California will begin to reduce its prison population by about 6,500 inmates over the next year under a state law that takes effect Monday. Story published in The Washington Post.

The bill was signed as part of last year’s state budget package. Under it, early release credits for inmates who complete educational and vocational programs will be expanded, letting more inmates leave prison earlier.

At the same time, the state will stop its monitoring of low-level offenders after their release. That is designed to reduce the number of parolees returned to prison, essentially because the state will not know if they are violating the terms of their parole.

Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate told The Associated Press on Thursday that the law will let parole agents concentrate on more dangerous ex-convicts.

Agents will be responsible for supervising an average of 48 parolees instead of the current 70 because the law ends California’s practice of automatically putting every released convict on three years of parole.

Ex-convicts deemed less dangerous or less likely to commit new crimes will not be monitored at all, although they still can be searched without a warrant.

The reduced caseload will let the state more intensively watch gang members, sex offenders and violent felons, using lessons it learned from its failure to catch Jaycee Dugard’s accused kidnappers, Cate said. Parole agents have been faulted for failing to learn that paroled sex offender Phillip Garrido was hiding the young woman in his backyard for nearly 20 years.

“We’re going back to the time when the parole officer not only has time to be a cop, but add that social worker factor,” Cate said in a telephone interview. “We could see the recidivism rate actually go down in California, so that’s the great hope.”

Groups representing crime victims and the union representing Los Angeles police officers criticized the new law.

“California has decided to begin jeopardizing public safety with no perceivable financial benefit,” said Los Angeles Police Protective League President Paul M. Weber in a statement.

He argued that despite the short-term financial gain, an increase in crime will cost the state and victims more in the long run.

Cate acknowledged some unsupervised ex-felons will inevitably commit serious crimes after their release. But he said residents will be safer in general because parole agents will be able to concentrate on higher-risk parolees.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the law in October. Finance officials estimated Thursday the measure will save the state about $500 million its first full year.

janchavarie Budgets, California, Overcrowding

The Re-entry Program is crucial to stop the revolving door for prison, but state budget cuts are forcing the Kansas Department of Corrections to cut those programs. “The Re-entry Program and Parole Services are what make our communities safe,” Sharidi Blackwood, Re-entry Program Director, said. News from KTKA.

Blackwood said they’ve had to cut staff and leave positions open, which gives Parole Officers like Donnie Hibler more work and fewer resources to work with. “When we don’t have the resources or the funds the staff to meet all those needs it becomes pretty scary, and it becomes a real safety issue and that is our number one concern,” Blackwood said.

Missy Woodward is a Program Consultant who works with mentally ill prisoners. “A lot of the mental health cases came to us with the shut down of the Topeka State Hospital,” Woodward said.

“The prisons are the new state hospitals now,” Parole Officer Hibler said.

If Missy can’t find the resources, like medication and housing for these mentally ill prisoners, crimes will continue to occur. “It’s going to impact the safety of the community, I hate to say when people get desperate they get desperate,” Woodward said.

Kelli Martinez’s job is to help people coming out of prison find work, but with a failing economy that has made her part of the re-entry program tough, “We see a lot of the jobs that used to be the given, that they could just walk into those aren’t so available now either,” Martinez said.

So with a troubled economy, and cuts to the Kansas Department of Corrections, it leaves many who work with offenders scared what will happen next. “Our biggest concern is safety for the community,” Blackwood said.

The Kansas Department of Corrections staff said they will continue to rely on other community programs for help. They said they have to get creative to get prisoners the help they need.

janchavarie Budgets, Kansas, Re-Entry

In its final report, the SAGE Commission calls for state government to trade off the high-cost Ely State Prison and Lovelock Correctional Center to a private firm that would build new prisons for the state near Reno and Las Vegas News reported by the Ely News.

The Saving and Government Efficiency Commission offered 44 recommendations to save Nevada money in the final report. Most of the recommendations already have been considered by the Legislature, but a handful, including the prison closure proposals, are new.

The bipartisan commission, created by Gov. Jim Gibbons in June 2008, has met monthly and developed recommendations considered by the governor and the Legislature.

“I am very pleased with our work,” panel Chairman Bruce James, a former U.S. printer, said Thursday. “Government works incrementally. Making big changes is tough to do overnight. The Legislature is going to be hard-pressed to save money in coming years. We think we have made recommendations that they will have to consider.”

During the 2009 Legislature, lawmakers approved changes to the state retirement and health care systems along the lines proposed by the SAGE Commission, saving the state more than $100 million. About half of its early recommendations were approved during the session.

Former Assemblyman David Goldwater, D-Las Vegas, a commission member, echoed James’ view that the commission was productive. He said Democrats and Republicans agreed on almost every recommendation.

“A lot of our recommendations were common sense,” he said. “But citizens should be confident that we found there isn’t any gigantic waste in state spending. The state isn’t buying $900 hammers. We didn’t find any horrible inefficiencies that could cure the state’s budget ills.”

As far as trading rural prisons for ones in urban areas, Goldwater said, governors and legislators in the past looked at constructing prisons in rural areas as a way to bolster their economies. “But it costs the state extra money to have rural prisons,” Goldwater said.

In its report, the commission found Ely and Lovelock have higher operational costs and at times cannot find needed employees. Inadequate hospitals exist in the two communities, and offenders are far from courts that handle their appeals.

Other recommendations include:

• The state’s information technology department should come up with a common system for state e-mail and Web sites.
• The Nevada Department of Transportation should consider closing some highway maintenance stations and outsourcing some maintenance responsibilities.

Gibbons praised the commission, and added, “Just as SAGE commissioners did in their work, we hope our elected officials can now set aside their partisan differences to put the public’s interest first.”

