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

Public perception of a revolving-door justice system is countered by not-so-alarming statistics: A vast majority of offenders processed through the Washington County Community Corrections Center do not re-offend, returning to society clean and sober with a renewed sense of optimism about their future. Story published on OregonLive.

“I’m tired of running,” said one resident during a tour conducted for county officials Tuesday.

“Before, I thought ‘the first chance I get, I’m running,’” the young man continued. “I don’t have that desire anymore.”

With structure and accountability achieved through a group dynamic, the treatment and transition programs at the center make him feel like positive change is possible. Many offenders like him elect to extend their required sentences to complete one of the center’s transitional programs.

“I will always have the desire to use (drugs and alcohol), but now I have the tools to turn that off,” he said. “I thank you guys for giving me that chance.”

Of 2,026 offenders housed in the center between January and December 2008, 89 percent completed required programs, said Director John Hartner.

Many offenders eventually find themselves in the center’s transitional drug and alcohol treatment programs. Since 2001, the county contracts with several agencies to staff the Recovery Mentor Program, which helps take residents through the steps of rejoining the community — finding jobs and housing, maintaining healthy relationships and fulfilling ongoing commitments. Many of the mentors are people who have had drug and alcohol problems themselves, and have been in the criminal justice system as a result. To be hired, they must have two years of sobriety, and receive ongoing professional and ethical training.

It is generally accepted that to succeed in recovery, addicts need a clean and sober place to live, and an individual with like experiences to show them the ropes, Hartner said.

“They’re really a very effective bridge in this transition process,” Hartner said. Mentors also benefit from the experience.

“It’s really helpful for people in recovery to continue to help other people in recovery,” he said.

Of 283 offenders in the Recovery Mentor Program in 2008, about 90 percent are now in stable housing, employed, financially self-supporting and attending continuing support groups and required treatment.

Community Corrections, supported by an annual budget of $15 million and staffed by 106 full-time-equivalent positions, is responsible for providing probation, parole, post-prison supervision and residential services to the adult offender population.

All community corrections residents are assigned to a counselor and a case plan is developed to fit residents’ needs while addressing their terms of probation. Residents are offered support with their transition and there is always structure and accountability.

Evidence-based treatment practices include family participation, role playing, therapeutic movement and anger management.

“Anger management is a way to address their impulsivity,” says center Manager Karleigh Mollahan. “Impulsivity is a big factor in recidivism.”

Other in-house programs include mental health services, wellness and nutrition and life skills training for employment, parenting, computer literacy and fellowship. Treating the whole person leads to changes in behavior, said another resident.

“We become a community inside,” he said. “That translates to being a part of the community on the outside.”

Rules are strictly enforced for 277 residents who later move into any of 38 transitional clean and sober housing facilities throughout the county. Subsidies help with initial expenses, but then residents are expected to pay their own way.

Some of the transitional houses use paid employees to monitor residents, while others elect their own officers, but there’s continuing accountability, Hartner said.

janchavarie Community Corrections, Oregon, Re-Entry

Cedric Woodcock stood at attention next to his bunk Tuesday morning at the Coastal Transitional Center, gainfully employed and optimistic about his future. Reported by the Savannah Morning News.

The 33-year-old said he entered the state Department of Corrections system in April 2007 after being convicted of robbery by intimidation, and now he’s eager to complete his sentence on parole and continue life as a free man with his children in Jesup.

“All these people want you to do is succeed,” Woodcock said. “I feel like with what I learned here, I can.”

During his seven months at the center, Woodcock said, he secured a job installing garage doors for a company in Pooler. He also has learned to stay away from the drugs that fueled the decisions that led to his arrest in May 2006.

But according to transitional center officials, Woodcock is one of the lucky residents of the facility, where the economic downturn crippled the employment ratio. As of Tuesday morning, only about 60 percent of Coastal Transitional inmates have found jobs.

“When the economy was rocking, we were up at around 90 percent,” said Richard James, outgoing superintendent of the facility near Louisville Road and Stiles Avenue. “Then the economy dropped, and none of them could find anything.”

James, who will leave his post in Savannah for a job with the Department of Homeland Security in Brunswick, said the job drought has forced center officials to suspend job searches outside the facility until Jan. 4. And when searches return, they’ll be limited to two days a week, he said.

The facility – designed to introduce inmates to productive, lawful lives outside prison walls – suffered a black eye last month after two of its participants were arrested on armed robbery charges.

The facility’s image took a hit again earlier this month, when a former inmate was convicted in the 2005 rape of a Savannah College of Art and Design student.

During a recent community meeting at the Carver Heights Community Center by state Rep. Bob Bryant to address the two November armed robberies, James told the audience of a dozen residents and elected officials the same crimes could have occurred if the two suspects were released on parole or with a completed sentence.

Tuesday, James said that of the 500 or so people transferred to the center every year, only a handful committed crimes while on release.

