As a young social worker, Seana Golder said she was profoundly influenced by her work with women inmates in a Louisiana prison — many of whom had experienced abuse, poverty, addiction or mental illness. “I would go home at night and those women were staying there,” said Golder, now an associate professor at the University of Louisville’s Kent School of Social Work. “To me, it’s how do we keep those women from ending up in prison?” Story from the Courier Journal.

Golder and three colleagues hope to answer that question through a $1.5 million, federally funded study aimed at developing research to better understand why women end up in the criminal justice system and how to help them stay out.

Within the next few weeks, the team will begin recruiting women in the Louisville area for the study, which eventually will examine circumstances of more than 400 women on probation and parole.

Other researchers on the team are Linda Bledsoe, an associate professor at the Kent School; George Higgins, an associate professor in justice administration at U of L; and TK Logan, an associate professor of behavioral science at the University of Kentucky.

The goal is to develop information that corrections officials and other researchers can use to help women avoid prison, a poorly researched area where most of the focus has been on male offenders, they said.

“This is a big study, but it’s going to give us a lot of information that we just don’t have,” Higgins said.

The project is called “The Women’s Health Research Study” and will focus on how participants were affected by victimization, a characteristic of many female offenders who were subject to physical or sexual abuse as children and violence from partners as adults, Golder said.

The researchers said they aren’t aware of any other similar research on the scale of their project, which is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

“It really is a unique opportunity,” Golder said. “It will form so much policy and practice in corrections.”

Officials with the Kentucky Department of Corrections, which is assisting by providing information and data, said they are delighted researchers are undertaking the project at a time when the state is seeking to contain corrections costs and reduce its growing offender population.

“We are thrilled to see that develop,” said Lee VanHoose, the department’s director of probation and parole. “It’s going to be such a benefit to us.”

The number of women offenders in Kentucky is growing rapidly — about 2,200 are incarcerated and another 15,000 are on probation and parole. VanHoose said she’s especially pleased the research project aims to produce specific findings corrections officials can use to try to steer women out of the criminal justice system.

“Statistics are good, but it’s also good to have some real-world opportunities and direction,” she said.

Researchers plan to collect a detailed history from women who agree to participate and then check in with them twice more over five years to see how they have fared while on probation and parole. Golder said all information from interviews will be confidential and will not be shared with the Corrections Department.

To increase the comfort of the subjects, only females will conduct the interviews. Golder said that’s particularly important when subjects have a history of abuse or sexual exploitation. Participants will be paid a small stipend for their help.

Not only could the findings help corrections officials save money, researchers said, but it could reduce the terrible costs to families when a woman is incarcerated. While the costs are always high, incarceration of women tends to have a more severe impact because they often are the primary caregivers for children, Bledsoe said.

In a previous career as a social worker, Bledsoe said she sometimes had to take children to visit their mothers incarcerated at the Kentucky Correctional Institute for Women at Pewee Valley. Often, the children were in foster care and couldn’t understand why, or why their mothers couldn’t come home.

“It was very hard,” she said. “It was very emotional for both parties.”

jchev Female Inmates, Kentucky

Construction has started on a mental health facility at the California Institution for Women. The stand-alone 53,000-square-foot, 45-bed facility will serve the mental health care needs of female inmates and is intended to help mitigate a shortage of mental health beds. News from the Contra Costa Times.

The $34 million project includes housing, treatment, support and administrative services. Completion is expected in December 2011.

Funding for the project is part of Assembly Bill 900, which authorizes up to 32,000 new state prison beds to help relieve the state’s severe inmate crowding issue.

“We are very pleased to being construction of our second A.B. 900 project (last) week,” said Matthew Cate, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation secretary.

A 64-bed project also recently broke ground at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville. As many as 200 construction jobs will be created over the 540-day duration of the Chino project, corrections spokeswoman Peggy Bengs said. The center is expected to create up to 238 positions, including custody, clinical, administrative and support staff.