James said commissioners could have continued to meet monthly through June but believed they had completed their task so they decided to submit the final report early.

janchavarie Budgets, Economic Issues, Nevada

Frustrated Board of Corrections members on Friday criticized what they called a lack of interest among lawmakers to fund the state prison system. News reported in the Tulsa World.

The Department of Corrections plans to begin furloughing all of its 4,514 employees starting in March to deal with budget cuts.

Some 119 employees took an early buyout offer as the agency worked to trim its budget, DOC Director Justin Jones said.

And if his budget is further cut by the minimum 7.5 percent he was told to expect in the next fiscal year, Jones said, the Corrections Department also will have to lay off 459 employees.

“That is not crying wolf,” Jones said during a regular Board of Corrections meeting at the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center.

The agency also may close some prisons by increasing capacity at others, he said.

State agencies have been told to reduce their budgets as a result of declining revenue.

The cuts had been 5 percent starting in August but rose to 10 percent for December and January. Assuming that the cuts revert to 5 percent in February and stay there until the end of the fiscal year on June 30, the agency will have cut $41 million from a $503 million budget, Jones said.

Since July 1, the Department of Correction has added 709 inmates, DOC chief of operations Ken Klinger said.

The prison system is operating at 100 percent capacity, Jones said.

The board’s suggestions on ways to curb the growing prison population and reduce costs don’t seem to interest lawmakers or state leaders, Corrections Board member David Henneke said.

Board member Robert Rainey said he was “surprised, shocked and dismayed” by the response the agency has gotten from the Legislature.

He said sentencing reform will come only after a federal judicial order requires lawmakers to spend money.

“The Legislature wants to incarcerate low-risk offenders and not pay for it,” Rainey said. “It is shameful. I am embarrassed.”

The Department of Corrections can’t do more with less forever, he said.

“At the end of the day, it is a failure of our leadership,” Rainey said.

Board member Ted Logan said he envisions a scenario in which someone is hurt or killed as a result of the cuts, followed by finger-pointing.

“I hope something gives before it reaches that point,” he said.

janchavarie Budgets, Oklahoma

For the past 10 years, Randy Bland has held a job that might make some people nervous.He oversees the mill and cabinetry class at Sierra Conservation Center, a program that teaches inmates the basics of the cabinet-making trade. News reported by the Union Democrat.

That’s 27 felons bearing power tools. “I love it,” Bland, 51, said, standing in the kitchen that his wife, Susan, designed and he created in their Sonora home. “It’s a satisfying thing. I’d do it until I retired.”

However, deep cuts in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation budget mean that this, a graphic design class and a print shop all will be axed from the SCC curriculum by the end of January.

The Department of Corrections saw a $1.2 billion budget cut in 2009, forcing the department to pick certain programs to be reworked or discarded, according to spokeswoman Peggy Bengs.

Adult programs and rehabilitation programs took the brunt of it, as two-thirds of their budgets disappeared. Cutting certain classes, like mill and cabinetry, on a statewide scale saves the department $250 million, Bengs said.

“The state is emphasizing programs that reduce recidivism,” Bengs said. “We’re looking at vocational programs linked to job market demands that take 12 months to complete. Those reduce recidivism by 9 percent.”

The programs that survived budget cuts tended to be those that provide certification on top of satisfying the job market in the area where prisoners spend their parole periods.

The state prioritizes programs that can provide those certificates, Bengs said. Those include the automotive or welding programs, among others.

In Bland’s view, the mill and cabinetry program provides his students not only skills that can be used in a number of areas, but also valuable life skills that prepare people who haven’t had normal social interaction for the workplace.

“It can be tough,” he said. “You have a small shop and a lot of people. Personalities can clash.”

And part of the training is learning to work with people of different races, personality types and backgrounds. Learning a trade teaches them confidence, he said, a commodity a person doesn’t have a lot of when they are released with the stigma of having served time.

Bland created the class using state-mandated curriculum and textbooks, but put a heavy dash of his own hands-on style in to make sure his students learned. Students who had been around longer were put in charge of projects and given a team of less-experienced students to encourage peer teaching, Bland said.

He was there to supervise, answer questions and solve problems, both with the cabinets and between the inmates. He also made sure the shop had what it needed to be a good learning environment.

At this point, he said, the shop is state-of-the-art.

“It’s a wonderful shop, the state has been kind to me,” Bland said. “They put you in there and you make it what it is. You decide what to buy, what kind of machinery and how you run it.”

To get some of the supplies, Bland wrote grants and lobbied for resources.

The happy beneficiaries of the program include not just prisoners, but also budget-weary state and local agencies that need the services the program provides but can’t afford — like the Mi-Wuk-Sugar Pine Fire Protection District.

Fire Chief Randy Miller had a problem. The department needed a new firehouse, but it had a $20,000 budget to create a multi-purpose 1,300-square-foot building.

“You pay for stuff and then you blink your eyes and that budget is gone,” Miller said.

By using Bland’s shop, the fire department only had to pay for the materials needed to make the cabinets for the kitchen, saving a hefty sum of money for quality work, Miller said.

“For what it cost us, there is no way I could get this stuff, no way,” he said. “We had them put a cabinet in that we’ll put a counter top on. When it came back, we had to nudge that thing in there. It fit perfectly.”

Now that the program is ending, Bland is already getting calls for cabinet work in the county. He owned a business, Precision Woodworking, in the area from 1982 to 2000 when he quit to work in the prisons. But he’s not sure if he wants to launch a new business at this point in his life.

He doesn’t have a shop, and the shop at the prison will be dismantled. Equipment that can’t be used by the Education Department as a result of reductions will be given away to other institutions that request the equipment, Bengs said.

