SPRINGFIELD — Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn will deliver a bad-news budget today, suggesting that Illinois close numerous prisons, mental health centers and social service offices, cut health care for the poor and shut down popular tourist sites for two days a week at times during the year.

Money for schools would remain essentially flat — a better fate than the 9 percent cuts most state agencies would suffer. Report by Chicago Tribune.

The problem is the same as it’s been for years at the Capitol — there’s not enough money coming in while costs are rising. The quick math: The state expects to take in about $700 million more during the financial year that starts July 1. State worker pension costs alone will rise by more than $1 billion.

“There’s no new money for anything else, that’s the squeeze,” said David Vaught, Quinn’s budget director.

Quinn aides said Tuesday that the governor will not call for general tax or fee hikes, but does plan to call for closing business tax loopholes that companies argue are tax hikes because they have to pay more to the state. Absent a lack of major new revenue, that means major cuts once again are on the agenda.

To that end, the governor will suggest closing the controversial Tamms super-max prison in far southern Illinois, the women’s prison in Dwight and juvenile justice centers in Joliet and downstate Murphysboro. There also are several smaller offices slated for closing and consolidation within the Department of Corrections. Those include adult transition centers known as Crossroads Chicago, Westside Chicago, Aurora, Decatur, Carbondale and Peoria.

Shutting down the super-maximum prison already is drawing plaudits from groups across the county that contend the conditions at Tamms are so harsh that it qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment.

John Maki, executive director of the John Howard Association, said Tamms is “overly harsh” on prisoners, who are kept in near-isolation. The prisoners face psychological damage that can make behavior worse, he said. But while it would be cheaper to house super-max inmates elsewhere, Maki said, it “doesn’t make sense” to close the women’s prison at Dwight and it doesn’t address cells that are “seriously overcrowded.”

In addition to already-planned closures of Tinley Park Mental Health Center and Jacksonville Developmental Center, Quinn will call for closure of the Singer Mental Health Center in Rockford and Murray Developmental Center in Centralia in spring 2013.

The Department of Children and Family Services would consolidate offices in its Chicago division, and the Department of Human Services would consolidate as many as two dozen local offices across the state.

Quinn also is calling for a string of consolidations at telecommunication centers and a forensic lab in Carbondale with the state police, at an animal lab in Centralia with the Agriculture Department and at state garages where vehicles are repaired.

Along with the flow of bad news, the governor also hopes to stimulate the state’s lagging economy with a public works program for schools and universities, water infrastructure and decrepit state buildings. Quinn aides said the idea is to spend $1 billion in construction money each on education, water and state buildings, but declined to say how to raise the money to pay for it in hopes of brokering a funding plan with lawmakers.

Even before Quinn’s noon speech to the General Assembly, Democrats were decrying the cuts and Republicans were arguing Quinn wasn’t cutting enough.

The Tribune reported Monday that Quinn will seek to slice $2.7 billion in Medicaid costs, a action that could reduce service and types of care available for the state and federal program to provide health care to the poor.

Rep. Mary Flowers, D-Chicago, lambasted the governor for balancing the budget “off the backs of the sickest and the weakest and the least of thee.”

Following a legislative hearing about expected state income, Flowers also chastised Quinn for considering a cutback in hours at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield — the most popular presidential library in the nation, which draws more than 350,000 tourists and schoolchildren a year. Some tourist sites would close up to two days a week during off-peak times, the administration said.

“I’m not happy at all,” Flowers said. “In light of Presidents Day just being a couple of days past, Lincoln would probably be sitting at his desk with the candlelight burning, crying and knowing that the children of this state would be deprived of the opportunity to learn about our history.”

Republicans predicted that Quinn’s budget numbers, when fully examined, could show an increase in spending over the current budget by $50 million to $550 million, depending on how different costs are calculated.

“He’s creating an impression that he’s making deep spending cuts when, in fact … the budget that he’s going to release tomorrow increases spending over the one that runs a deficit this year,” said Sen. Matt Murphy, R-Palatine. “So the idea that fiscal responsibility has come to the Quinn administration is patently false.”

Tammy Illinois, Inmate Health

WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court Tuesday ruled inmates need not be advised of their right to remain silent and seek attorney advice during an interrogation over a crime separate from their current imprisonment.

The top court overturned a US Court of Appeals decision that threw out a prisoner’s conviction because he was not technically in “custody” when questioned for the he was being questioned for, despite being incarcerated for an unrelated offense. Report by AFP.