“These projects will provide significant economic stimulus for California and for their respective communities at a time when the state desperately needs new employment opportunities,” said Chris Meyer, senior chief of corrections facility planning, construction and management.

The Chino facility has been in the planning process since mid-2000 when plans were made to expand in-patient mental health services for female inmates, Bengs said.

The new facility will be outside the secure perimeter on the northwest side of the institution, Bengs said. Temporary fencing and a guard tower will be used during construction. The double perimeter will then be extended to encompass the new facility.

The project will also add two new guard towers and 180 parking spaces for new staff. The facility will be staffed by employees of the California Department of Mental Health. The corrections agency awarded the project to Soltek Pacific Construction of San Diego.

Chino Mayor Dennis Yates said there should be no cause for concern regarding the CIW project, which only has 45 beds and is strictly for mental patients.

Yates said he expects the new facility’s work force to bring in some revenue to the city from gasoline, food and retail ancillary sales.

jchev California, Female Inmates, Mental Health Issues

Nearly a decade after the state closed its crowded and obsolete prison for women in Salem, corrections officials plan to move female convicts back to the same lockup here. Here’s why: The Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Oregon’s prison for women in Wilsonville, is packed with nearly 1,150 inmates. Complete story from the Statesman Journal.

Prisoner managers are double-bunking inmates and using nearly 60 emergency beds as makeshift measures at Coffee Creek. To ease the crunch, officials plan to shift some convicts to Salem. The women will occupy a fenced compound along State Street, formerly the Oregon Women’s Correctional Center.

The compound currently operates as a 176-bed men’s minimum-security prison, next door to the walled Oregon State Penitentiary, a maximum-security men’s prison.

“We have a pretty immediate need to carve out some additional women’s beds somewhere in the system,” said Nathan Allen, planning and budget administrator for the state Department of Corrections. “That unit, based on its size and proximity here in Salem to some work opportunities for women, just made a lot of sense.”

Tentative plans call for moving the women inmates to Salem in September, said Jeanine Hohn, a Corrections Department spokeswoman. Relocation plans for male inmates now occupying the minimum-security prison haven’t been determined, officials said.

“We’re working out the details of it,” Allen said. “The men that are currently there would be relocated to other housing environments, probably in some temporary emergency beds somewhere in another existing facility.”

The state prison system consists of 14 institutions, collectively housing about 14,000 inmates. Coffee Creek is the sole prison for women.

Five men’s prisons operate in Salem: Oregon State Penitentiary and the adjacent minimum-security lockup, Oregon State Correctional Institution, Mill Creek Correctional Facility and Santiam Correctional Institution.

Corrections Department administrators recently proposed closing three prisons, including Mill Creek and Santiam, as part of a $52 million budget-cutting plan. The cuts were fashioned in response to Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s order that state agencies slice 9 percent from the final 12 months of their 2009-11 budgets.

Kulongoski nixed the prison closures, saying he wasn’t willing to use his powers to commute the sentences of nearly 1,000 convicted felons. Instead, the governor plans to ask the Legislative Emergency Board to dip into a reserve fund to cover the $15.3 million cost of keeping the three prisons open.

Officials said a prison work group has been studying ways to deal with Coffee Creek’s crowding issue for a couple months. Converting the Salem prison back into a women’s prison emerged as the best option. “It’s moving forward,” Allen said. “It’s really a question now just of timing.”

The Wilsonville prison opened in autumn 2001, becoming Oregon’s first new women’s prison in 36 years. After women inmates moved to Coffee Creek, OWCC was converted into a minimum-security men’s prison.

Salem residents best remember OWCC for an escape by child killer Diane Downs. In one of Oregon’s most infamous crimes, Downs fatally shot one of her children and badly wounded two others in 1983. In 1987, Downs scaled a prison fence in broad daylight, then hitched a ride and spent 10 days on the lam with three men living in a rundown house along State Street, less than a mile from the prison.

Downs was recaptured after investigators searched her cell and discovered a blank piece of paper with indentations that turned out to be a map to the house where she was hiding.