“If I’m laid off, I’m going to have to do something,” Bland said. “It’ll be low key.”

janchavarie Budgets, California, Inmate Programs

Prison officials hope a federal grant to reduce repeat offenses will help the South Dakota Department of Corrections control inmate population growth in a tight budget year. News from the Rapid City Journal.

Gov. Mike Rounds’ proposed 2011 budget is about $1 million lower than the DOC’s request. The agency asked for $108,069,335 based on projected prison numbers through June 2012.

Corrections Secretary Tim Reisch said the $106,982,478 budget forwarded by the governor will be enough to cover prison operations for the next 18 months. That’s dependent in part on controlling recidivism with officers through the federally funded Second Chance/Re-entry program in Sioux Falls, Rapid City and Pierre.

The governor’s budget projects only 157 more inmates in 2011 than 2009. “There isn’t a lot of wiggle room,” Reisch said.

Until 2007, South Dakota’s prison population increased by about 100 prisoners every year. The population dropped in 2007 and 2008.

“We had back-to-back reductions, which is really unprecedented since we’ve been keeping statistics,” Reisch said. “Forever, we’d been going up.”

The drop preceded a national trend. Earlier this month, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that the nation’s prison population grew at a slower pace in 2008 than it had for eight years.

In South Dakota, however, the population began to climb again in 2009. As of November, there were 3,387 adult inmates in the state, up 43 from the end of 2008.

If the numbers grow too quickly or unpredictable factors such as high-cost medical procedures for inmates drive up the budget, Reisch might need to ask the Legislature for more money. “There are a lot of things out there that can break the budget,” he said.

The DOC will use $749,749 from the federal government every year for the next three years to pay the Second Chance officers, Reisch said. The new employees will help coordinate the placement of paroled prisoners in jobs, apartments or substance abuse programs.

The extra help could make a difference, according to Tom Cihak, a member of the Board of Pardons and Parole. Parole officers can oversee 60 to 70 parolees at a time.

“It would definitely help to have more people,” Cihak said.

An inmate with a steady job and stable housing situation has a better chance at returning to society as well, he said.

“It’s expensive to house them here, and they do a lot better on the outside if they’re ready to be there,” he said. The tight corrections budget for South Dakota still is more manageable than the situation in some other states.

Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Ohio are looking at sentencing reform to reduce the amount of time prisoners are held. Others have considered early releases for nonviolent offenders.

The last time South Dakota commuted sentences en masse was 1986, when then-Gov. Bill Janklow released 36 people in response to overcrowding.

Reisch doesn’t expect such a move in the near future.

“I could not tell you that we’d never entertain the thought, but the governor’s proposal doesn’t have any early releases,” Reisch said.

janchavarie Budgets, South Dakota

As of mid-December, the Shawnee County Department of Corrections had spent $141,856 on medications, including $63,869 in psychotropic drugs. News reported by the Topeka-Capital Journal.

The amount of money spent per month has decreased in the past few months, said Brian Cole, deputy director of the Shawnee County Department of Corrections. However, at times, the county jail has had one of the highest bills for psychotropic drugs in the Midwest.

Sixteen percent of inmates at the county jail suffer from mental illness, and 45 percent of the money spent in 2009 on medications has been to treat those individuals.

Crisis Intervention Team is a program that Shawnee County began implementing a few years ago to try to divert people with mental illness to community-based treatment facilities instead of jail.

“A jail is not a place to stabilize those with mental illness,” Cole said. “We are not a mental health facility.”

CIT was started after Greg Eilert, 45, who was schizophrenic, was shot and killed by Topeka police in August 2006 while in his car near S.W. 29th and Fairlawn. The shooting was reviewed and found to be justified. “His family became very motivated,” Cole said.

Greg Eilert’s mother and sister often share Greg’s story with officers who are receiving CIT training. About 30 percent of all law enforcement officers in Shawnee County have voluntarily received the training, including corrections officers who work at the jail. “We need to continue to build the pool of officers,” Cole said.

The training has several goals, Cole said, including to ensure officers’ safety, reduce the stigma associated with mental illness and increase collaboration among area agencies.

The training is usually 40 hours long and is offered in Shawnee County at the Topeka Police Department twice per year. The next CIT training is in April.

“Our main focus is to diffuse the situation,” Cole said. “We see the need. Topeka, Kansas, and Shawnee County have a high population of people with severe mental illness.”

Usually people with mental illness who are arrested are arrested for minor crimes, such as trespassing, public intoxication or drug-related offenses, he said. Every year, about 800,000 people with severe mental illness are incarcerated in U.S. jails.

At the Shawnee County Jail, a person is evaluated upon their arrival to find out if he or she has a mental illness. Once identified, the inmate meets with a member of the mental health team, which includes two social workers and a psychologist. David Coleman serves as the mental health team leader for Shawnee County. He has been in his field since 1973, he said.

Although the Shawnee County Department of Corrections oversees the mental health team, Prison Health Services, a company made up of more than 3,800 professionals who work in jails, prisons and juvenile facilities nationwide, oversees medication dispensing and prison health. A registered nurse is on staff 24 hours at the jail.

Medication rounds are conducted in the morning, at noon and at bedtime, said Karen Marsh, PHS health services administrator. Inmates have illnesses ranging from severe depression to schizophrenia. Those with mental illness don’t fare well in the criminal justice system, Cole said. Oftentimes they are exploited or manipulated by other inmates, have difficulty coping and can’t make bail.

A U.S. Justice Department study found that 60 percent of people with mental illness in jail don’t get treatment, Cole said. The Shawnee County Jail works hard to make sure inmates get the help they need, the deputy director said. Statistics show the CIT program is working, Cole said.

Since the third quarter of 2008 through the second quarter of 2009, only one person out of 134 calls to which CIT members responded went to jail.

“We are seeing an improvement,” Cole said. “What I want the public to understand is this is a much-needed resource.”