The majority of residents who ended up in county jail were arrested on lesser charges such as public urination or drinking in public.

“What are six to eight incidents out of 500?” he said. “It’s amazing to see how a lot of these guys change from when they roll in here off the bus.”

James said about 80 percent of his inmates were referred to the transitional setting by parole officers. The remaining 20 percent are inmates whose history meets the standards of the facility but have nowhere to go if they’re released.

Along with passing a screening process at their originating facility, inmates must pass the transitional center screening process before they’re released to the community.

Although there are a few residents convicted of murder and robbery, most were sentenced on drug and property offenses, he said.

Tuesday morning, the program’s career center – an arrangement of plastic tables and chairs in front of a row of a dozen desktop computers – sat silent. The machines aren’t equipped with Internet access, so they can’t perform online job searches. They once were used to prepare resumes.

“Like Mr. James said, if there’s one thing we need, it’s more staff,” said Carlotta Rice, who will replace James as interim superintendent of the facility. “We need someone who can do things like help an inmate build a resume or do role-playing to learn how to act out during an interview.

“A lot of these guys have never even been on an interview before,” she said.

But Woodcock, who said he is eligible for parole next month, feels prepared.

“I feel like I’m ready,” Woodcock said, adding he plans to travel from Jesup to his job in Pooler when he’s released.

janchavarie Community Corrections, GA Chatham County, Re-Entry

More than 500 people are participating in Tippecanoe County’s Community Corrections programs.  The new Director, Dave Heath, is making some changes.

With the economy, Dave Heath, said he’s had to relax a requirement that participants find work within a certain time frame.  At the same, Heath said he has to enforce collections of a $100 fee from program participants.

“That is so they basically don’t get into a hole.  If somebody comes in here on work release and they don’t have a job, and they are going to go out everyday and look for a job, if they haven’t paid anything, they already started at a deficit,” said Heath.

Dave Heath said correction programs which include house arrest, work release, day reporting and road crew are financed by those fees.  But, the department has racked up more than $2.5 million in unpaid fees over the past 10 years.

“$1.8 million has been turned over to collections.  The collection agency is actively trying to collect those and the balance of that we have not turned over to collections yet.  We are trying to collect it ourselves,” said Heath.

Heath said some family members pay the fees for participants who can’t afford them.  James Fisher is on work release and said his steady job allows him to cover the cost.

“This program is great.  It really is.  I don’t even know where to begin when I tell you about it.  The staff is just wonderful.  They go out of their way to help out, get you started on the things you need to get started on, especially substance abuse programs,” said Fisher.

Fisher said thanks to the program his life is back on track.   Unlike Fisher, Heath said many people in work release are struggling to find jobs.

“The policy in years past was you need to find a job in 2 weeks or 30 days whatever it may be.  Well, realistically, that may not be enough time now because of the tough job market out there.  We haven’t enforced that because it’s just going to take longer to find jobs,” said Heath.

Heath said about 30% of those on work release are currently unemployed.

janchavarie Community Corrections, IN Tippecanoe County

Allen County officials might have finally found a place to house offenders released early from state prisons. News from the Journal Gazette.

Sheila Hudson, Community Corrections director, would like to house 200 offenders in the vacant Quality Inn at 3330 Coliseum Blvd. W.

To make that happen, the Indiana Department of Correction has supplied $775,000 for one year. The Allen County commissioners approved an agreement with the state Friday to accept the money.

The state has previously given the county money so it can offer housing to returning offenders, and Hudson has an additional $650,000 left to add to the mix, she said.

She is planning a $2.6 million budget to operate the hotel for offenders, including the daily fees that offenders would pay. She does not plan to seek additional funds from the Allen County Council.

The intent behind transitional housing is to ease offenders back into the community while offering support programs, all under the intensive watch of the local courts. Community Corrections already serves returning state prisoners through the county’s Re-Entry Court program, but many offenders don’t participate because they don’t have reliable housing.

State and local officials have discussed providing transitional housing for prisoners in Allen County since 2007. Previously, officials considered constructing a facility across from the Allen County Jail downtown to provide a home for returning offenders.

That idea was panned because of its proximity to Headwaters Park and was seen as deterrent to downtown development. A lack of funding also hampered the project.

Hudson said the hotel site could also house low-level offenders who serve their sentences through Allen County Work Release. Work release houses offenders in a wing of the Byron Health Center at Carroll and Lima roads and allows them to leave detention for work.

Sheriff Ken Fries required work-release participants to have valid driver’s licenses after a participant was killed walking to work along Lima Road.

That change has significantly reduced the number of filled beds at the center. The hotel site is closer to public transportation, Commissioner Nelson Peters said.

Commissioner Bill Brown said the site is a great location for such a program.

Hudson said she and Superior Court Judge John Surbeck have worked with local investor Jerry Henry for the past six months to find a suitable location to house offenders. They, along with Department of Correction staff, have visited a dozen sites since then.