The case involved the inmate Randall Fields in Michigan being interviewed in a Michigan prison over an assault of a 12-year-old girl, where he was not informed of his right to stay silent.

His conviction was overturned because he was not informed of what is known in the United States as “Miranda rights,” which is based on the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination.

“Imprisonment alone is not enough to create a custodial situation,” wrote justice Samuel Alito for the majority opinion, after six out of the nine judges ruled to throw out the lower court decision.

Alito said it was an “undisputed fact” Fields was told he was “free to end the questioning and to return to his cell.” Alito insisted “confessions voluntarily made by prisoners… should not be suppressed.”

For the minority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued an inmate already in prison being told they is “free to terminate this interrogation and return to your cell… is no substitute for one ensuring that an individual is aware of his rights.”

The interrogation of Fields “in a police-dominated atmosphere, without informing him of his rights, dishonored the Fifth Amendment privilege Miranda was designed to safeguard,” she wrote.

Tammy Inmate Rights, Washington

Leaders of North Central Area Congregations Organized to Make an Impact, an interfaith coalition known as NAOMI, are among the 11 organizations joining the statewide effort to get inmates with substance abuse or mental health issues into treatment programs.

The Rev. Ted Sperduto, a Presbyterian minister and a NAOMI member from Wausau, said he realizes the 11,000 population target is an ambitious goal, but he thinks Wisconsin needs to reshape its criminal justice system.

“We talk about being ‘tough on crime,’” Sperduto said. “I think the toughest thing for an individual to do is face up to themselves and strive to correct some things that aren’t quite right in their lives.”

Total population in the state’s prisons peaked at 23,797 in 2008, before dropping for three straight years. By 2010, total population was down to 22,008.

The Department of Corrections credited its re-entry program, which focuses on planning for an inmate’s release when he or she enters prison, and an early-release program for causing the drop.

Organizers of the campaign, led by an umbrella organization for faith-based coalitions in Wisconsin called WISDOM, haven’t suggested legislative or policy changes so far.

David Liners, state director for WISDOM, said the goal was determined largely by examining per capita prison populations in other states. If Wisconsin were to have 11,000 people in state prisons, the state’s per capita rate of inmates still would be higher than Minnesota’s, Liners said.

“The fact that cutting our prison population in half would make us average tells us how far this has gone,” he said. “This change would put us in the mainstream of the United States.”

Organizers plan to start by training volunteers to give community presentations, talk to state lawmakers about the issue and try to shape the next state budget with a focus on treatment rather than increasing funding for corrections, Liners said. Wisconsin taxpayers are spending $2.1 billion for state corrections in the 2011-13 budget.

Local supporters of the 11 x 15 campaign hope treatment alternatives used for nonviolent offenders in Marathon County can act as a model for the statewide effort to lower prison populations.

Members of a local task force focused on treatment instead of prison were key supporters of developing a drunken-driving court in Marathon County and encouraging other treatment options. Officials credit the OWI court and other diversion programs along with a drop in arrest numbers with halting discussion of a new county jail, which seemed inevitable in 2007 as population continued to climb.

William Hall, 88, of Wausau is a member of the local task force, which since has merged with NAOMI, and he said he thinks the strategy used in Marathon County can produce similar results statewide. Task force members, treatment professionals and residents who didn’t want the expense of a new jail combined forces to encourage county officials to consider other options, Hall said.

“We’ve got to convince citizens that this is the way to go, and they can put pressure on elected representatives to make changes,” Hall said. “Hopefully, over time, we can get people to see the (issues of) justice and economics involved.”

But it’s unclear how successful advocates for treatment will be. In July, Republicans in the Legislature and Gov. Scott Walker ended the early-release program partially credited for three consecutive annual decreases in prison populations.

Tammy Prison Realignment, Wisconsin

Dozens of mentally ill inmates locked up in the Harris County Jail could soon be headed to state hospitals after a judge ordered Texas to cut long admission delays.

Routinely, there have been 400 inmates, including those with schizophrenia, in county jails across Texas, although state officials say the latest count is 270. They have been waiting an average of six months for a bed in one of 10 mental hospitals.

“The Sheriff’s Office is happy to see these individuals will finally be going to the appropriate treatment care setting – this is good for those patients,” said Dr. Sylvia Muzquiz, medical director for the mental health division of the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County.

The county currently houses 31 inmates who a judge has found incompetent to stand trial and have been awaiting transfer to a state hospital an average of more than two months. They include an inmate who has been in jail 234 days, another 198 days and a third 192 days.