Sent out of state by Oregon prison officials, Downs hatched other escape plots that were foiled in New Jersey and California. In December 2008, Oregon’s parole board denied her first request for parole, and she’s still locked up in California.

The headline-grabbing escape by Downs placed a rare spotlight on OWCC. State leaders long neglected the women’s prison as they built new prisons for male offenders. By the 1990s, OWCC was overcrowded and obsolete, lacking space for treatment and work programs.

Plans to build a new women’s prison surfaced in the mid-1990s, stirring controversy about where it should be located. Salem leaders argued against building it here, stressing the presence of a handful of state prisons and the Oregon State Hospital.

In 1996, a strong united front in Salem persuaded a prison siting committee to rule out the capital city. The panel opted for Wilsonville, and then-Gov. John Kitzhaber concurred.

However, Wilsonville residents put up a fierce fight against the prison complex, consisting of medium-security and minimum-security sections for women, plus a co-gender intake center for inmates entering the prison system.

After years of political wrangling and legal challenges, the Oregon Supreme Court in 1999 rejected the last attempt by neighbors to block construction of the prison in Wilsonville.

The $171-million Coffee Creek complex, billed as a state-of-the-art replacement facility for OWCC, opened in October 2001. Female inmates in Salem were bused to Coffee Creek to occupy the new complex.

Nearly a decade later, prison population forecasters predict steady growth in the female inmate population, and prison managers are scrambling to find enough space for them.

jchev Female Inmates, Oregon

Local and state officials turned dirt Friday on a new center to help women with criminal records straighten out their lives. The 1st Judicial District of the Iowa Department of Correctional Services broke ground on the $6 million Waterloo Women’s Center for Change. Reported by the Waterloo Daily Courier.

The 45-bed residential correctional facility at the corner of Lafayette and Elm streets will provide treatment and support services to women on probation, parole and work release.

“People can change, and this center will help us facilitate that change,” said Karen Herkelman, district director for the correctional services.

The center will free up room in the existing 150-bed facility at 314 E. Sixth St. and allow officials to serve men and women at separate sites.

John Baldwin, director of the Iowa Department of Corrections, said the center represents a commitment to residential corrections that should not be abandoned in tough economic times. His department will be asked to fund 19 new positions to open the center when it’s completed in February or March.

“I have no doubt that the operation here … will produce amazing results for the women incarcerated in our system,” Baldwin said.

Lt. Gov. Patty Judge also was on hand for the ceremony and defended the I-JOBS program providing the money for construction. The $875 million bonding program, which is to be repaid with gaming revenues, was designed after the floods and in a deep global economic recession to pay for infrastructure projects that created jobs.

Despite naysayers, Judge said, “that’s the path we’ve chosen, and we’re going to put thousands of Iowans to work in the process.”The Women’s Center for Change is the second building on what is expected to be a human services campus between Lafayette and Mulberry Streets north of the former Rath Packing administration building. Work is well under way on a new Operation Threshold headquarters, and a new distribution center for the Northeast Iowa Food Bank is also in the works.

“In this neighborhood it is so invigorating to see this kind of construction going on,” Waterloo Mayor Buck Clark said. “It’s so vitally important that we have this kind of growth in this part of our community. “

jchev Female Inmates, Iowa, Jail and Prison Construction

An idea to start a cosmetology school at a New Mexico women’s prison has sparked an unlikely debate between the state’s corrections secretary and one of his former deputies. Story in the New Mexico Independent.

At issue is how best to prepare inmates for a return to life beyond prison. Studies show that offenders who get and keep work are less likely to return to prison.

Job training for prisoners these days is a timely topic in corrections circles as New Mexico and other cash-strapped states try to figure out how to save money. Fewer prisoners returning to prison in theory would yield costs savings.

The debate over the potential cosmetology school at the New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility in Grants is whether that’s the type of job training that could help inmates successfully transition from life behind bars to life in the community.

