The number of inmates in England and Wales’ jails should be cut by a third, and the money saved put into community penalties, a report by MPs has said. The cross-party Justice Committee said evidence showed community punishments would have a better chance of cutting re-offending. News provided by The BBC.

The committee said a £4.2bn prison building plan was a “costly mistake”. But the Ministry of Justice said its current strategy was working and reoffending rates had been falling.

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

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

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

The MPs said: ”We are worried that the government seems to accept the inevitability of a high and rising prison population and remains committed to building larger prisons. We are convinced that prison building on this scale will prove a costly mistake. The prison population could be safely capped at current levels and then reduced over a specified period to a safe and manageable level likely to be about two-thirds of the current population.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said prisons were investing in drug treatment, training and education.

“We have bolstered community punishments to ensure they are tough, innovative and offer locally based alternatives to custody,” he said.

“People who commit serious offences are going to prison for longer and are being rehabilitated – and the rate of re-offending continues to fall.”

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

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

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

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

janchavarie Corrections Reform, United Kingdom

A crowd rallied in support of prison reform in front of the Statehouse today, cheering on Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman as she pushes her bills through the Legislature. Reported by New Jersey On-Line.

“We’re not asking for anyone to be given a free ride. But if you live and you breath, you have made mistakes,” she said. “If you don’t have a chance to correct those mistakes, you will continue to make them.”

Supporters waved signs reading “Support treatment not jail” and “Give people a second chance.”

A package of legislation would allow former inmates to receive financial help from state welfare programs, encourage the corrections system to place prisoners in facilities close to their families and seek ways to maintain bonds between incarcerated parents and their children.

One of the laws would require inmates to finish high school classes and receive vocational training.

The state would shed almost $5 million if one of the bills (A4197) is passed, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services. The bills are in danger of failing because lawmakers are hesitant to spend any money with the state’s deficit hitting $1 billion in the current budget year.

Watson Coleman (D-Mercer) said her legislation will save money down the line because more former inmates would be educated and working.

“These individuals will not need to worry about being on a whole realm of public support,” she said. “We’ll have people contributing as taxpayers.”

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) did not post the bills for a vote today, but Watson Coleman said she’s working to get them on the calendar for the Jan. 7 session.

Roberts has said he supports the bills, saying it “looks to be a very smart approach to saving taxpayer dollars and helping give those released from our prisons a better chance at success.”

Arthur Townes, who helps former inmates find housing, jobs and rehabilitation programs, said people face “double jeopardy” when they commit a crime in New Jersey. After they’re convicted, he said, they’re penalized again by a myriad of state laws and regulations.

Watson Coleman’s bills could help change that, he said.

“It will give ex-offenders and people who slipped and went another way another chance,” he said. “It’s something we say they deserve, but the laws don’t support.”

Darryl Mikell Brooks, a former political candidate, said he supports the bills but doesn’t expect today’s rally to be effective.

“The people leading this don’t have the strength, don’t have the votes,” he said. “I hate to see people get all excited.”

janchavarie Corrections Reform, New Jersey

Scotland’s prison population has continued to rise, according to new

Scotland's prison population increased by 6%

national statistics. Reported by the BBC.

The figures showed the average daily prison population in the year to March was 7,835, up by 6% on the previous year and 31% over the past 10 years.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said prison would always be the right punishment for those involved in serious crime. But he said simply building more prisons was not the answer.

Scotland’s chief statistician revealed that the majority of the prison population were sentenced prisoners. The most recent average daily figure for prisoners held on remand was 1,678 for the year from April 2008 to the end of March.

This was an increase of 8% over the previous year’s figure of 1,560, indicating an on-going rising trend in the remand population. On 30 June 2008, the crime category with the largest population of sentenced prisoners was non-sexual violent crime (37%), followed by drugs-related crimes (14%).

The 2008-09 average daily female prison population was 413, an 11% increase from 371 in 2007-08. The female prison population has shown a disproportionate increase of 97% over the past 10 years.

The number of prisoners serving sentences of six months or less has decreased, the statistics said.

Speaking during a visit to HMP Inverness, Mr MacAskill said: “Prison, if necessary for a long time, will always be the right punishment for those involved in serious crime and those who are a danger to our communities.

“That is why we are investing £120m each year in our prison estate, including the building of three new prisons.

“But we cannot and will not build even more prisons to fill them with those for whom prison is not the right answer.”

‘Revolving door’

He said short sentences of six months or less did nothing to stop offending behaviour.

