jail will soon be back up to capacity, which is 1,554 inmates. There were 1,544 inmates as of Tuesday.

Hinesly said it would take four months to determine the total savings and effectiveness of the early releases.

The changes apply to all nonviolent inmates in California prisons who have not been convicted of a sex crime, including those in county jail facilities. The changes are intended to reduce prison and jail overcrowding and budget issues.

The Sheriff’s Department released 87 housed inmates and 118 inmates who were in alternative work programs and were not housed in a county facility.

Old guidelines gave inmates with good behavior one-third day’s credit for each full day served. Changes made to California Penal Code 4019, which took effect Monday, give one-half day’s credit for good behavior, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

The new policy concerns some local law enforcement agencies and public officials.

“If there are no consequences for bad behavior, there will be bad behavior,” said Phil Vandegrift, vice mayor of Tulare. “I don’t think anything is being fixed with this law.”

Visalia Police Department officials agree that early jail releases cause concern.

“It is always a concern when that many people are released all at once,” Visalia police Sgt. Steve Phillips said. “I wish there was an another way of getting through the economic crisis.”

janchavarie Early Release, Overcrowding

Mercer County Prison Board on Tuesday ruled that inmate photographs from Mercer County Jail can be released to the press after a Herald request made earlier this month. News from The Sharon Herald.

In a 4-to-1 vote, commissioners agreed that even though the right-to-know law isn’t explicit on the matter of inmate photos, the public’s interest favors access over restriction.

Commissioner Kenneth Ammann dissented, fearing a potential lawsuit against the county if an inmate is later found not guilty and their picture is shown through the media.

Commissioner John Lechner said the photo does not mean a person is guilty, and therefore shouldn’t open them to a lawsuit. The photo only means the person has been arrested. “Everyone you arrest is innocent until proven guilty,” he said.

Assistant District Attorney Samuel Zuck also asked why a photo would be different from the prison releasing a person’s name. Ammann said he didn’t know, but was still worried about possible suits.

Initial requests by The Herald for inmate photos were turned down on the basis that the photos were believed to be part of ongoing investigations, which is considered exempt from right-to-know laws.

But after a formal request was made, the board decided that inmate photos are not necessarily part of the police investigative file, and are used for identification purposes by the jail.

The prison board left itself room to deny releasing photos if other laws, judicial decrees, or privilege would prevent it.

janchavarie Public Release

The State Prison population would shrink nearly 20 percent in five years if the state paid for mental health treatment and more intense supervision of high-risk offenders while letting nonviolent offenders get out of jail earlier and face shorter supervision than they do now, a state report finds.News published by the Nashua Telegraph.

Judges, prosecutors, key state legislators and correction professionals overseeing a three-year study on prison recidivism Monday praised the findings of the Council of State Governments Justice Center’s report.

“These options would change how we think about the size of prison we need to build for offenders in this state,” said Senate President Sylvia Larsen, D-Concord.

The group will meet early next month to review the estimated costs and savings from these reforms and decide whether to urge the Legislature to adopt them.

To save money on prison spending long term requires spending it now, the authors concede.

For example, it would cost $2.4 million a year to give mental health treatment and rapid drug testing for all high- and medium-risk offenders in the community who need it, the report said.

Serving the high-risk offenders alone would cost $1.3 million, the study said.

Dr. Fred Osher is CSG director of health policy and said community treatment has a more lasting effect on keeping offenders from coming back.

“That’s where the action is,” Osher said.

The report urges that lawmakers spend 50 percent of the millions they would save on additional treatment in the community for offenders with alcohol and drug abuse problems, mental health illnesses or both at the same time.

National studies find that while counseling in prison cuts recidivism by 6 percent, combining that with treatment after release curbs it by 12 percent.

With the state already facing a significant revenue shortfall, some members of the panel asked the authors to list changes that won’t cost any money.

“There is a major cash flow problem we are facing, not just in this biennium but in the next biennium as well,” said state Rep. Neal Kurk, R-Weare.

Attorney General Michael Delaney urged quick action on one item after the report found that after serving maximum prison terms, more than 220 inmates each year were released into the community with no supervision.

Every offender should get at least nine months in the community with a tiered length of supervision depending on the severity of their crime, the study urged.

“These are law enforcement improvements that are long overdue and will make a big difference on the streets in the cities and towns of New Hampshire,” Delaney said.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick said community supports for inmates beyond mental health treatment need to be in place such as housing and available jobs.

“If somebody told me tomorrow I would have no home and no job, how would I do?” Broderick asked rhetorically.

Since 2000, the prison population has grown by 31 percent, but only 3 percent of that growth has come from new offenders committing crimes, said Marshall Clement, project director.

Within three years, more than half (51 percent) of those sent to State Prison return and that rate is above the national average.

Without change, the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies estimates that by 2015, the State Prison population will grow 6 percent to 3,029.