CCA is required to start vocational and educational programs

Corrections Corporation of America, a Tennessee-based for-profit company that operates the Grants facility for the state, has proposed and would pay for the cosmetology school. On-the-job training is the goal and graduates of the vocational program could also expect to earn state licenses, opening up job opportunities for them once they serve out their sentences, Joe Williams, the state’s corrections secretary, told the Independent.

It doesn’t hurt that the price is right. Like most of state government, the New Mexico corrections department has few dollars to start new programs after more than $10 million was cut this year to help balance the state budget.

“It doesn’t cost the state of New Mexico one dime. They are responsible to start vocational, educational programs,” Williams said of CCA. “These are real jobs. I don’t have Intel knocking down my doors to hire my inmates.”

They might be real jobs, but Gail Oliver, a former cabinet corrections secretary in charge of prison reform and re-entry, thinks the idea is misguided and has criticized it on her blog.

A field with few job openings each year
There are too few hair stylist or cosmetologist job openings each year to offer offenders just out of prison a good shot at gainful employment, she said. The school is an effort in futility, she said.

Indeed, state job data show the the number of openings for hairdressers, hair stylists and cosmetologists each year at around 60, with just under half – 30 – due to growth.

Over the long term, the industry would only add 280 jobs from 2008 through 2018, according to estimates from the New Mexico Workforce Solutions Department. “They can’t compete and the people on the outside will get the jobs,” Oliver said.

It’d be better to encourage the women to pursue other high-growth fields or education, she said, adding the corrections system has contracts with New Mexico State University in Grants and Eastern New Mexico University. Besides, Oliver said, a corrections department policy requires job training in industries with an expected rate of growth.

“If you do cosmetology, you can’t get a job. I wish you could,” Oliver told the Independent. “Look at labor statistics on the jobs of the future and set up vocational training programs.”

Williams rewrote the rule Oliver referred to because “I don’t agree with that policy, that we prohibit a program based on growth,” he said. “What job markets are growing?”

“How am I supposed to get a job when I’ve been in prison 15 years and there are people with Masters degrees who can’t get jobs?” Williams said, alluding to New Mexico’s unemployment rate of 8.8 percent, a 22-year high.

High vacancy rate hobbles prison education system
The debate between Williams and Oliver comes at a time when New Mexico’s efforts to bolster the corrections system’s education and job training programs to reduce the rate of offenders who return to prison has hit a rough patch.

New Mexico’s 47 percent recidivism rate is lower than the national average of 52 percent, according to the New Mexico Sentencing Commission. It was high enough for the Richardson administration to sound alarms two years ago, however.

But these days a 22-percent vacancy rate – 21 openings out of 111 positions – hobbles the system’s Education Bureau, which staffs instructors for educational programs, according to a spokeswoman. Education often is cited as one of the best ways to lower the number of offenders returning to prison.

Meanwhile a panel formed in 2008 at the urging of a governor-appointed prison reform task force hasn’t met in months. Appointed by Gov. Bill Richardson and composed of corrections officials and community leaders from around the state, the Re-Entry Council was charged with devising tactics and strategies to reduce recidivism through education and job training.

The Council won’t meet again until the state hears whether it has won $750,000 in federal funding that would help pay for innovative ideas to reduce recidivism, said Bernard Lieving, who is the Corrections system’s reentry and prison reform czar. The agency did receive a $500,000 federal earmark for similar programs.

Lieving’s title comes with few perks. “There is no prison re-entry and reform office. I don’t have an office,” Lieving said.

Williams said his agency requested 58 positions for the Re-Entry and Reform office, a request that came right before the economy tanked.

“It wasn’t going to happen in these times,” Williams said. “I am not blaming them (the Legislature). Rentry and Reform took a hit along with the rest of the country.”

‘The women like the idea’
On any given day New Mexico has more than 6,000 men and women in custody across 10 facilities, six of which the state operates and four that private companies like CCA operate.

Roughly one-tenth of New Mexico’s inmate population lives in the Grants Women’s facility, which has an average daily population of just below 600 female offenders.