No money from the Shawnee County Department of Corrections goes into the program, Cole said. Volunteers do all of the training, too.

Topeka Police Chief Ron Miller said the CIT program is very valuable. He said the training is helpful because officers are the ones who have to determine if a person needs to be arrested or treated.

“The key for the police officer is assessing the needs of the person,” Miller said. “It is also key to recognize the need and know how to connect the person to the services they need.”

TOP 5 PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS ADMINISTERED
The top five psychotropic drugs administered by Prison Health Services at the Shawnee County Jail are:

1. Abilify, a medication used as an add-on treatment for depression, as well as for the treatment of schizophrenia and manic episodes.

2. Zyprexa, a medication used for the treatment of schizophrenia, acute manic and mixed episodes of bipolar disorder and maintenance treatment.

3. Seroquel, treats the symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

4. Risperdal, used to treat schizophrenia and symptoms of bipolar disorder.

5. Geodon, a medicine for the treatment of acute manic or mixed episodes of bipolar disorder and for schizophrenia.

janchavarie Budgets, Inmate Health Care, KS Shawnee County

Here’s another person that isn’t all that fond of at least one aspect of Gov. Tim Kaine’s recently introduced budget proposal, as reported in The Washington Post.

Fairfax County Sheriff Stan G. Barry said the outgoing Democratic governor’s plan to rent 1,000 prison beds to other states to raise money is unfair to local sheriffs who are left stuck housing hundreds of state inmates in already crowded local jails waiting to be moved. “I’m very concerned,” he said. “We already have an additional burden.”

The Department of Corrections, the largest agency in the state, with more than 10,000 employees, expects to make up for $20 million in budget cuts by taking in 1,000 inmates from Pennsylvania sometime before February.

Barry said he understands that the state needs the money, but he called Kaine’s plan a “shell game” because the state is simply shifting the burden to local governments. As of last week, he said, the Fairfax jail was housing 135 inmate for the state (out of a total of 1,300).

Last summer, Kaine (D) also proposed accepting out-of-state prisoners, but abruptly halted the plan when sheriffs from the state’s most populous areas of Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads objected. Virginia Beach Sheriff Paul J. Lanteigne sued the state.

Virginia pays sheriffs $14 a day to house each state inmate (though the actual cost can be as high as $125) while collecting much more from other states to house their prisoners. The agreement with Pennsylvania will bring in about $62 a day, according to Larry Traylor, a spokesman at the Department of Corrections.

Traylor said his department would probably have to lay off employees or close facilities if not for the out-of-state prisoners. “The current economic downturn has affected all of us and we continue to look for solutions that will benefit the Commonwealth,” he said.

As of last week, the state was housing 309 inmates from Wyoming, the Virgin Islands and from Hawaii, Traylor said. Virginia houses a total of 31,000 inmates at 44 facilities.

Traylor said he’s unaware of any specific concerns by local or regional jails, and that the overall number of state inmates at local jails have been reduced by almost 500 since May 2008. He said about 230 state inmates have actually been transferred back to local jails to rent out otherwise empty beds.

Virginia began housing inmates from other states in 1998 after the state built and expanded a dozen prisons after abolishing parole and enacting longer sentences for certain crimes.

Many human rights groups oppose the practice, arguing that the inmates suffer from a loss of training, rehabilitation and contact with family and friends. They also caution that moving offenders to a prison with new rules and with different types of inmates can lead to violence, as shown by riots in other prisons across the nation after out-of-state prisoners moved in.

Virginia largely abandoned the practice in 2004, saying the space was needed for a growing inmate population, several years after two Connecticut inmates died and human rights groups lodged complaints of excessive force.

Sheriffs have complained for at least three decades about the large number of state inmates in local jails, which are supposed to house defendants awaiting trial and those sentenced for minor crimes. They argue that the more dangerous inmates further crowd their jails and that the jails provide less access to rehabilitative and educational services.

Many sheriffs, including in Fairfax and Arlington counties, have sued the state to force officials to act. State law requires that felons sentenced to at least one year behind bars get transferred from local jails to state prisons within 60 days.

Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell (R) outright opposes Kaine’s proposed tax increase, but he declined to take a position on most of the governor’s proposed budget cuts and other revenues sources except to criticize trims to local law enforcement.

Under Kaine’s budget, sheriffs and local constitutional officiers will lose $270.5 million over the two years and local police will lose $73 million over two years.

janchavarie Budgets, VA Fairfax County, Virginia

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections is trying to set a construction strategy based on what likely will be conflicting inmate population projections. Story from The Daily Reporter.

The first estimate predicts more inmates and recommends major renovation projects. The second projection, though not yet released, is expected to forecast the opposite.

“It’s one of the struggles we face,” said Earl Fischer, administrator of the department’s Division of Management Services. “We don’t have advance knowledge of what’s coming down the pike and with the fiscal challenges the state faces, we don’t have much flexibility in terms of growth.”

The Corrections Department next year will finish new projections based on legislation designed to reduce inmate populations at state prisons. If those projections show no growth or a decline in the population, Fischer said, the department can request less construction money in future state budgets.

But those projections would contradict a statewide, 10-year facility development plan Madison-based Mead & Hunt Inc. completed earlier this year. That plan recommends, among other things, $142 million worth of renovation work at the Green Bay Correctional Institution in Allouez. The renovation would add 250 cells to the complex.

“A good deal of the 10-year plan that was done for us was premised on a growing population,” Fischer said. “We’re working with the assumption that sentence reduction will put all plans to increase capacity” on hold.

It still is just an assumption based on inmate-related bills and an early-release provision in the 2009-11 state budget that could reduce the prison population statewide by about 3,000 inmates, said state Sen. Rob Cowles, R-Green Bay.