Henry has proposed buying the hotel and leasing it to the county for no more than $500,000 a year. But the purchase isn’t final and the lease terms could be negotiated, Hudson said.

In a letter to Surbeck, Henry said it would cost $9 million to buy and renovate the building to meet the Department of Correction’s specifications.

That work includes securing windows, adding security checkpoints and cameras, filling in the pool, adding office space and a courtroom. The fully equipped kitchen would be used to prepare meals for the offenders, Hudson said.

The hotel, owned by Orite Hotels of Indiana, closed unexpectedly in 2008 and remains vacant. For the past two years, the hotel was among the top 10 delinquent property-tax payers. In October, the hotel’s owners paid its taxes in full, Treasurer Sue Orth said.

janchavarie Community Corrections, IN Allen County

Officials with the Northwest Day Reporting Center in Dalton know they face a daunting task — finding jobs for their clients here. The program, new to Georgia, tries to help criminal offenders with substance abuse problems get their lives back on track. Story in The Daily Citizen.

“It’s going to be mighty difficult,” said Rod Weaver, the new administrator over Whitfield and Murray counties who will be working to “tackle recidivism” among probationers and parolees. “We’ll be working with the Department of Labor and with (temporary job) services, as well as beating the streets to find employment for our people.”

Weaver and around 80 other attendees from public safety, law enforcement, the court system and corrections programs attended a ribbon cutting at the suite of offices at 307 S. Hamilton St. Tuesday afternoon. The non-residential program targets “low to moderate risk” offenders and allows them to stay with their families. It has three phases: 30 to 45 days of detoxification and behavior stabilization; two to six months focusing on sobriety, job training and “mandatory” employment (including surveillance by officers); and after care including drug testing.

State Department of Corrections commissioner Brian Owens agreed that finding jobs in the two-county area — racked with double-digit unemployment — is “going to be a challenge.”

“We have probation officers and employment specialists,” he said. “If (the clients) are trying hard and there’s no jobs available, they won’t go back to jail. But they have to put in an effort.”

Roger Waldrop, a board member of the Department of Corrections, said Dalton’s facility will be one of 13 in the state after Thomasville opens its office on Monday.

“With the economy the way it is, it’s not the popular thing to do to spend money on prisons,” he said. “The main thing the public wants is to keep (parolees) out of sight … but there needs to be an alternative to hard prison.”

Waldrop said it takes $15 a day to put a person through a day reporting program, but costs taxpayers $50 a day to house a prisoner.

“One in 31 adults in Georgia is in prison or jail, or is on probation or parole — we like to overachieve in Georgia,” Owens joked, then turned serious when he said the correction system in Georgia is a $1.1 billion expense.

“There has to be a better solution,” he said, “and this is one of them.”

Along with employment and counseling, day reporting also pulls together mental health resources, the judicial system, Department of Family and Children Services and law enforcement.

“It’s one of the most effective (prison) sentencing alternatives available,” said Joe Baden, the statewide manager.

George Shirilla with the Conasauga Drug Court, a program that is open to first-time offenders in the judicial circuit, said day reporting may “inter-mesh” with his agency on a referral basis.

janchavarie Community Corrections, Georgia, Inmate Programs

The Dutchess County Office of Probation and Community Corrections has expanded its Juvenile Pre-Trial Services with Curfew Monitoring, a program where probation officers perform home visits at random for juvenile offenders to ensure they are where they are supposed to be. Reported by the Mid-Hudson News.

The program helps prevent a juvenile offender from violating the terms of probation and potentially winding up in juvenile detention, said county spokeswoman Betsy Brockway.

“Research tells us two things: one, you get better outcomes for young people if they don’t go off to detention, and two,  there is a great cost for the local taxpayers to pay for those detention beds without good outcomes,” she said. “The more likely a young person is involved in the juvenile criminal justice system, the more likely they will end up in the adult system.”

The Curfew Monitoring program can be court mandated, or it can be requested by parents or probation officers if they believe the youth is at risk for violating the terms of their probation.

The program is funded through a $70,000 state grant, which will run for one year and start in January. Brockway said the program will save local taxpayers $200,000.

janchavarie Community Corrections, Juvenile Justice, NY Dutchess County

The Missouri Department of Corrections today announced the award of $3 million in community reentry contracts to 36 nonprofit organizations to support initiatives that reduce recidivism, reduce victimization, and promote the department’s vision of a safer Missouri. These contracts are self-sustaining and funded through fees paid by clients currently supervised by the Division of Probation and Parole. Press release from the Missouri DOC.

The contracts awarded will be used to implement new projects, programs and services or to enhance existing efforts which assist offenders in making a successful transition back into the community and the workforce. These initiatives address gaps in essential services, including offender housing, employment, education, and substance abuse and mental health treatment.