The idea for a cosmetology school came from a program at a Florida prison that CCA operates, company spokesman Steve Owen said. “They could do every thing except get a license,” Owen said of the women prisoners in Florida.

CCA already has approached the New Mexico Cosmetology Board to “bounce the idea off them and they were enthusiastic to the idea,” Owen said. That would mean that “in New Mexico the inmates can obtain licenses,” Owen said. “That is a huge plus because they would already have a license in hand and have on the job training.”

At least one prisoner advocate and frequent critic of the New Mexico corrections system has embraced the idea. Angie Vachio of the Women’s Justice Project told the Independent that she supported the cosmetology school. “This is one of a few jobs that doesn’t have a barrier in place,” Vachio said. “There are so many jobs that have barriers to convicted felons.”

State law empowers boards or agencies responsible for licensing professions or trades to refuse to grant or renew licenses to individuals convicted of certain types of felonies.

Besides, the women like the idea, she said. “I just think women’s motivation is so important. This is something they really want to do,” Vachio said.

The school hasn’t opened yet, but Williams said plans are moving forward. “We are trying to locate where to place it in the facility,” the corrections secretary said. CCA staff are trying to figure out if there are enough drains.

“How great would it be to get them started and then hook them up to a school and learn a trade,” Williams said.

jchev Female Inmates, Inmate Programs, New Mexico, Private Prisons

The number of women starting federal prison sentences in Canada has grown by more than 50 per cent in the past decade — a “troubling trend” that experts say will only get worse as the Conservative government moves toward harsher law and order measures. Story from the Vancouver Sun.

Most concerning, they say, is that the small pool of incarcerated women share many common traits: They are primarily poor or homeless, undereducated and have addictions or mental-health problems such as schizophrenia, depression and anxiety disorders.

Almost all of them — 82 per cent, according to advocacy group Elizabeth Fry Society — have a history of sexual or physical abuse. That figure rises to 91 per cent for aboriginal women.

“Women who are incarcerated have a particular profile,” said Ivan Zinger, executive director and general counsel at the Office for the Correctional Investigator of Canada, the ombudsman for federal offenders.

“There’s a much larger over-representation of aboriginal women and women with mental health issues than men, so they’re being disproportionately impacted by that lack of preventive measures, and social welfare, and appropriate health care services,” he said.

There are about 500 women — or almost four per cent of the total federal prison population in Canada — currently serving federal sentences of two years or more, compared with more than 13,000 men.

In 2001-02, there were 202 women admitted to federal custody. Consistent with figures from the two previous years, 313 women were admitted to custody in 2008-09 — a 55 per cent increase since the beginning of the decade.

That compares to a 15 per cent increase for men.

Moreover, the number of aboriginal women serving federal time has jumped 90 per cent since 2001, with aboriginal women now representing 33 per cent of women behind bars, although they make up only three per cent of the female population.

While aboriginal men are also over-represented in federal prisons, their figures have grown 17 per cent in that time, according to Zinger.

Women are twice as likely to have a mental-health-problem diagnosis at the time of admission to custody than men — with 30 per cent of women having been admitted to a psychiatric hospital before being incarcerated, compared to 14.5 per cent of men.

“If the mental-health system, for example, is failing, then some of the behaviour linked to symptoms of mental health are now being criminalized, and that can certainly contribute to the rising numbers,” said Zinger.

Zinger said some new Conservative crime laws, such as ending two-for-one sentencing credit for time served in custody awaiting trial, could have an adverse affect on poor women who will have a tougher time getting bail, or paying for a lawyer while in custody.

“The risk is that [the] legislation … may actually exacerbate already very troubling trends, like the increase incarceration of women and women aboriginals, the fastest growing segment of the inmate population in Canada,” said Zinger.

She said the Correctional Service of Canada has developed a comprehensive mental-health strategy that includes a computerized screening system to identify earlier and more easily offenders who may require mental-health services, allowing for earlier intervention and treatment.