“Reconviction statistics published earlier this year show just how many offenders are going inside for a short period of time, coming out to reoffend, and then going back inside,” he added. “We need to close that revolving door of reoffending. And to do that we need to tackle the underlying causes of crime – drink, drugs and deprivation.”

In response to the increase in the prison population, John Lamont, the Conservative spokesman on community safety said:

“Prison numbers will only be properly cut when crime is cut. Prison serves four important functions: to deter criminals, to protect the public, to punish and to rehabilitate. All four matter and we have to have the political will to make prison work.

‘Soft touch’

He said that in the SNP’s Scotland, people have to be very unlucky to end up in jail.

He added: “The prime duty of government is to protect the public. The SNP is guilty of a dereliction of that duty.”

Scottish Labour’s justice spokesman Richard Baker said: “Kenny MacAskill’s soft touch approach is not deterring criminals and his management of the prison estate has been woeful.

“Why was the build of Low Moss prison delayed? Why is he closing Craiginches prison in Aberdeen? Mr MacAskill is looking to weaken the criminal justice system and that is not the right approach for dealing with any category of offender. ”

He added: “We do want to see effective community sentences, and in many instances this will be appropriate for female offenders, but this requires appropriate investment in community sentences in which the public can have confidence.”

janchavarie Corrections Reform, Scotland, Statistics

A sweeping bill package sponsored by six Assembly Democratic legislators to improve rehabilitation in New Jersey prisons and to save taxpayer dollars by cutting recidivism and giving released inmates an improved chance of success was advanced Monday by an Assembly panel. News from PolitickerNJ.

The package is sponsored by Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman and Assembly members Albert Coutinho, Elease Evans, Mila M. Jasey, L. Grace Spencer and Cleopatra G. Tucker. It stems from a series of hearings on Watson Coleman hosted throughout New Jersey to hear from citizens and experts on how to cut into recidivism and save public money.

The bills were released by the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee.

“The pervasive cycle of arrest, release and re-arrest is failed system that wastes lives and costs taxpayers dearly,” said Watson Coleman (D-Mercer). “Quite simply, it’s a disgraceful and destructive cycle that must come to an end for the good of all New Jersey taxpayers and those directly affected by our failed system. We’ve seen too much money unsuccessfully spent on programs that don’t work. These reforms are a long overdue step toward progress.”

“These reforms range from improving education and job training to enhancing family support to eliminating antiquated roadblocks to success for those released from prison,” said Coutinho (D-Essex). “These common sense steps will give people an opportunity to earn their second chance and ensure we spend public money wisely.”

“None of these bills would make it easier to serve sentences,” said Spencer (D-Essex). “What they would do is make serving that time more sensible and help ensure that after their time is served, prisoners re-enter society ready to be productive citizens. That will save lives and taxpayer dollars.”

“The simple fact is that of the thousands people released from New Jersey prisons each year, 65 percent of the adults and 37 percent of the juveniles will return within two years,” said Tucker (D-Essex). “That is unacceptable, and these bills aim to not only to improve lives and neighborhoods, but to save money.”

“Spending money time and time again on prisoners who come and go from our prison systems is, quite simply, a waste,” said Evans (D-Passaic). “We need to do better, not only for the wellbeing of the people whose lives are being lost in our prisons, but for taxpayers who need to know their money is spent smartly.”

“We simply cannot afford to continue the present system of spending money repeatedly on repeat offenders,” said Jasey (D-Essex). “The time has come to change our approach so that we can give people and our society a better chance at a better future.”

The “Women and Families Strengthening Act” (A-4197), which would:

• End the prohibition in state law against released prisoners from receiving cash assistance benefits provided under Work First New Jersey.
• Require the state to contract with the lowest bidder for inmate telephone services, prohibit the contractor from imposing surcharges on inmate calls and bar the state from accepting revenue in excess of the cost of operating inmate telephone services.
• Establish a commission to examine strategies for strengthening bonds between jailed parents and their children.
• Require an assistant corrections commissioner establish and monitor policies affecting incarcerated mothers and their children.
• Prohibit the state from housing female inmates in the same facility as male inmates, if it results in conditions more restrictive than the male inmates.
• Require the state to make every effort to assign an inmate to a facility close to where the inmate’s family resides.

A bill (A-4199) designed to address incarceration concerns, which would:

• Allow prisoners in a state or county jail to keep $25 of their monthly income earned for labor performed at the facility, up from $15.
• Require the state to semiannually submit all inmate complaints to the Department of the Public Advocate.
• Require the state to develop an in-service training program for corrections officers that must include mental health sensitivity.