Ninety-seven percent of incarcerated offenders return to Missouri communities. Collaboration with our community partners during the transition process is necessary to promote offender success. The recipients of the community reentry funds represent employers, law enforcement, social service agencies, educational providers, neighborhood alliances, and the faith-based community. Each of these organizations has a direct impact on reducing the risk of offenders to return to prison. Employing programs built on evidence-based practices with a multi-disciplinary approach ensures offenders have the tools necessary to reach their full potential as productive, law-abiding citizens. The offender-funded community reentry contracts will strengthen resources, resulting in safer and healthier Missouri communities.

janchavarie Community Corrections, Missouri, Re-Entry

Berrien County’s community corrections program will be able to house a larger number of felony drug offenders in a residential alternative to prison. News from the Herald Pallidium.

County commissioners recently approved an agreement to receive $572,137 from the Michigan Department of Corrections to provide residential services.

The funding, the same amount as in 2008-09, will pay for 33 beds in the Kalamazoo Probation Enhancement Program. The nonprofit KPEP operates a branch center in the former corrections center on Waukonda Avenue in Benton Harbor.

County grant coordinator Jenny Grimm said the state has agreed to provide an additional $20,000 to allow sentencing judges in Berrien County to send lower-level offenders to KPEP. They are convicted felons who could be sentenced to prison for up to six months under state guidelines.

Previously, residential services grant funding could be used only to cover KPEP costs as an alternative for people whose sentence guideline range was up to nine months in prison. The $572,137 grant will continue to be used for those offenders.

Grimm said more people sentenced in the county Drug Court will now qualify for a 30-day stay in KPEP as a condition of probation.

“This is a shortened version, but they will get all of the same programs,” she said.

No other residential program is available for people who fall into the lower sentence guideline range, she said. The stay in KPEP is typically 90 days for people who score higher on the guidelines.

KPEP provides men and woman with substance abuse counseling and its own cognitive behavior program called Successful Thinking. Residents also have access to GED classes and are expected to look for jobs. KPEP provides help in finding work.

Grimm said the state has not cut community corrections funding for several years. The funding helps counties operate programs that provide an alternative to sending people into the crowded and expensive prison system.

To help balance the budget for 2009-10, the state is closing several prisons.

In addition to the funding for residential services, the county will receive $60,000 for the electronic monitoring program (tether), $20,000 for substance abuse counseling, $43,897 for an employee who monitors the jail population and $31,700 for grant administration.

janchavarie Community Corrections, Drug Treatment & Diversion, MI Kalamazoo County

Officials at the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office on Monday celebrated the opening of a new multipurpose classroom at its Community Corrections campus. News reported by The Advocate.

The campus, in the old J. Wallace James elementary school, is the setting for educational and employment services and counseling for offenders who otherwise would be incarcerated at the parish jail.

Rob Reardon, director of the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center, said the campus population has doubled in the last year, from around 80 people to about 170, receiving services ranging from substance abuse counseling to GED preparation and testing. Some of the offenders are on home detention, others are work-release inmates.

The classroom will primarily be used for the campus’ successful GED program, which has about 200 people enrolled, said Pam Justice, community corrections manager. To receive a Louisiana high school equivalency diploma, students must pass the General Education Development test.

Justice said they are seeing big increases in the center’s literacy program. Justice said 49 percent of the 199 people enrolled last year in the GED program tested below the fifth-grade level.  “We’re finding that a lot of them cannot even fill out a job application,” Justice said.

Because of the program, she said, there are a number of people now reading at fifth- and sixth-grade levels.

Hunter Beasley, a Lafayette Parish School Board member, attended the ribbon-cutting and praised the work taking place on the campus. “They’ve been very successful this year compared to previous years,” Beasley said. “I think it’s a very good idea and the sheriff is supporting it and putting the resources behind it.”

The campus serves a range of functions, many of which help free up space in LPCC, which is nearly always hovering near or at its capacity of 954 inmates.

Reardon said the classroom was built by inmates at a cost of about $24,000.

janchavarie Community Corrections, Inmate Education, LA Lafayette Parish

Implementing “smart justice” can help ease the criminal case load on prosecutors and keep society safe, Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins told a federal sentencing commission Thursday.Story from the Houston Chronicle.

That means using programs for youthful first-time offenders who can work toward getting their charges dismissed or fast-tracking of repeat low-level offenders into state jails, said Watkins, who is known for working to free wrongly convicted inmates.

Watkins said in his nearly three years in office, he has worked to implement such “smart justice.” “At the end of the day the goal is public safety,” he said, adding that it’s smart use of taxpayer money to attempt to ensure that imprisoned inmates don’t repeat their crimes when they get out of jail. “The goal is rehabilitation, as opposed to just punishment.”

Watkins has become known nationally for pressing for the exonerations of wrongly convicted Dallas County defendants. Those exonerations did not come up in his testimony before the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

The commission’s public hearing in Austin was one of several around the country as it reviews federal sentencing policy. Congress has the say when it comes to making sentencing laws, but the commission makes recommendations about the nation’s complex federal sentencing system and studies specific issues for the legislative branch.