The ruling this month by District Court Judge Orlinda Naranjo of Austin to transfer inmates within 21 days of a court’s commitment order is under review by state health officials. Naranjo delayed full implementation of her order by 120 days to give the hospital system time to find space for the hundreds of inmates housed in Texas county jails.

Suit filed by inmates

“What it boils down to is a space issue,” said Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. “We can’t admit a patient unless we discharge a patient.”

Naranjo ruled on a 2007 lawsuit filed by five mentally incompetent inmates – some held in feces-splattered cells – in county jails who were on a waiting list to be transferred to a state hospital. The judge said the practice violates the inmates’ rights to the “due course of law” guaranteed by the Texas Constitution.

Beth Mitchell, an Austin attorney with the nonprofit Disability Rights Texas that filed the suit, noted some Texas counties provide mental health services but none are suitable for the seriously mentally ill.

“Unfortunately, jails are not the places that provide mental health care – they’re not designed that way,” Mitchell said. “And some jails, particularly Harris County, do provide basic mental health care but many jails have no mental health care whatsoever. But even those with basic mental health care are not equipped to restore mental competency. So we’re just warehousing them.”

2,500 on medications

Muzquiz said Harris County has reduced the number of mentally incompetent inmates by providing mental heath services, adding that approximately 2,500 inmates are on medication for mental issues. According to published reports, the Dallas County Jail has 77 mentally incompetent inmates awaiting transfer to state hospitals. Bexar County has 11.

The Harris County Jail is set to get additional help in March, when a two-year, $9 million contract to restore mental competency is set to begin at the University of Texas Harris County Psychiatric Center, said spokeswoman Geri Konigsberg. The hospital will transfer inmates to a 20-bed ward and provide a month of psychological, social and psychiatric service to restore competency.

Call for more funds

Meanwhile, health officials are exploring options to comply with the order, Williams said.

But inmate advocates say Texas should commit to spending more to treat the mentally ill in communities, as well as those in psychiatric hospitals.

“What’s needed is an influx of money,” Mitchell said. “We’re ranked 50th (nationwide) in how much we spend on mental health care. Until we have more funding to provide the care that’s needed, people’s rights will be violated as well as their mental health treatment will go unaddressed.”

Tammy Mental Health Issues, Texas

(APN) ATLANTA — This year, the Georgia Legislature is expected to begin considering a package of reforms intended to reduce the state’s prison population as well as the enormous costs to taxpayers that Georgia’s mass incarceration policies have caused year after year.

The Report of the Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform for Georgians finished its findings and recommendations for the state legislature on Friday, November 18, 2011. Shortly after his inauguration in January 2011, Gov. Deal had called for prison reform, and the legislature created the Special Council to research the issue. Report by Atlanta Progressive News.

Gov. Nathan Deal appointed the thirteen members of the Special Council from Governor’s office, the State Senate, State House, and the Judicial Branch.  Appointees included State Sens. John Crosby (R-Tifton), Bill Hamrick (R-Carrollton), and Ronald Ramsey (D-Decatur); State Reps. Mary Margaret Oliver (D-Decatur), Jay Powell (R-Camilla), and Willie Talton (R-Warner Robins); Chief Justice Carol Hunstein of the Supreme Court of Georgia; Waycross Superior Court Judge Michael Boggs, who now serves on the Court of Appeals of Georgia; Fulton County Superior Court Judges Ural Glanville and Todd Markle; Linda Evans, member of the Judicial Qualifications Commission; David McCade, Douglas County District Attorney; and Ken Shigley, President of the Georgia State Bar.

The Governor named the Pew Charitable Trust and Applied Research Services as its consultants.

Georgia has the fourth highest rate of adults behind bars in the country.  One of every seventy adult Georgians are in jail, compared to the national rate of one in one hundred according to the Governor’s 2011 Report of the Special Council.

The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world.  While the US only represents about five percent of the world’s population, one-quarter of the entire world’s inmates are incarcerated in the US.  That essentially puts Georgia near the top of the list for incarcerations worldwide.

Georgia’s antiquated and draconian marijuana prohibition laws are responsible for a large percentage of people in jail.

“The war on drugs has failed miserably.  We have casualties from this war filling homeless shelters, jails, and graveyards, as victim after victim is disenfranchised and denied any hope for a living wage,” Denise Woodall, a PhD student in Criminology at the University of Miami who was formerly incarcerated, told Atlanta Progressive News.

Currently the State spends more than one billion dollars annually on corrections, and this number keeps going up each year.