But, he said, there is no guarantee the inmate population will decline. It also is possible, he said, that future legislation could increase the population.

“We’re going to have to watch this carefully,” he said. “There are so many moving parts to this.”

A new governor could bring a new attitude toward prison population or Corrections Department spending, Fischer said, so the numbers the department can work with in 2010 might be meaningless in 2011.

“It would be safer to just go with the higher projections in the Mead & Hunt report,” he said. “But whether the state has the funds to support that is another issue. Right now, no one feels we have the luxury of doing expansions.”

Right now, the department is receiving only a fraction of the money it requests.

In the 2009-11 budget, Fischer said, the department requested about $250 million to finance projects at all of its prisons. The department, he said, received $30 million.

The lack of money, no matter what projections might show, illustrates the problem, Cowles said.

“How do we know we even have the money for the maintenance work they need?” he said. “The next couple budgets are going to be pure misery.”

Former judge state Rep. Fred Kessler, D-Milwaukee, said it behooves the Corrections Department to project a decline in population.

“So many of the decisions I made as a judge were based on what kind of offenders should be put in jail,” he said. “The thing is prisons and jails are self-fulfilling prophecies. The state has the power to control exiting, and now that we have a release mechanism, there are ways of dealing with overcrowding.”

But even without expansion there will be maintenance issues to deal with in Allouez and other prisons. Whether the prisons get that money, Fischer said, is up to lawmakers.

“It’s politics,” he said. “And it’s constantly subject to change.”

janchavarie Budgets, Wisconsin

For 2,000 male Pennsylvania prison inmates, this will be their last Christmas spent relatively close to home until at least 2013. Reported in the Philadelphia Daily News.

In February, the state Department of Corrections – for the first time – will begin shipping inmates to other states to ease record overcrowding in the 27-prison system, Susan McNaughton, a spokeswoman for the department, said yesterday.

The Muskegon (Mich.) Correctional Facility will get 1,000 inmates; another 1,000 will be sent to the Green Rock Correctional Center, in Chatham, Va., she said.

The transfers – a plan decried by inmate advocates in October, when the Daily News reported that prison officials were contemplating the moves – come as the state’s inmate population shows no sign of stabilizing or shrinking.

The system is designed to house about 44,000 inmates but now has more than 51,400, McNaughton said.

“This is a program to reduce the inmate population to a manageable number,” she said. “This is not about saving money.”

Still, the transfers will make a $5.1 million difference. The corrections department will pay Michigan and Virginia $62 per inmate, per day, for an annual cost of $45.2 million, she said. It costs about $69 per inmate, per day to house them in Pennsylvania medium-security prisons.

Corrections Secretary Jeffrey A. Beard made the decision in consultation with Gov. Rendell after Beard and his staff studied proposals from six states and visited several prisons.

Betty Jean Thompson, president of the state chapter of Citizens United to Rehabilitate Errants (CURE), called the decision “cruel and unusual” treatment of inmates and their families.

“I think that this is horrible,” said Thompson, who yesterday e-mailed a protest letter to state lawmakers and civil-rights and inmate activists. “I wish there had been a better way to solve this problem. I just can’t imagine what the families are going through knowing their loved ones are going to be shipped off.”

The Corrections Department said that video-conferencing hook-ups will be made available, but Thompson said that those are no substitute for in-person visits.

McNaughton said that she understood Thompson’s concerns but noted that overcrowded prisons lead to fights and other disruptions that may harm inmates.

“Our secretary is working to prevent these things from happening,” she said. “This is a last resort. It’s not something that we want to do, it’s something that we have to do to maintain safety and security.”

She said that inmates cannot refuse to be transferred but that only those who have received few or no family visits, who have at least three years remaining to serve and who are free of medical, mental and behavioral issues will be transferred.

Pennsylvania’s inmates in Virginia will be housed separately from other inmates. The Michigan facility, which had been slated to close, is empty.

The Corrections Department will send a staffer to both places to monitor contract compliance and to answer inmates’ concerns, McNaughton said.

Corrections officials hope to start bringing inmates back to the state by 2013, if four new prisons that have been approved are up and running.

janchavarie Budgets, Overcrowding, Pennsylvania

janchavarie Alabama, Budgets, Economic Issues

The state is recommending that a minimum-security prison in Cheshire be closed, a move that would have been unheard of during the tough-on-crime days of the mid-1990s. News reported by the Hartford Courant.

The state Department of Correction wants to close the Webster Correctional Institution, which holds about 220 criminals near the end of their sentences.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell sought the department’s recommendation as a way to cut expenses while the government tries to recover from the worst economic downturn in decades. Closing the Cheshire prison would save an estimated $3.4 million a year when the state’s budget deficit projection for the current fiscal year is approaching $550 million.

The recommendation marks a sharp departure from the days when Connecticut was building prisons in the 1980s and rapidly expanding the space to house convicted criminals. No prisons have been closed in recent state history, and the Cheshire recommendation stirred up some controversy Tuesday.

The prison guards’ union calls it a bad idea, even though it would not cause layoffs.

“Closing Webster will put greater strain on other overburdened facilities and services,” said Dwayne Bickford, president of AFSCME Local 387. “Our correctional employees walk Connecticut’s toughest beat, and we will continue to do everything in our power to keep Connecticut safe. Shutting down a prison like Webster is ill-advised. It will not improve public safety.”

Rell can enforce a prison closure under her own authority and cannot be blocked by the legislature, which, in passing a state budget in September, directed her to find millions of dollars in savings in the Department of Correction.

Rell had ordered the department to recommend a prison for closing — a controversial step because it involves moving both criminals as well as staff members who range from first-year union members to experienced supervisors. About 120 state employees work at the prison — including maintenance staff, teachers, addiction counselors and others.