Chief Judge William K. Sessions III of Vermont, chairman of the commission, said the panel is continuing to examine mandatory minimum penalties in the federal system, including disparities for crimes involving crack and powder cocaine.

The commission heard from several Texas experts. One commission member kept referring to the “Texas success story” of how the state has moved to more community-based corrections programs over the past two years.

Adam Gelb, director of the Public Safety Performance Project at the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Center on the States, said Texas is a law-and-order and fiscally conservative state and that it is using methods besides imprisonment in sentencing convicts. Parts of Texas have a “very robust system of community corrections and alternatives,” Gelb said.

Watkins said one of his office’s initiatives allows misdemeanor offenders ages 17 to 25 who have committed “youthful indiscretions” — such as theft or marijuana possession — to take part in a program that may eventually lead to dismissal of the charge. If the person were to be convicted, the conviction would follow the defendant for years and possibly prevent him or her from getting a job later on, he said.

Watkins said the program reduces the number of cases his office must take to court, thus lowering costs. Conversely, repeat offenders who keep breaking the law and are eligible for state jail are sent there sooner, under provisions allowed in state law, he said.

Three federal judges also addressed the panel Thursday.

Judge Robin Cauthron of Oklahoma said she is glad judges now have more discretion in varying from federal sentencing guidelines. That came about because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in recent years.

In presenting her recommendations, she said she believes federal sentencing guidelines are often too harsh for possession of child pornography when there’s no indication that the defendant who viewed the pornography would actually molest a child.

janchavarie Community Corrections, TX Dallas County

The St. Joseph County Board of Commissioners took formal action Tuesday to accept a grant of Community Corrections Funds for Fiscal Year 2009-2010. Reported on WLKM.

District Court Judge Jeff Middleton, speaking as a member of the Community Corrections Advisory Board, told commissioners that this year’s grant award is for the same amount as last year – $104,100. He also pointed out that – for the 20th year – no money was being requested from the county for the various programs funded by the grant including the cognitive change program, the Day Reporting Center, and a mental health component, the criminal sexual conduct treatment and evaluation program. He also noted that $28,000 from the grant goes toward the salary for Community Corrections Coordinator Nancy Pick.

Middleton indicated that Community Corrections has saved an estimated 25,194 “jail bed days” through prison inmates diverted to jail and jail inmates diverted into some other kind of programming, “not to mention the benefit of the program and, particularly, with the sexual conduct treatment programming and domestic assault treatment programs.”

janchavarie Community Corrections, Economic Issues, Michigan

Hundreds of inmates are scheduled to be released from Oregon’s prisons this fall, but Josephine County officials say that they are prepared to handle the influx. Complete story in the Illinois Valley News.

Earlier this year, the Legislature passed House Bill 3508, which suspended certain provisions of Measure 57 between February 2010 and January 2012. That measure was passed by voters in November 2008, and was intended to increase prison sentences for persons convicted of certain nonviolent drug, property and identity theft crimes.

An estimated 800 criminals will be released early this fall as a result of HB 3508, and more than 4,000 could be let out throughout the next four years. The early release does not apply to violent criminals like rapists and murderers.

Abe Huntley, Josephine County Community Corrections director, said that at the local level, releases are “just about doubling.”

“In a typical month, we would have five to six releases from prison,” Huntley said. “We’re now seeing 10 to 12.”

Those early releases have kept Karen Caskey plenty busy. She is the founder and president of Welcome Home Oregon, a religious nonprofit prison transition program that helps remove barriers from re-entry into the community. It is funded through private donations and grants.

Between 150 and 170 persons typically are released into Josephine County every year, Caskey said. The passage of HB 3508 won’t alter that figure, she said, but meant that Welcome Home Oregon was saddled with two months’ worth of early releases.

“By the time everything made it through the process, some people had already passed their earned time release dates,” Caskey said. “As soon as the paperwork was filled out, those people were released. In a community like Josephine County, with somewhat limited resources, that put an immediate strain on things.”

Welcome Home Oregon’s duties include conducting a reach-in call for every state prison inmate that returns to Josephine County and developing release plans intended to meet their most basic needs. Caskey said that the sudden increase in releases complicated the program’s ability to keep up with its core functions.

“We were not able to conduct reach-in calls,” she said. “In terms of a successful release plan, which includes housing, food, clothing and the barest necessities in some cases, we were faced with being in reactionary mode.”

Caskey wasn’t alone in feeling overwhelmed by the increased workload. She said that release councilors at the state Dept. of Corrections were “totally trying to play catch-up” due to the changes in policy.

Huntley said HB 3508 “really put pressure on our release officers.” But it also enabled the county to receive its portion of the savings realized from the suspension of Measure 57’s implementation. That figure amounts to $250,000, he said, which will be spent on treatment programs for drug-addicted property offenders.