A bill (A-4201) designed to address release concerns, which would:

• Establish a faith-based programs coordinator with the state Department of Corrections to compile and disseminate information about faith-based groups and programs, especially those that provide assistance and services to inmates re-entering society.
• Establish Mental Health Courts to facilitate voluntary treatment of defendants who have mental health illnesses.
• Create a Prisoner Re-entry Commission and require the collection of data on recidivism and a fiscal estimate or the potential cost of any legislation that increases prison sentences.
• Give prisoners a 90-day grace period on outstanding fines and other monetary penalties.
• A bill (A-4202) designed to address education and job training, which would:
• Require the state to create a mandatory workforce skills training and a mandatory education program in each state correctional facility.
• Require inmates to attain a high school equivalency certificate or high school diploma.
• Allow inmates and parolees to enter into agreements with institutions for education, training or other activities that, if successfully completed, could reduce parole terms.
• Establish a mandatory six-month period of post-release supervision for all state inmates.
• Allow a person who has been released from prison to obtain a court order that allows them to visit prisons, if they can show that such visits are likely to motivate and help rehabilitate other inmates.

“This is important unfinished business from the many hearings we held throughout New Jersey, during which we heard from thousands of people about how our system has failed people and cost us money,” Watson Coleman said. “A broad coalition of community organizations, faith leaders, law enforcement officials and ordinary citizens have lined up behind these ideas and will work to build support for these well-informed and carefully crafted bills that reflect a desire to improve lives and save money.”

janchavarie Corrections Reform, New Jersey

Drug- and alcohol-addicted offenders in Fairfield County might find themselves checking into a day reporting center rather than jail early next year, if the proposed alternative is found to be cost effective. Story from the Lancaster Eagle Gazette.

County commissioners and the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office are looking at developing a day reporting center as an alternative to incarceration.

“We looked at one in West Virginia, and it could be cost effective,” Fairfield County Commissioner Judy Shupe said.

County officials visited the Lee Day Report Center in West Virginia in September to see if the program could be adapted to Fairfield County.

“They would receive counseling and other services,” Shupe said. “They would also be drug-tested. At the West Virginia location, the county would pay for the test if it was negative, but the offender would pay for it if it came back positive.”

Shupe said the key to savings would be whether the county can convert an existing county owned building into a center.

Under the proposal, nonviolent, misdemeanor offenders would report to a center during the day or nonworking hours.

Fairfield County Sheriff Dave Phalen said the site they visited in West Virginia had cut the jail population in half.

Phalen said Fairfield County had about 230 prisoners in jail on Tuesday.

“We spend as much as $600,000 and it could be as much as a million (dollars) by the end of the year,” Phalen said. “Right now we have more than 30 prisoners in other county jails.”

Phalen said the county is looking at the amount of money it could save by not sending prisoners to jail and instead diverting them to a day reporting center.

The next step is an evaluation being done in Fairfield County Municipal Court.

“If they can find between 30 to 40 offenders that could be in this program instead of in jail, the program would pay for itself,” Phalen said.

He said the goal is to find out if the county can find the numbers and location to make it work.

Sites being considered include the former offices used by the Fairfield County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, 407 E. Main St. The EMA recently moved to the Fairfield County Job & Family Services building at the corner of Memorial Drive and West Main Street.

“If the numbers work and a location can be found, we could have the center up and running early next year,” Phalen said.

janchavarie Corrections Reform, Drug Treatment & Diversion, Economic Issues, Ohio

The following opinion piece by Jeanne Woodward and Matt Powers was published in the Sacramento Bee this morning:

Although the recent budget deal reached in Sacramento included a $1.2 billion cut to corrections, legislators haven’t yet faced the hard part: determining how exactly those cuts will be made. Democrats have promised to hammer out such a plan later this month. Now is the time to put the old maxims and myths aside and implement the policy changes needed to protect Californians and the fiscal health of the state.

Republicans say that they cannot approve cuts to prison spending that include the early release of inmates, saying this would be unfair and hurtful to victims. We do not doubt the sincerity of such concerns, but the truth is that our current criminal justice practices in California are costly and ineffective, and do not serve public safety as they should. Nor have legislators adequately addressed the trade-offs and how these negatively affect public safety. Take as an example the recent cuts to education, when we know that the more education young people receive, the less likely they are to be involved in crime, victimization and incarceration.