“We face an extraordinarily difficult budget situation — a challenge unlike any we have known in modern memory,” Rell said in a statement Tuesday. “The state prison population is currently about 18,300, down from nearly 19,900 in February 2008. While other states — including states facing even more severe budget problems than our own — are being forced to build new prisons, we can make the most of our successes by building on these achievements.”

“Any decision such as this must always be made with public safety foremost in our minds,” Rell said. “The recommendation from DOC notes that closing a minimum security facility is easier to accomplish because any inmates that need to be moved can be shifted to higher-security locations if necessary. The closure can also be accomplished without laying off any of the dedicated DOC staff, who perform one of the most dangerous — yet most necessary — tasks in state government.”

Parts of Webster, which opened in October 1990, are already closed. The state shut down two of its four units in the past year.

The remaining 220 or so inmates will need to be transferred within the system that includes 17 other prisons.

Webster is classified as a Level 2 facility. Level 1 is reserved for released criminals who are placed in the community. Level 5 is maximum security.

The recommendation would keep open the 110-inmate Webster Annex, which handles inmates who clean highways during the day and return to the annex at night.

Although the recommendation calls for the prison to be closed, Rell has said that it would be reopened if necessary — due to a jump in crime or a higher level of convictions. The prison shutdown would be accomplished over eight to 10 weeks, according to acting Correction Commissioner Brian K. Murphy.

State Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, one of the legislature’s leading authorities on criminal justice, said that the shutdown should not be difficult.

“It’s like four big, open rooms with bunk beds,” Lawlor said. “There are no cells in there. People find that hard to picture. No prison cells at all. No bars. No nothing. Minimum security.”

If the state’s super-max prison in Somers is filled with the worst of the worst, Lawlor said, then “Webster is filled with the least of the least.”

The closure is possible because the number of inmates has plummeted since a peak that followed the slayings of three members of the Petit family in Cheshire on July 23, 2007.

The state’s prison population exploded by about 1,200 after Rell froze the parole system following the Petit case.

It reached an all-time high of 19,894 inmates on Feb. 1, 2008, according to the Department of Correction.

Two longtime criminals who were out on parole at the time now face the death penalty if convicted in the slayings, which prompted the legislature to make changes in the state criminal justice system in a special session.

Rell said that the state’s full-time parole board is operating efficiently now and that some re-entry programs have permitted criminals to get out of prison.

janchavarie Budgets, Connecticut

Shrinking revenues from federal prisoners in the jail will be one of the budget challenges facing Blount County in the coming fiscal years. Still, county officials expect to hold property taxes at current levels in the next budget. Reported in the Daily Times.

When the commissioners shelved a proposal to build a new jail pod back in January, time began running out on a source of revenue the county has depended upon for years to subsidize jail expenses — the housing of federal prisoners.

Having already lost state certification of the jail because of overcrowding, Sheriff James Berrong made the only choice left to him, reducing the population of federal prisoners by roughly half.

“This time last year, we had about 180 federal inmates that were generating revenue for the county,” he said, adding the jail now housed about 91. “That’s going to impact the revenue the county has. … We’re talking about a lot of money, around $5,000 a day.”

The daily rate that the U.S. Marshals Service pays to house federal inmates in the Blount County Jail is $58.50 per inmate. Depending on whom you ask, the sheriff or County Finance Director Dave Bennett, revenue from housing federal prisoners during the current fiscal year will be about $1.5 to $2 million less than previous years, but, because the county had already built in reduced revenue estimates in the budget, the actual shortfall will only be about $500,000.

“We’ll have more than enough turnback to cover that,” Bennett said. “On next year’s budget, we’ll have to bump that (revenue) number down. I don’t feel like we need to go in and reduce the budget because we can manage that from an administrative standpoint and make sure the bottom line is not a negative.”

Slashing the number of federal prisoners housed locally has resulted in the jail being recertified by the state.

On Nov. 30, 2008, there were 443 prisoners housed in the jail — 164 federal, 66 state and 213 local. About half of the state prisoners were supposed to be in state custody but there were no available beds in state prisons. The jail is only certified for 350.

On Nov. 17, 2009, there were 380, 91 being federal inmates. About 40 were state prisoners. Although this still technically exceeds the population cap in the jail, the state allows a loophole.

“The state inmates don’t count against our bed count, so if we have 40 Tennessee Department of Corrections inmates (out of 390), for their purposes, we only have 350 inmates,” Berrong said. “They can’t leave their inmates there and use that as a tool to decertify us.”

The number of state prisoners in the jail is also declining, although Berrong said housing them is a net loss for the county and that the reduction in numbers would not hurt county revenues. The state only pays counties $35 per inmate per day to house its prisoners.

janchavarie Budgets, Federal Payments, TN Blount County

Lawrence County commissioners agreed to increase the number of state prisoners housed at the county jail by 10 to 15. The state pays the county $50 a day to house prisoners. News in The Vindicator.

At their Tuesday meeting, the panel amended its contract with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to accept a minimum of 60 and maximum of 65 prisoners. Previously, the limit had been 50.

The move could bring the jail an additional $20,000 per month, which is needed in light of the county’s possible budget shortfall for the end of this year, the commissioners said.

The state pays the county $50 per day for each prisoner, which is mostly profit, said Commissioner Steve Craig, who added that it costs the county about an additional $5 in food because the staffing is already in place.

The jail has a 275-bed capacity, but the average census is only about 165. The additional prisoners should be arriving in two to three months.

Though there had been some problems with the state prisoners initially when they discovered that they were given fewer privileges at the county jail, the problems have now been ironed out, Craig said.

The County Prison Board is expected to confirm the move when it meets in December.

janchavarie Budgets, County-State Issues, Pennsylvania

The Tennessee Department of Corrections has been asked by Governor Phil Bredesen to cut nine percent, or more than $50 million from its annual budget. Reported by WVLT-TV.