Such an approach enables community corrections to focus on reducing recidivism, something Huntley said he strongly supports.

“Housing people in prison doesn’t change their behavior, it takes them out of circulation,” he said. “Community Corrections is different in that we provide programs, structure and supervision to change behavior long-term, so we don’t let them out and send them back to the same environment to continue the same operation.”

Caskey said that despite the early rush, the situation has calmed down and is back to normal after a series of short-term adjustments.

“It did make us scramble a little bit, but for the most part, we’ve gotten through that period of time,” Caskey said. “We had a few people who fell through the cracks, but we’ve been able to find them and reach them, and made sure that they ended up with a positive set of goals when they reached the community.

“It was crazy, but it was totally something we were able to handle in a good manner,” she stated.

janchavarie Community Corrections, Early Release, Oregon

Making the punishment fit the crime – as reported in the Montgomery Times Daily.

Alabama’s corrections commissioner said he’s given up on ever having enough money to build facilities for alternative programs to help keep nonviolent inmates from returning to prison. But Commissioner Richard Allen said without the money to build new LIFE Tech centers around the state, he’s putting the program at existing facilities, including Decatur Work Release facility. Corrections added 200 beds for the program in space originally used for other purposes at the Decatur facility for men in 2008.

But LIFE Tech is just one example of several programs the state is trying to reduce the prison population and keep offenders from coming back later.

Not everyone agrees on whether people sentenced to prison should have alternatives to “hard time.” Others say with bulging, outdated prisons and a prison population that only gets larger, Alabama has little choice but to look at other programs for solutions.

Allen said Alabama must try alternatives. He asks a question that has become a cliche in the corrections field but makes a point about the choices people sending others to prison must make.

“Do we want to reserve prison beds for people we are afraid of or do we want to fill them up with people we are mad at?” he asked.

Allen said he believes people who commit violent crimes belong in maximum security prison, but nonviolent offenders might pay their debt to society more effectively elsewhere.

Technical violators are one example. People on probation who fail to meet with their probation officer, fail a drug test or miss a restitution payment often go back to prison. Allen said such violators would be appropriate for community technical violation programs instead.

As the state tries drug courts, alternative sentencing and community corrections to reduce the prison population, some lawmakers say the state is headed in the right direction.

But other legislators say while the state has desperate prison overcrowding, they still need data showing long-term results on different programs to know what works best.

Allen said Decatur’s LIFE Tech-style program for men combines substance abuse treatment, counseling, reading skills/GED preparation and job preparation with incarceration. Most nonviolent inmates serving time in state prison have those needs, he said.

Lauderdale County District Attorney Chris Connolly is among people who think that some offenders the state classifies as nonviolent should start out in prison.

Connolly said he was surprised and frustrated that a Florence woman did not serve at least five years of her sentence before she became eligible for parole. The parole board denied her early release.

Connolly said the woman sold drugs near a school and a day care center. Some of her customers are in maximum security prison while she is at Birmingham Work Release Facility. “Is that really nonviolent?” Connolly asked.

Allen said the issue of where inmates go to serve their time is under constant review. District attorneys and judges do not always agree that something other than maximum security prison is the right way to go.

Alabama counties that account for 83 percent of all prison sentences now have community corrections programs. Allen said he wants the alternatives in all counties.

“We are doing everything we can to reduce the population but we’re averaging 62 more per month coming in than a year ago,” Allen said.

But 40 percent of new inmates have split sentences that require a specific amount of prison time served before they are even eligible for parole.

The state buys beds in a private therapeutic inpatient program in Columbiana, a private prison in South Alabama and in some county jails that agreed to lease the state bed space.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Marcel Black, D-Tuscumbia, said Alabama needs to find a way to make the punishment fit the crime.

Some crimes demand that the offender do hard time, Black said. But there is a “very, very serious overcrowding problem” in prisons, Black said, and the state must look for alternatives.

“We have to find a way to be smart in sentencing,” he said.

Another legislator who worked in law enforcement for 25 years, including time as an FBI hostage negotiator and an Alabama court referral officer, agrees.

Rep. Mac McCutcheon, R-Capshaw, said the state is trying a number of programs right now.

“We need to see results from several years to know how successful they are,” McCutcheon said.

“I am definitely not opposed to the idea of alternative programs. I feel like we are headed in the right direction but we don’t know yet which ones work best and which ones interact most effectively,” he said.

janchavarie AL Montgomery County, Alabama, Community Corrections, Inmate Programs

Licking County Adult Court Services will receive $92,500 in additional state funding to keep Licking County offenders out of jail and prison. As reported in the Newark Advocate

Court services will receive a $60,000 boost to its $213,589 appropriation for prison diversion and a $32,500 increase to its $50,590 for jail diversion, chief probation officer Kelly Miller said. Current appropriations fund 4 1/2 positions.