The data shows most individuals sentenced to prison are drug and property offenders and they are staying behind bars for longer periods of time.  These offenders represent almost sixty percent of all people incarcerated.  Many of these people are identified as lower-risk and are less likely to re-offend.

“They are saying [in the report] that there is no issue of public safety with these people; furthermore, they are admitting that they need help not incarceration,” Woodall said.

The Special Council report claims to have solicited input from a wide range of stakeholders; however, some take issue with that.

The Special Council “does not intend to seek public input from anybody outside the parties it has already recognized as ‘stakeholders’… associations of judges, prosecutors, and sheriffs, with maybe a token defense attorney thrown in, Democratic and Republican legislators, and local chambers of commerce,” Bruce Dixon wrote in the Black Agenda Report, an online publication.

The inmates and family members are the real stakeholders and their opinions and recommendations are not represented in the Special Council’s report.

The three goals of the report are, first, to address the growth of the State’s prison population and contain corrections cost while improving offender management.  Second, to reinvest a portion of the savings into strategies that reduce crime and recidivism.  And third, to hold offenders accountable by strengthening community-based supervision, sanctions, and services.

“How do you reform the ‘criminal justice system’ without acknowledging systematic torture, endemic corruption, pervasive racial and class bias, the failure of the war on drugs, and the massive economic and social devastation it wreaks upon entire communities?” Dixon wrote.  ”The answer is, you don’t.”

However, as valid as these criticisms may be, the report makes several recommendations that are substantive and could produce meaningful results.

“Despite [the] growth in prison population and spending, Georgia taxpayers haven’t received a better return on their corrections dollars. The recidivism rate—the proportion of inmates who are reconvicted within three years of release—has remained unchanged, hovering just shy of 30 percent throughout the past decade,” the report notes.

If nothing is changed, the State will have to spend 264 million dollars over the next five years to increase prison capacity.

“Ensuring that there is enough prison space for violent, career criminals is essential to protecting public safety,” the report notes.

“The Council determined that prison growth cannot simply be explained by an increase in crime… The Council’s analysis revealed that inmate population growth is due in large part to policy decisions about who is being sent to prison and for how long,” the report states.

“Further, services and programs to which officers refer offenders are either insufficient or unavailable in many areas of the state.  Research makes clear that evidence-based interventions can reduce recidivism among medium- and high-risk offenders.  However, Georgia struggles with limited services and programs in the community, notably for substance abuse and mental health services.  Currently, there are only 33 drug courts in the state, covering less than 50 percent of the state’s counties and serving fewer than 3,000 offenders.  In addition, there are only 13 Day Reporting Centers (DRC), which are community-based supervision and service centers that handle between 80 and 120 offenders per center.  The state operates just three
probation substance abuse treatment centers which provide residential treatment for 800 offenders on probation with serious substance abuse problems,” the report notes.

“The lack of community-based options not only constrains probation officers, it limits sentencing options available to judges. Insufficient alternatives in the community can result in judges sending lower-risk offenders to prison simply to get them into treatment or some other program,”
the report states.

Among the main recommendations, first, the report recommends increasing state funding for what are called accountability courts, including drug courts, mental health courts, veterans’ courts, and others.

Second, the report recommends that the State increase residential substance abuse treatment programs (RSATs) and DRCs.

Third, the report recommends using evidence-based strategies to reduce recidivism.

Fourth, it recommends creating ten pilot programs to allow local agencies to take the lead on reducing recidivism.

Fifth, it recommends ensuring that inmates who max out their sentence, be released under supervision such as six months of probation, instead of just releasing them with no supervision.

Sixth, it recommends ensuring that offenders are not on probation and parole on the same time, although the State lacks data on how many people are impacted by this.

Seventh, it recommends giving twenty day compliance credits per month to those on probation or parole who make progress towards their case goals and who do not commit new crimes.

Eighth, it recommends reducing offenders’ prison sentences by up to a year if they participate in risk reduction or work programs.

Ninth, it recommends a process for allowing 50,000 probationers on administrative or unsupervised probation to petition the court to end their probation; this could save the State additional money.

Tenth, it recommends capping sentences at Probation Detention Centers, where the average stay is 183 days, well over the sixty to 120 day stays originally intended.

Eleventh, it recommends creating a Criminal Justice Reform Oversight Council.

Twelvth, it recommends improving electronic criminal justice information systems.

Thirteenth, it recommends auditing prisons for their compliance with State mandates to create case plans for inmates, to ensure the plans are consistently recorded, and to link case plans to risk assessments.