“Sentencing a woman to prison also sentences her children often to social services. The cost of imprisonment is also the cost of the state care of those children. The potential for abuse in those settings also increases the potential for those children to end up in a crisis situation. Once you’re caught in that system, it’s difficult to extricate yourself,” she said.

jchev Canada, Female Inmates

The number of women in prison since 1986 has grown at nearly twice the rate of men according to the Department of Corrections Offender Volumes Report 2009, released today. News reported on Voxy News. Complete report available from Corrections NZ.

The report, which presents information about the offender population managed by Corrections in prisons and in the community, shows that between 1986 and 2009 the number of female sentenced prisoners increased from 98 to 389 – a growth of 297%. Male sentenced prisoners increased from 2,359 to 6,157 – a growth of 161% over the same period.

Corrections Manager Strategy and Research, Dr Peter Johnston, said the report includes a summary of trends in the Department’s workload and trends in the known offender population of New Zealand since 1980.

“The report helps Corrections to plan and develop robust policies. It demonstrates the impacts of past and recent justice sector policies on the offender population managed by Corrections. It also helps Corrections to decide which offender groups it needs to target its rehabilitation activities at.

Dr Johnston said the report, which analyses offenders by age, gender, ethnicity, offence type, sentence type and sentence length, plus a range of other variables, contained a wealth of interesting information, this included:

The number of sentenced youth prisoners had decreased over the past 25 years. In 1986, there were typically 500 sentenced prisoners aged 15-19 years, in 2009 there were typically 400;

The growth in the number of sentenced prisoners has been largely driven from the growth in older (30 years plus) offenders. In 1980 prisoners aged over 30 were 20% of the sentenced population – this had increase to over 60% now;

Longer proven offending careers of prisoners. In 1980 almost 75% of sentenced prisoners had recorded their first conviction within the previous 10 years. In 2009, less than 38% had recorded their first conviction within the previous ten years;

Growth in the percentage of offenders serving prison sentence for violent, sexual and drug-related offending;

Though the numbers of sexual offenders being sent to prison had been relatively constant since 1993 there has been a trend towards sex offenders being in prison for longer periods; and

There were twice as many Maori 25 year old males in prison than there were European males of the same age. 3% of all Maori men aged 25 years old are in prison.

Dr Johnston said the report also included useful information for the Department on the growth in the number of offenders on community sentences.

“The number of offenders managed at any given point in time on community sentences by Community Probation & Psychological Services has grown nearly 80% over the past three years. In 2006 CPPS managed 18,000 offenders, by 2009 it had grown to around 32,000.

“Much of this growth had been for offenders aged 20-29, in 2006 there approximately 8,000 offenders in this age group on community sentences, in 2009 this had increased to 14,000.”

jchev Female Inmates, New Zealand

Additional funding to help reduce the number of women in prison is to be handed over by the Scottish government. Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said each of Scotland’s eight Criminal Justice Authorities (CJA) would receive an additional £100,000. News reported by the BBC.

He said the number of women offenders in prison had increased “sharply and disproportionately” in recent years.

A recent report by Holyrood’s Equal Opportunities Committee said too many women were being locked up. There has been about a 90% rise in the number of women being sent to Cornton Vale, Scotland’s only female prison, over the past 10 years, compared with a 16% rise for the male prisoner population.

The Equal Opportunities Committee report, which was published in November, found that 80% of female inmates have mental health problems, almost all have problems with drug or alcohol addiction and many have children on the outside.

Mr MacAskill said the extra funding demonstrated how seriously the government viewed the issue of female offenders.

He added: “The number of women offenders in the criminal justice system – especially the number in jail – has risen very sharply and disproportionately over recent years.

“Although women remain a very small proportion of the total prisoner population, the number of women prisoners has almost doubled over the 10 year period to 2007-08 – to a daily average of around 420.

“In general, and as the committee report recognises, the health and other needs of women offenders are more complex and wide-ranging than those of male offenders. So that is a range of needs that need to be addressed, be it in prison or in the community.

“I will be expecting to see positive results – that means more support for women to get their lives back on track.”