Diversion includes community-based programs to rehabilitate and monitor lower-level felony offenders without incarcerating them, thus saving taxpayer money. Typical candidates are drug and alcohol cases or people who don’t pay child support, Miller said.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction sets goals that Licking County must meet to keep the funds, including reducing the number of jail days used by common pleas court offenders by 25 percent, Miller said.

Other targets include reducing the number of fourth- and fifth-degree drug felonies that are sentenced to prison by 50 individuals and sending no one to prison for failure to pay child support, Miller said. These targets will be assessed after two years to determine if the department met them, he added.

Taxpayers pay $75 per day to house a person in the Licking County Justice Center and about $69 per day to incarcerate a person in prison, Kelly said. Diversion reduces those strains on taxpayers.

Court services will use the money to fund a contracted coordinator for treatment in specialized docket court, a pilot Suboxone program and about 25 electronic monitors for pretrial and nonsupport cases, Miller said.

The coordinator would assess what rehabilitation is necessary for drug, alcohol and other specified offenses so addicts could find help instead of a jail term, Miller said.

The funds also will help launch a program that uses Suboxone, a medicine for treating opiate addiction, to reduce the influx of incarcerated prescription drug and heroin abusers, Miller said. The medicine also will allow them to be supervised outside jail, he added.

The electronic monitors also allow law enforcement to keep track of individuals charged or convicted with less-serious felonies, Miller said.

Since court services implemented 14 electronic monitors in January, Miller estimates the county has saved about $115,000 in jail costs.

“With the state budget being the way it is, I’m thrilled and honored the department of corrections has enough faith in the Licking County justice system to give us this money,” Miller said.

janchavarie Community Corrections, Economic Issues, OH Licking County

The Vermont Department of Corrections will see the greatest number of layoffs and job cuts under the Douglas administration’s plan to achieve $7.4 million in labor savings this budget year. From the Burlington Free Press.

In the coming weeks, 14 people will lose their jobs and 20 other positions will be eliminated permanently in Corrections. The number of jobs in Corrections had already shrunk by 101 in earlier rounds of job cuts beginning in 2008. The department will have 1,044 authorized positions after this round of cuts, including 44 open slots that could be filled.   “This cut is the first real impact on community services,” said Commissioner Andrew Pallito, referring to probation and parole programs. He said he tried to steer clear of frontline positions where possible. He didn’t cut any uniformed staff who work in prisons.

The Douglas administration says fewer layoffs are needed — 29 instead of the 37 announced last week — because more vacant and retirement slots will be eliminated. The administration will eliminate 82.5 jobs newly vacated by retiring workers and 46.5 slots that have been vacant.

jakking Budgets, Community Corrections, Economic Issues, Personnel Issues, Vermont

The Czech government on Monday approved Justice Minister Daniela Kovarova’s project of the introduction of house arrest and electronic monitoring system to prevent a possible collapse of the Czech prison service, lower its costs and protect society against repeat criminals.  Story from Prague Monitor.

The possibility of house arrest is embedded in the new Penal Code that will take effect as of January 2010. The Justice Ministry says house arrest should be an alternative to prison sentence for less serious crimes, for instance, minor thefts, and it is to replace the current alternative punishment in the form of community works.

The ministry’s new plan is divided into three phases. The first phase starts when the house arrest punishment takes effect and continues until the introduction of the electronic monitoring of convicts via a special tether with a sensor. At the same time a monitoring device sending information on the convicts’ movement to the central system should be installed in their homes. The project is to decrease the number of prisoners within the first phase already.

The ministry also plans to raise the number of employees in the Probation and Mediation Service by 90 people in connection with the project. The service is to select convicts suitable for house arrest and provide their random checks.

The second phase of the project follows up to the introduction of electronic monitoring of convicts and the completion of changes to respective laws. The Justice Ministry wants to apply for EU subsidies for this phase. In such a case the state would cover only 30 percent of the costs and save some 111 million crowns.

Within the third phase, planned in 2011-2013, house arrest and the electronic monitoring system would be interconnected in judiciary practice.

There are 35 prisons in the ten-million Czech Republic and all of them are overcrowded. A total of 22,000 inmates were in Czech prisons in July and another 7500 convicts were sent to prison but they did not start serving their sentences yet.

jakking Community Corrections, Electronic Monitoring, Europe, INTERNATIONAL, Overcrowding

A Chief Probation Officer role will be created to oversee a revamp of the New Zealand Community Probation Service (CPS). Report from NZPA.

The CPS, which oversees those on community based sentences, will now focus on an offender’s risk to the community and will measure success against clear outcomes. The changes were recommended by the Probation Expert Panel. The panel was recommended by the State Services Commissioner after an Auditor-General’s report identified significant shortcomings with CPS.