Fourteenth, it recommends requiring prisons and agencies to track their performance with regards to “measures of outcomes in key performance areas and report yearly to the Oversight Council on key performance measures such as recidivism, employment, substance use, payment of victim restitution, compliance with ‘no contact’ orders, and the overall performance of supervised individuals.”

Fifteenth, it recommends changing the thresholds for what crimes qualify for prison time.  For example, it recommends increasing the theft threshold from five hundred to 1,500 dollars; increasing the burglary threshold from three hundred to 750 dollars; and increasing the bad check threshold from five hundred to 1,500 dollars.

It also recommends reducing minimum sentences and to expand risk reduction options for those convicted of drug trafficking crimes.  It recommends developing a simple drug possession offense based on weight, and a presumption of probation for drug offenders.

And it recommends reducing minor traffic violations from a misdemeanor to a violation, requiring fines that would be tied to the renewal of one’s driver’s license.  A DUI charge would not be included in this category.

People in prison do not get the help they need to not return.  They lack access to educational classes, substance abuse treatment, mental health counseling, or job training that would prepare them for success once released.

“Deal’s criminal justice reform ignores larger issues around the for-profit prison-industrial complex and strives to maintain keeping return customers by keeping those who come in contact with the criminal injustice system [as] return customers by preventing them from obtaining food, shelter, and employment,”  Woodall said.

In a depressed job market like today it is almost impossible for a person with a criminal record to get a job or housing.  These obstacles alone can create stress and poverty that cause many ex-inmates and especially addicts to land back in the revolving-door prison system.

In 2010, Georgia courts sent more than five thousand lower-risk drug and property offenders to prison who have never been to prison before, accounting for twenty-five percent of all admission last year, the report states.

As of 2010, there were more than 156,000 felony probationers and 22,000 parolees being supervised in Georgia communities.

Other options, not considered by the Special Council, would be to reduce the prison population and to cut costs by repealing the prohibition of marijuana in Georgia.   Not only would legalizing marijuana cut the prison population; it would also boost the economy and put the Mexican drug cartels out of business.

Addiction is a brain chemical problem, not a criminal justice problem.  To end addictions to dangerous drugs like crack cocaine, heroin, and meth, the legislators might also consider legalizing medical Ibogaine Clinics in Georgia.

Ibogaine is an isolated active ingredient from the root bark of the central west African shrub, Tabernanthe iboga.  According to a recent program on the National Geographic channel, Ibogaine clinics, which are legal in other countries including Canada, prove quite effective in
closing the brain receptors that are craving drugs.  However, use of ibogaine also poses some health risks and is not appropriate for everyone.

“What will actually help to solve our ‘crime’ problem is changing the system within which this torture chamber of incarceration lies… working on constructing a new society, one that values people over profit, then we’ll start to see justice,” Woodall said.

Chief Justice Hunstein, meanwhile, praised the report as an unprecedented collaboration of all three branches of government to address prison reform issues in Georgia.

“Georgia has a rich history of being tough on crime. This state did not just settle for a ‘three strikes, you’re out’ law. In 1994, we became the first in the country to pass a ‘two strikes, you’re out’ law. As a government, we must continue in our zeal to protect our citizens from violent and repeat offenders. Murderers, rapists, armed robbers and other violent felons deserve stiff prison sentences. No one suggests otherwise,” Hunstein wrote.

“But if we truly want to be tough on crime, we must figure out how to reduce it. We now know that being tough on crime is not enough. We must also be smart about crime and criminal justice policy. If we simply throw low-risk offenders into prison, rather than holding them accountable for their wrongdoing while addressing the source of their criminal behavior, they merely become hardened criminals who are more likely to reoffend when they are released. The bottom line is that all those mandatory minimum sentences and get-tough prison measures did little to reduce our reconviction rate,” she wrote.

Tammy Corrections Reform, Georgia

PRESCOTT – The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office is about to use technology to move out of the fingerprint-identification era and into the Star Trek-like arena of iris scanning technology.

The YCSO is buying scanning equipment for both the Camp Verde and Prescott jails that will positively identify prisoners by looking at their eyes. The iris is unique to each person, which beats even DNA – twins can have the same DNA. Report by The Daily Courier.

YCSO Commander John Russell made a presentation to the Board of Supervisors on Monday, explaining the benefits of iris scanning.

The systems, produced by Biometric Intelligence and Identification Technologies, LLC, of Massachusetts, are known as the Inmate Recognition and Identification System (IRIS), and Sex Offender Registry and Identification System (SORIS), and will make ID checks fast; Russell said they scan a huge computer database in just seconds. That’s much faster than fingerprint checking.