As the debate to cut prison spending heats up this month, the danger is that politics as usual will lead Sacramento to ignore this bigger-picture understanding of public safety. Criminal justice should stop being painted as law enforcement and conservatives on one side and liberals and correctional researchers on the other. There is nothing further from the truth. We are all interested in public safety. No one wants to be victimized by crime, and law enforcement officials and conservatives all over this state understand that we cannot arrest or incarcerate our way out of this problem. It is too costly and ineffective.

If we are truly interested in public safety, we must understand the great myth. It is a myth that the more people you incarcerate, the safer your communities are. As crime rates have fallen all across the country, study after study reveals that states that have implemented treatment and alternatives to incarceration have experienced greater reductions in crime and costs than states that have simply put more people behind bars for longer.

The state of New York, for example, experienced an 8 percent decrease in its prison population in 1995-2005 by boosting reliance on more cost-effective alternatives to incarceration, including drug treatment and community-based services. At the same time, the state recorded a large decrease in all crime categories, ranging from 43 percent for property crimes to a 47 percent drop in the homicide rate.

California has also had a reduction in crime rates – from 32 percent for property crimes to a 38 percent drop in the homicide rate in the same time period – but that drop has been accompanied by a whopping 28 percent jump in the prison population. Meanwhile, despite our reliance on prisons and incarceration as a response to crime, California continues to have the highest recidivism rate in the nation. California is now an example of what not to do.

A recent Northwestern Law study, “Controlling Corrections Costs in Illinois,” advises that, in deciding how to resolve corrections’ impact on the budget crisis, “the choice lies not between ‘left’ or ‘right’ but between East or West.” The author of this study urges Illinois to follow New York, not California, in developing criminal justice policy.

Fiscally responsible public safety, then, is not a liberal (left) issue, nor a conservative (right) one. It is not a Republican issue nor a Democrat one. It is a question of efficacy.

We must have criminal justice policies that hold people accountable for change. We must recognize that often the most effective criminal justice policy is treatment, community programs and community supervision. We must move our funding from prisons to community programs for non-serious, nonviolent offenders. This approach is cheaper and more effective in reducing victimization in our communities.

Violent offenders should go to state prison. These offenders must be held accountable to participate in treatment and refrain from gang activity before they are released. Now violent offenders are released when their time is finished even if they have continued criminal behavior inside our prisons.

We should not fear the release of 27,000 carefully selected, ill and petty offenders as a way of reducing the budget. We should fear continuing the broken, expensive correctional practices of today. California must stop being an example of what not to do. We should again be a state that invests in our children through education – not funding a prison system that gives us little in return.

If our legislators really care about crime victims, then we must follow the example of New York. Sacramento must establish policies that reflect a concern for Californians and public safety. The future of this state depends on it. Let us invest in our communities and see a return by reducing incarceration, crime and the recidivism rates through a criminal justice strategy that works.

Jeanne Woodford is the former director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and former warden at San Quentin; Matt Powers is a retired deputy chief of the Sacramento Police Department.

jakking California, Corrections History, Corrections Reform, Early Release, Economic Issues, Gangs (STGs), New York

Alarmed by prisons that are clogged with mentally ill people, drug users and other non-violent offenders while well-armed gangs and drug lords often go unpunished, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb will launch a wide-ranging and politically risky campaign today to overhaul the nation’s criminal justice system.  As reported by the Hampton Roads Pilot.

With nearly 2.4 million Americans now behind bars, Webb said, “our incarceration rate has exploded…. But at the same time we aren’t really solving the problems.” With backing from senior Democratic senators and quiet encouragement from President Barack Obama, Webb will introduce legislation to create a bipartisan commission on criminal justice reform. Webb said he wants the commission to educate itself and then the American public on some little-understood realities about crime and punishment.

His bill reads like an indictment of the current system, noting that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, that minorities make up a disproportionately large share of prison populations, and that half of prisoners will return to prison within three years of release.  Webb said he hopes that once people begin to understand that such a high rate of imprisonment has done little to stop violent crime or drug trafficking, they’ll support changes … Webb’s bill does not suggest specific reforms but directs the commission to make suggestions that would reduce incarceration rates and keep mental patients and nonviolent offenders from going to prison …

Webb has briefed Obama’s staff on the plan and discussed it with the president earlier this week. He has secured pledges of support from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Democratic whip Dick Durbin of Illinois and expressions of interest from prominent Republicans, including Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Webb also has talked the issue over with Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who invited Webb to his office and shared the texts of several speeches voicing his own concern about criminal sentencing.  The senator said Kennedy told him that too many judges “don’t understand prisons” and “don’t pay that much attention to what happens after we’ve moved the cases.”

jakking Corrections Reform