Panel chairwoman Paula Rebstock said CPS was “manual driven” with books on procedures parole officers should follow in different circumstances. The system had become complex and it was difficult to write a plan for every possible occurrence, Ms Rebstock told Parliament’s law and order select committee today. “It’s difficult to write rules and procedures for how to achieve public safety.” Rather the risk of an offender to the public needed to be the target of any activity, she said. The level and type of risk was likely to change over time. A clear focus for the service needed to be established with measurable outcomes, Ms Rebstock said. Having measurable expectations and measuring staff against them made it “possible for staff (and management) to be responsible”.

The current system meant managers were checking actions against a set of procedures rather than looking at what had happened. “To hold someone accountable you must be clear about what you are trying to do.” A chief probation officer would be able to independently review whether outcomes were meet if something went wrong and would also be part of efforts for ongoing improvement, Ms Rebstock said … Corrections Minister Judith Collins said the expert panel had found “significant improvements” and a “fundamental rethink”. “The panel has already helped CPS undertake changes which have improved outcomes, but we need to ensure this improvement continues.” The chief probation officer would report directly to the chief executive, would provide additional professional leadership for staff and investigate following a major incident.

jakking Australasia, Community Corrections, INTERNATIONAL, New Zealand

Counties across West Virginia are warming to community corrections, in part because it costs them between $5 to $15 per offender per day, compared to $49.25 for each day in a regional jail, legislators learned Tuesday.  Article from the Charleston Gazette.

“There are significant savings to sending people to community corrections as opposed to sending them to jail,” said Norb Federspiel, director of the Division of Criminal Justice Service. “My personal opinion is, the counties have been the chief beneficiaries” of community corrections, he told a legislative interim committee.

Since the Legislature passed the Community Corrections Act in 2001, 40 counties are participating in community corrections programs, primarily through day reporting centers, Federspiel said. At any given time, between 1,200 and 1,500 nonviolent offenders are in community corrections programs, saving counties about $50,000 a day in regional jail costs. “There’s no doubt that it has saved counties money to have people sentenced to day report centers instead of jails for misdemeanor offenses,” Federspiel told the interim committee on regional jails and corrections.

While West Virginia’s program is too new to provide solid data on outcomes, he said community corrections in other states have reported recidivism rates that are 40 percent lower than for incarcerated inmates. Offenders in West Virginia community corrections must complete community service assignments, undergo counseling and participate in assigned programs based on their needs. Programs include substance abuse treatment, job training, adult basic education, anger management and life skills courses. Federspiel said drug rehabilitation is a critical factor, since a significant percentage of all nonviolent offenders have been convicted either of drug offenses, or for property crimes committed in order to buy drugs. Not everyone sentenced to community corrections is up to the challenge, he told lawmakers. “There are some who’ve said, ‘This is too tough. Put me in prison,” he said.

One of the key recommendations this summer in the report of Governor’s Commission on Prison Overcrowding is to expand capacities of community corrections programs statewide. Currently, the state spends just more than $5 million a year on community corrections, with about $1.8 million coming from the state’s half of a $10 community corrections court fee imposed on all convictions other than parking tickets. In recent years, an additional $3.5 million a year has been appropriated from general revenue funds, he said. The funds are distributed to counties as grants, with counties required to put up 10 percent to 30 percent of the amount in matching funds.

Asked why 15 counties are not participating, Federspiel said most are small, rural counties that may not have significant crime problems. In some counties, he added, some circuit judges simply oppose the concept of community corrections. “Some judges philosophically don’t believe in community corrections. They believe offenders should go to jail,” he said.

jakking Community Corrections, Economic Issues, Recidivism, Regional Jail System, Regional Jails, West Virginia

The reality of a  state budget process for the Washington legislature that faced a $9 billion shortfall, solved in part with deep cuts to the prison system last July, have become reality this fall in Clark County.  Reported by KGW News.

Five hundred fewer former inmates will  get parole supervision, Washington Department of Corrections spokesman Chad Lewis said Thursday. Clark County judges will be told these people are no longer under the jurisdiction of the corrrections department. Statewide, the figure is about 8,500 former inmates, and that number could rise to as high 9,400, he said. There were about 27,000 parolees under supervision when the cuts began. The tradeoff, he said, is that those former inmates are considered the least dangerous of the state’s parolees. Those with sex offenses and a history of violence or mental illness will continue to receive supervision, he said. This includes a decision to halt all post-release supervision of sex offenders at 36 months after they leave prison. Some of them had been supervised for 48 months, depending on the circumstances, he said.

The layoffs of community corrections officers started last week. On it’s website this week, the Washington Federation of State Workers had words of caution for the public. “These cuts impact not only jobs but they compromise public safety. Our community orrections members said throughout the (legislative) session and continue to say this. We only hope we don’t have a tragedy that proves the error of this path the Legislature and administration has taken.

jakking Budgets, Community Corrections, County-State Issues, Economic Issues, Parole, WA Clark County, Washington