The company’s letter to the YCSO said, “BI2’s iris recognition systems use over 230 unique data points, versus less than 90 for fingerprints, cannot be counterfeited, and matches identities in seconds, versus hours or days, for fingerprints and DNA.”

“So many times, we have illegal immigrants come through (the jail) repetitively and they give different names,” Sheriff Scott Mascher said, “and this will help with that as well.”

Ten handheld units, known as Mobile Offender Recognition and Identification System (MORIS), also will be issued to deputies in the field as a pilot program. MORIS units are essentially smartphone add-ons, and they do iris scanning, fingerprint capture, facial recognition, and even record GPS coordinates when the scan is done.

“This is some really cool stuff,” Russell said.

All this technology will cost the YCSO about $52,000, said Russell, and that money is coming from the Jail Enhancement Fund, a discretionary account controlled by the Sheriff. Maintenance and upgrades will run about $9,300 a year.

Mascher said he expects the systems to be in place within a month.

Tammy Arizona, Iris Scanning

LANSING — A Michigan prison program to aid parolees’ transition to life on the outside has reduced recidivism in recent years, an audit released Tuesday concluded.

The report by the state’s Office of the Auditor General found that parolees enrolled in the Michigan Prisoner Re-entry Initiative were significantly less likely to end up back behind bars. The reduction was most pronounced among parolees who had a history of parole failure before widespread use of the program in 2007, the report said. Report by Detroit Free Press.

An examination of parole records for nearly 4,500 prisoners released under MPRI in 2007 found that only 6% returned to prison within six months. That compared with 9% of parolees from 1998. After three years out of prison, 33% of MPRI parolees were back in prison, compared with 46% in the pre-MPRI period.

For prisoners who had failed on parole at least once before, the difference in recidivism was more dramatic: 38% after three years compared with 62% for those released in 1998.

The Department of Corrections developed MPRI beginning in 2005 to reduce parole failure rates and save money on prison costs. Under the program, inmates are supposed to be more intensely screened, counseled and prepared for release. They are intended to have access to more job and living assistance, and to receive more intensive supervision.

The report said other factors could influence recidivism, including increased use of technology to monitor parolee movement. The report does not account for changes in the Corrections Department’s policy that affect the number of parolees returned to prison for violations (as opposed to new criminal convictions).

Despite the apparent decline in recidivism, auditors criticized the Corrections Department for failing to develop an effective system to measure MPRI’s impact.

Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said the auditor’s report mirrors departmental analyses, which have found an overall reduction in recidivism of about 33%. A more comprehensive, five-year study of MPRI by an outside contractor is under way, he said.

Tammy Michigan, Recidivism

A British corrections expert has been appointed to oversee reforms at Tasmania’s troubled Risdon Prison.

Brian Edwards has been announced as the state prison service’s director of change management more than 10 months after a report recommended the position. Report by 9 News.

Mr Edwards has been given the job for two years following a report last year from former Australian Federal Police chief Mick Palmer on the problems at Risdon.

The prison has been the scene of two hostage dramas and three break-outs in recent years, including last month’s escape by two inmates from its adjacent minimum security facility.

“I have been a strong advocate for corrections reform and we need to put resources into it, even in a time of budgetary stress,” Minister for Corrections Nick McKim said in a statement on Monday.

“Mr Edwards’ appointment is a major step forward in the process Mick Palmer identified for progressing operational and cultural reform.”

Mr Edwards has worked in the British prison system for 34 years and was awarded an OBE for his contribution in 2006.

Opposition spokeswoman Vanessa Goodwin said the appointment had taken too long.

“While the Liberals welcome the appointment of Brian Edwards as the Tasmanian Prison Service change manager, it is long overdue,” she said.

“The appointment of a change manager was one of the key recommendations to come out of the Palmer Report and should have been done sooner.”

Mr Edwards will begin in the position on February 27.

Tammy Corrections Reform, Tasmania

TALLAHASSEE — Millions of dollars in campaign contributions from for-profit prison companies may not be enough this year to push through a prison privatization plan that is a priority of Gov. Rick Scott and Republican legislative leaders.

The push to privatize one-fifth of the state corrections facilities along with all inmate health care could net prison companies hundreds of millions of dollars in state contracts, and those companies have spent millions in the past year trying to win support for the plan. Report by The Palm Beach Post.

But Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, who made the prison outsourcing one of his top goals, put the bill on hold twice last week because he lacked the votes within his Republican caucus to pass it.