The Department of Corrections says inmate ranks will grow 4 percent over the same time, in part because it set up with legislative support last year a Community Corrections Division to focus more intense supervision on high-risk offenders.

If these recommendations are adopted, the authors claim inmate population will ‘’gradually flatten out’’ and drop 18 percent to 2,340 inmates in 2015.

The report states lawmakers should set a limit on how long nonviolent offenders must remain in prison. The proposed cap would be no more than 120 percent of their minimum mandatory sentence, it said.

Superior Court Chief Justice Robert Lynn said he would prefer Corrections Commissioner William Wrenn be able to override and ignore any such limit in dealing with difficult, nonviolent offenders.

“I tend to think that might go too far and wonder if it would make more sense to enact legislation that gives the commissioner more flexibility on that,” Lynn told the group.

janchavarie Mental Health Issues, New Hampshire, Statistics

Northville Township Manager Chip Snider thinks it’s time for some changes at the closed Robert Scott Correctional Facility. “I think we can take the concertina wire down, so it doesn’t look like we’re in Guantánamo Bay,” Snider said, noting that the state should try to make the 35-acre facility across 5 Mile from a Home Depot less ominous visually. Reported in the Detroit Free Press.

Snider and other township officials have been eagerly awaiting word on the future of the former women’s prison since it closed in May, but that wait may be ending.

The Michigan Department of Corrections is expected to declare the property surplus by Feb. 1, one of the key first steps before the state can begin marketing the prison. State officials say Scott’s location at a busy intersection a short distance from M-14 in the affluent Northville area makes it prime property for reuse. But they also acknowledge that closed prisons elsewhere in Michigan face challenges to redevelopment because they are typically in rural areas, and they were built specifically for holding prisoners.

The state Department of Management and Budget currently lists only four prisons as surplus — including the closed Western Wayne Correctional Facility a short distance east of Scott in Plymouth Township. But the state has closed at least 19 prison facilities since 2002.

The state Department of Management and Budget announced Thursday that its real estate division would post a request for proposals from potential developers for Western Wayne on its Web site within the next few weeks. The other surplus locations are in Kalamazoo, Manistique and Marquette.

Plymouth Township Supervisor Richard Reaume said he believes that once the economic climate improves, developers will consider the Western Wayne site attractive, despite its construction on an old landfill. He said the site, which closed as a prison in 2004, had drawn interest from several parties before the economy soured. Like Snider, he would like to see some physical changes at Western Wayne because “it still looks like a prison there.”

Some sites, however, lack the location advantages that the two closed Wayne County prisons enjoy.

In Jackson County, the Southern Michigan Correctional Facility closed in 2007, but the facility has limited redevelopment prospects in part because it is near two other operating prisons. The closed facility is used for administrative offices, according to James Shotwell Jr., chairman of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners.

And it has proven enticing as an authentic locale for moviemakers. In 2008 and 2009, the site was used in three film projects — “Street Boss,” “Betty Anne Waters” and “Stone,” all of which are awaiting release.

Although Standish Maximum Correctional Facility near Bay City did not become a destination for ex-Guantánamo Bay prisoners as proposed last year, Russ Marlan, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said corrections officials hope to eventually place other prisoners, possibly from out of state, at the site.

In the Upper Peninsula, the state opted to lease its Mangum Farm prison camp to Marquette County for $1 per year. That solved a problem for both the county, which had an overcrowded jail, and the state, which had an empty prison facility.

The facility, which is now known as the Marquette County Community Corrections Detention Center, houses some of Marquette County’s overflow prisoners.

Marquette County Sheriff Michael Lovelace called the lease a gift. Marlan said the arrangement fits the department’s goals.

“We try to be good partners in the community, and this is an opportunity to help them — and they help us by utilizing the property,” he said. Often, the easiest thing to do with prison facilities is to use them as such, Marlan said.

That’s the case with the Muskegon Correctional Facility, which had been slated to close this month as part of the state’s effort to cut costs. Instead, a deal was struck with Pennsylvania to house 1,000 of that state’s prisoners. The move also should save most of the 264 jobs that would have been lost.

Although cutting costs is a factor in Michigan’s prison closures, it is not the only issue. The need for prison space also has dropped for several reasons, including a drop in the crime rate, efforts to reduce recidivism and some prisoner releases because of budgetary issues.

Total inmate population has declined by about 6,000 during the last three years to about 45,100 now, Marlan said.

Robin Boyle, a professor of urban planning at Wayne State University, said using old prisons for inmates makes the most sense.

“What would I put into a prison?” Boyle said of the closed facilities. “I think the obvious use is more corrections.”

That is not what Northville Township officials want to see happen at Scott. Snider said the township “has been an institutional dumping ground over the last 50 years for the State of Michigan.”

Northville Township Trustee Christopher Roosen said township officials want Scott sold for development instead.

janchavarie Jail and Prison Construction, Michigan