To do so, officials with the department said they’ll likely have to release around 4,000 convicted felons early from their inmate ranks.

“This isn’t scare tactics,” said George Little, commissioner of the Department of Corrections. “This is sort of the tab coming home, and we are going to have to figure out how we are going to make ends meet.”

Gov. Bredesen grilled Commissioner Little on the plan in order to guarantee the state took a serious look at who it let out before they restore their freedom. .

“You are saying those people would be A, non-violent and B, people who are coming to the end of their sentence periods or somethings like that,” asked Gov. Bredesen.

“Yes sir,” replied Little.

Unfortunately the cuts might not end there. Before all is said and done, the state may have to close down one or two prisons.

Most of Tennessee’s 14 state prisons were built within the last 20 years. Two of them are owned privately. Presumably, the oldest prisons would be the facilities most likely to close if needed.

The oldest prisons in the state are as follows:

• Northwest Correctional Complex Annex, Roan Mountain – built in 1986
• Southeastern Tennessee State Regional Correctional Facility, Pikeville – built in 1980
• Charles B. Bass Correctional Complex, Nashville – Main was built in 1979, Annex was built in 1946
• Mark H. Luttrell Correctional Center, Memphis – built in 1976
• Turney Center Industrial Complex, Only and Clifton – Main was built in 1971, Annex was built in 1985

janchavarie Budgets, Early Release, Tennessee

Department of Correction Commissioner Carl Danberg is proposing to cut 40 jobs at a Georgetown prison, a move that is estimated to save the state $1 million. Full story in the Cape Gazette.

Danberg, on Oct. 29, met with members of the General Assembly’s Sussex County delegation.
“The ones feeling the brunt are the correctional officers on the front lines at Sussex Correctional Institution,” said Sen. Joe Booth, R-Georgetown, who attended the meeting.

Rep. John Atkins, D-Millsboro, said after workers at Sussex Correctional Institution (SCI) heard of the proposed cuts, local legislators were contacted. Then, members of the Sussex delegation requested a meeting with Danberg.

“Nothing is concrete, but they are floating the idea around,” said Atkins.

But some Sussex lawmakers say they’ve been left out of the loop when it comes to Danberg’s plan. They also say it might jeopardize the safety of inmates and prison workers.

Booth said Danberg proposed closing SCI’s multi-security building that employs 40 workers. He said Danberg said 30 prison workers could be moved to other state prisons, but the proposal would also permanently remove 10 positions.

The building used to house maximum-security prisoners; however, today, it has a range of offenders. Maximum-security inmates are temporarily housed in the building and later sent to the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center, a level-five prison near Smyrna.

The plan also calls for re-classifying prisoners’ offense status and moving some prisoners to other state facilities.

Booth said Danberg was presented with a list of questions prior to the October meeting. Questions included the safety of prisoners and prison workers. “Our prisons are overcrowded. One would think it doesn’t make sense to close the facility,” said Booth.

Next year deficit looms

As a soaring deficit cripples Delaware, Gov. Jack Markell met in late October behind closed doors with members of the Democratic caucus – a private meeting widely criticized by Republicans – where officials estimated next year’s budget shortfalls to be roughly $340 million.

In early November, Markell announced a plan to cut 525 state jobs through attrition to close staggering budget gaps.

So far, Markell has cut 1,000 state jobs and reduced the salaries of the state’s roughly 30,000 workers by 2.5 percent.

But in his November announcement, Markell said the 2011 budget will be brutal and he hinted at further cuts to the state’s corrections and health and human services departments.

Booth said Danberg said the state needed to close the building to get rid of 100 beds.

“We stated emphatically that there would be problems in operations in SCI dealing with administrative and disciplinary segregation of prisoners,” said Booth.

“We questioned the safety of guards and other prisoners.”

Booth said he asked Danberg for a master plan and priority list of proposed Department of Correction cuts. “He told us we weren’t privy to a priority list. Danberg said he would give us a master plan in two weeks. He never did. I haven’t seen one yet,” said Booth.

He said he also asked the Controller General’s Office for a list that he has not yet received.

Danberg said he would consult with legislators – again – and the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware before recommending the cuts to the governor, said Booth.

President Stephen Martelli, of the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware, said the Georgetown-based, multi-security building will not be shut down. “No one leaves. I’m sticking by it. Everyone stays in Georgetown working. Danberg has told me no people are leaving,” he said.

Upcoming hearings

Following the October meeting, however, Booth said he reviewed an early fiscal year 2011 operating budget at Legislative Hall. Within that budget was the closure of the multi-security building, an effort estimated to save $1 million.

Throughout November, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is holding public hearings, meeting with each state agency to see where cuts might be made. The Department of Correction hearing is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 19.

“Where I’m upset is that I don’t think Commissioner Danberg was upfront with us, knowing this presentation was already put together in preparation for a budget meeting. What he told us at the meeting on Oct. 29 doesn’t appear to be close to what he will present Nov. 19,” said Booth. “If he told us one thing on the 29th, and apparently, he’s doing another thing a week later, he could do anything. I don’t think that Sussex County legislators can get into a room and be disrespected. I’m very disappointed with how we were treated.”

Multiple attempts to reach Danberg were not successful at press time.

Booth said he understands that cuts need to be made statewide; however, the way discussions were handled was underhanded.

Rep. Ruth Briggs King, R-Georgetown, said she, too, is frustrated with not being kept in the loop.

“The numbers vary depending on what they’re going to do. At one point, it was not their intent to make so many cuts. Last week, they proposed a budget showing losses. It’s not a consistent message. Now they’re talking about closing part of the maximum-security building,” she said.