Research by The Palm Beach Post shows that Boca Raton-based GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, have contributed nearly $2 million to candidates and political parties since Scott’s election.

GEO has contributed at least $475,000 in the past year, including $336,000 to the Republican Party of Florida.

During the 2010 election cycle, the company contributed at least $880,000 – more than two-thirds of that going to the Republican Party – including $25,000 to defray costs of Scott’s inauguration. Just before last year’s legislative session kicked off in March, GEO gave $25,000 to a political committee headed by House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park.

CCA contributed a minimum of $38,500 for the 2012 election cycle and at least $62,000 for the 2010 Florida elections.

The contributions do not include money given by principals of the corporations or their lobbyists.

Asked about the companies’ siz able contributions, Haridopolos said unions as well as the prison companies are big donors. And he’s correct.

Labor unions in Florida have contributed more than $1.3 million since 2009 to legislators, the Cabinet and the political parties. That includes about $586,000 from the Florida Police Benevolent Association and $284,000 from the Teamsters. The PBA represented corrections workers until defeated by the Teamsters in the fall.

But privatization is not the only issue labor unions are fighting in Tallahassee. The unions lost one battle over pensions last year when the legislature ordered all state workers to contribute 3 percent of their salaries to their pensions. The retirement age for firefighters and police officers was raised from 55 to 60 and from 25 years to 30 years of service for full pensions, changes law enforcement unions are fighting to undo.

Political activity increased on both sides when Scott, on the campaign trail in 2010, opened the door for a major privatization by pledging to slash $1 billion from prison spending. GEO contributions rose sharply, and the PBA launched a tough television ad campaign equating Scott’s proposed spending cuts to setting dangerous criminals on the loose.

Florida legislators included a sweeping privatization proposal in last year’s budget, signed into law by Scott in May. The plan would have outsourced more than two dozen prisons and all other Department of Corrections operations, including work camps and re-entry facilities, in the 18-county region south of Polk County to the Florida Keys. A separate plan also privatized all health care services for the state’s 100,000-plus inmates.

Judge killed initial plan

GEO affiliate GEO Care is one of the businesses in the running for the lucrative health care contract, which could garner up to $1.5 billion for seven years. GEO Care is headed by Jorge Dominicis, a lobbyist who previously worked for Florida Crystals Corp.

A Tallahassee judge late last year scrapped the privatization effort, saying the way legislators went about approving it – by blending it into the budget bill instead of putting it up for consideration in a stand-alone bill – was unconstitutional. The PBA filed the challenge.

Last week, the union representing nurses filed a similar lawsuit against corrections officials over health care privatization.

Legislators revived the prison privatization plan as a stand-alone bill this time, but Haridopolos has delayed a vote on the measure, which would require at least two companies to take over Department of Corrections duties, after it became clear that Sen. Mike Fasano, a New Port Richey Republican fiercely opposed to the measure, had the votes to stall the effort by first requiring a study. In retaliation, Haridopolos stripped Fasano of his chairmanship of the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee, saying he had lost confidence in the veteran legislator.

Backing like-minded pols

CCA spokesman Scott Owen said his Nashville-based company gives to legislators who share its philosophy. “We participate in the process just as other organizations do, including public employee unions,” he said. “We do contribute to support those who are either supportive of public-private partnership or receptive to that.”

GEO, which did not respond to several requests for comment, and CCA have been steady contributors in Florida and throughout the nation for years. But since 2004 in Florida, GEO’s contributions peaked from a low in 2004 of just over $89,000 to more than $833,000 in 2010, just before legislators began publicly discussing the privatization plan.

GEO also spent up to $520,000 on a cadre of lobbyists in 2010 and up to $475,000 from January through September last year. CCA spent up to $80,000 in 2010 and up to $45,000 last year through September.

Haridopolos and his budget chief, J.D. Alexander, insist Florida taxpayers will save from $16.5 million to $44 million a year once the region is privatized, because the contracts require vendors to cost 7 percent less than what the state is paying now to run the prisons. Much of those savings are anticipated to come from lower salaries and fewer benefits for the non-­unionized employees. About 3,800 prison workers now on the state payroll would be out of jobs if the privatization takes place.

The political contributions were not a factor in GOP leaders’ decision to privatize, Haridopolos said recently.

“Yes, there’s some vested interests. That’s what Madison talked about when he came up with the Constitution. So there’s not a lack of money on either side,” Haridopolos said.

Haridopolos said the cost savings are his goal, and repeated his argument that the money would be better spent on education and health care.

“If we’re given the same quality of work at a lower price, who wouldn’t select the lower price at the same quality?” he said.

PBA Executive Director Matt Puckett also said he did not believe the privatization effort was linked to political support from the prison companies, facing a decline in prisoners and mixed reactions to privatization nationwide.

“They’ve been giving money for decades. This is a different moment in time. They’re looking at a declining prison population. They’re looking at declining revenue. So they’re striking now. I don’t think it has anything to do with the contributions they give,” he said.

Tammy Florida, Private Prisons

A big change could be in store for Georgia’s criminal justice system: a shift by diverting non-violent offenders away from prison and instead toward drug rehabilitation and other supervision programs such as probation.

Some of the recommendations from the Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform would also shift the cost burden of incarceration to local communities by raising the thresholds on what constitutes a felony theft or deposit account fraud charge. Report by The Citizen.

Fayette County District Attorney Scott Ballard said last month that he favors improving the justice system, but he is wary of limiting judges’ tools to sentence offenders.

“It’s kind of like trying to play golf with just one club in the bag,” Ballard said. “You need tools suited for each individual circumstance.”

While Georgia’s laws have resulted in non-violent habitual shoplifters being sent to prison, the catch is if they remain in the community, everyone pays increased prices at stores due to the harm they commit, Ballard said.

Ballard said that he thinks drug courts such as the one here in Fayette County “can be remarkably effective” to get people off of drugs. And he also likes the idea of lifting the felony thresholds for theft offenses.

But he’s going to want some proof before getting behind the idea that probation is a more effective punishment for prison in a number of other circumstances.

“If somebody can show me the approach that puts more people on probation keeps everybody safer than what we’re doing, I’ll be willing to listen,” Ballard said. “But I haven’t seen a single suggestion about caring how safe the citizens are: it’s all about money.”

The various recommendations came from the council, a dozen state leaders including six legislators who proposed a variety of changes to Georgia laws. Those recommendations are based in large part on statistics which show that drug and property offenders represent almost 60 percent of all admissions to the state prison system.

The prison system costs taxpayers $1 billion a year, and if current policies and statutes remain in place, prison population growth is projected to grow 8 percent in five years, according to the council’s report.

The council contends that the state can spend the same amount of money and improve the recidivism rate by implementing a variety of changes, including the adoption of accountability courts such as drug courts, which offer specialized treatment with the goal of ridding an individual’s dependency on drugs.

But in some cases, the costs would be pushed onto local communities like Fayette County. For example, the council has recommended raising the thresholds on what constitutes a felony theft. By increasing the limit from $500 to $1,500 as recommended, that would push all cases under $1,500 to either Fayette County State Court or the municipal courts in Fayetteville, Peachtree City or Tyrone.

The felony threshold for deposit account fraud, also known as passing a bad check, would also be raised from $500 to $1,500, which also would push even more cases to local courts because offenses under $1,500 would be considered misdemeanors.

Those increases in thresholds would also mean that local communities would be responsible for paying jail costs for those convicted instead of the state.

The council also is recommending an increase on the theft by shoplifting threshold from $300 to $750.

Another significant change would come to Georgia’s burglary laws, with the crime being split into two degrees: burglary in the second degree being that which takes place in unoccupied structures such as sheds, barns and the like. Burglary in the first degree would be applied when a dwelling is entered, regardless of whether it is occupied or unoccupied. The council recommends that the sentencing range correspond to the degree of the offense, with a longer sentence “for serious offenses that involve residential homes.”

The council also suggests instead of imprisoning persons for drug possession charges to have them put on probation instead, but if that happens, courts and probation officers must have improved and expanded options. As such, the council is recommending additional day reporting centers, residential treatment centers and accountability courts.

Some 3,200 offenders are admitted to prison each year for a drug possession conviction, without being convicted of drug sales or trafficking, according to the council’s report. About two-thirds of those offenders are assessed as having a lower risk to re-offend, the council noted.

The council is also recommending expanded funding for the prevalence and effectiveness of probationers’ drug testing and an increase in the use of “GPS monitoring for appropriate offenders.”

Currently, probation and parole agencies don’t have the resources required to supervise offenders adequately, the council concluded in its report.

The council’s report also suggests that persons convicted of “low level” drug sale offenses also be considered for probation, but only if the offender shows the conduct was done to support his drug addiction.

The council’s work was authorized by the legislature last year, and it consists of 12 members including six legislators.

Tammy Georgia, Probation and Parole