Atkins said SCI has one of the smallest employee-turnover rates in the state. “I want to make it clear, I want to keep these jobs at SCI,” he said Atkins. “Why he would want to eliminate those jobs, I don’t know.”

Booth said legislators from both sides of the aisle met with Danberg to see how the cuts would affect their constituents.

“This is not a Republican or Democrat question. This is a question about Sussex County. We’re interested in what’s going on here in Sussex County,” said Booth.

Booth said the cuts and restructuring are slated to take place by Thursday, Dec. 31.

janchavarie Budgets, DE Sussex County, Economic Issues

Gov. Quinn Tuesday defended his plan to release up to 1,000 inmates, a step that begins this week and eventually could save the cash-strapped state $5 million a year. As reported in the Chicago Sun Times.

By the end of this week, 62 non-violent offenders who are within a year of their scheduled release dates will be freed in the first wave of Quinn’s early-release initiative.

“We’re going to do this because we do have financial challenges. But at the same time, we’re going to do it in a way that always protects the public,” Quinn said during an appearance in Chicago to announce the opening of a new veterans home.

Quinn said those released will be under “constant electronic monitoring” while on parole, and the governor expressed optimism that none of those being set free early will be a threat to society.

“Hopefully they learned their lessons in jail and won’t repeat their crimes,” Quinn told reporters.

His administration refused to divulge the names of those in the first wave of early releases.

Januari Smith, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Corrections, did not offer a basis under the state Freedom of Information Act to justify withholding the inmates’ identities.

“At this time it’s not being released through my office,” said Smith, who added that local law enforcement agencies have been notified who is being released early.

The administration has said that drug offenders and inmates convicted of non-violent property crimes are among those being set free early. Those with homicide or sex offense convictions are not eligible for early release under Quinn’s plan.

Those sent home early will be required to wear electronic-monitoring ankle bracelets and be assigned to parole agents, with whom they will have to meet at least once a month.

janchavarie Budgets, Early Release, IL Chicago

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

State officials have informed union members that Ohio’s prison system plans to lay off 41 employees and eliminate 118 vacant positions.  Story from Fox8.

The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction also plans to close Camp Reams, Ohio’s first prisoner “boot camp.” Officers now working at the facility located at the Southeastern Correctional Institution in Lancaster will be reassigned. Additionally, one inmate unit will be closed at the Pickaway Correctional Institution in Orient in central Ohio.

The cuts, taking effect Feb. 27, are expected to save $16 million as the prison system works to cut its two-year budget by $87.2 million.

jakking Budgets, Economic Issues, Ohio

Colorado State Rep. Glenn Vaad said he was stunned when he learned that the Colorado Department of Corrections planned to leave a new, $208 million maximum-security prison empty because of the state’s budget crisis.  Story from CBS4Denver.

“That’s unconscionable in my mind. We invested $208 million of the taxpayers’ money and because of the economic downturn, we can’t afford to open it,” he said. “Let’s sell it.” Vaad, R-Mead, said the state would have to change state law to allow a private prison to buy or lease the prison because state law bars private companies from housing maximum security prisoners. If lawmakers reject that option, Vaad said it should be sold off and run privately as a medium security prison allowed under current law.

Although the state is currently in a budget crisis and opening the prison has been put on hold, Sen. Moe Keller, who heads the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, state attorney general John Suthers and corrections director Ari Zavaras have all come out against Vaad’s plan, saying it’s too dangerous. “I would not approve of allowing the private sector to operate maximum security prisons in the state of Colorado,” said Suthers, a Republican. “If you look around the country, placing maximum security detention into private hands has not gone well.” Keller, a Democrat from Wheat Ridge, said the state has already had serious problems with medium security private prisons and allowing the private operation of a maximum security prison is out of the question. “I’m vehemently opposed to selling a maximum security prison to a private company,” Keller said. However, Keller said she might be open to selling the building to a private company if some other use can be found …

Rep. Buffie McFadyen, a Democrat from Pueblo West who represents state prison workers in her district, said the new building is one of eight prisons inside a barbed-wire compound in Canon City and she said it should be run as a prison, but she’s against private prisons because she believes they are a security risk. McFadyen said the state cannot leave the building empty because security for the old maximum security prison is being moved to the new facility.

Zavaras said he believes Colorado lawmakers will do the right thing and eventually open the new prison. “The budget crisis is unprecedented; however, our need for high custody beds is important to manage our prison population,” Zavaras said.

The old facility, the Colorado State Penitentiary now known as Centennial, has 756 beds and as of Sept. 30, was near capacity with 749 inmates. Corrections spokeswoman Katherine Sanguinetti said there are already unfilled beds in other private prisons. She said the real demand is for maximum security, although the state doesn’t know how many beds it will need. She said some potentially dangerous maximum security inmates are now housed in county jails, but the state has no way of knowing how many there are because they have not been evaluated and they won’t be classified until they can enter the state system.

Last January, Gov. Bill Ritter said the state should delay opening the new prison by one year, along with a new diagnostic center to July 2010, saving $2.7 million. He also announced the closure of the 210-bed Colorado Women’s Correctional Facility in Canon City effective May 31, saving $5.2 million, eliminating 71 jobs and requiring the transfer and double-bunking of inmates at other facilities. And that was before state lawmakers learned they will have to cut another $240 million from this year’s $19.1 billion budget by June 30.

Keller said that means everything is on the table, including the sale of state buildings. She said it also means that the prison will probably remain closed for the forseeable future. Vaad said the state could reap other savings as well if the building is turned over to a private company. He said it costs the state as much as $77 a day to house one prisoner, and private companies are already doing the job for $52 a day. “We have a budget crisis. I think we use that money for other needs,” he said.

jakking Budgets, Colorado, Economic Issues, Jail and Prison Construction