Each individual CJA will be allowed to decide how best to use the additional money.

But it could be used to introduce projects similar to the pilot support service with Barnardos for women from the south west of Scotland released from prison, and the Think Again project aimed at developing skills and confidence for women offenders in the Lothian and Borders.

jchev Female Inmates, Scotland

Crowding at Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution near New Castle, the state’s only women’s prison, could become a crisis even if there’s a relatively small spike in crime, Corrections Commissioner Carl C. Danberg told state budget writers Thursday. Reported on Delaware Online.

As of Thursday, the prisoner count was about 405, which, Danberg said, provides for a little wiggle room. But the count has gone as high as 411 in recent weeks, posing the possibility of farming out female inmates to other states.”It is of particular concern,” Danberg said, plunking down a proposed $6 million capital spending plan for fiscal 2011 that, in deference to the state’s severe money crunch, included no funds for the expansion of the Baylor facility.

“It was designed for 200 and it always has more than 400,” he said. “There’s just nowhere to go if the population goes higher.”

Overall, the Department of Correction was hosting 6,833 inmates as of Oct. 30, but Danberg noted that the figure was down considerably from a peak of 7,250 several years ago. The Oct. 30 figure is 1,514 over the prison system’s design capacity and 176 over operating capacity, a number that reflects the department’s reading of how many inmates it can handle safely.

The new money in Danberg’s capital request would go for maintenance, restoration, minor capital improvements and equipment, but he included $3.5 million for expansion of Baylor as part of a wish list that totaled $22.4 million worth of construction projects. He said he pointed out the needs now because prison construction typically takes four years from design to completion.

“I know we can’t get the funding,” he said, “but I believe the state should know what the needs of the department are.”

Those needs include $14.3 million for a central medical facility. In the meantime, space has been reconfigured at Young Correctional Institution in Wilmington and personnel have been relocated at Baylor to provide more room for medical services.

The Multi Security Building at Sussex Correctional Institution, which houses medical services, is being expanded. The prison also is the beneficiary of a new A-frame medical services building financed in large part by penalties assessed against Correctional Medical Services of St. Louis, the department’s inmate health care provider, for nonperformance under a contract that expires June 30.

• As of Thursday, the department had 72 vacancies for correctional officers and, more critically, 34 openings for probation officers. The latter total represents 10 percent of authorized slots — including those of four supervisors in Sussex County — and could be problematic, Danberg said, in providing community services under the Markell administration’s inmate re-entry program.
• “Howard Young is deteriorating.” Work to restore outside masonry at the Wilmington facility — “popped off” by water that seeps inside the concrete exterior — is complete, and $4.6 million has been programmed for restoring interior walls damaged by the same problem. The Wilmington facility’s kitchen also needs to be replaced at an estimated cost of $3.1 million.
• Some 110 single-inmate cells at Sussex’ Multi Security Building should be shut down, an action that would save about $1 million a year. Danberg says that, as the building is now configured, it takes one officer to keep tabs on two inmates, and that the size of the building doesn’t lend itself to double cells that would make it less labor-intensive.”
• In keeping with dictates from Visalli’s office, the department’s operating budget would remain flat at $249.5 million for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

jchev DE Sussex County, Female Inmates, Overcrowding

Nine states:California, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Nebraska, New York, South Dakota, Washington and West Virginia have prison nurseries or expect to open them. As reported in the Cincinnati Enquirer.

On the campus of the Ohio Reformatory for Women, convicts shuffle across from one spot to the next under watchful eyes.

Takeem’s mother Takaya Patterson is exempt.

In contrast to the other buildings at the sprawling complex surrounded by razor wire and blinding lights, the nursery is colorful and dotted with Sesame Street characters.

Takeem’s mother wears a prison jumpsuit. Takeem, with cherub cheeks and long slender fingers, sleeps in her arms as she rocks.

Just 2 months old, Takeem lives in prison.

Under an unusual program, the state of Ohio lets Patterson raise him behind prison walls.

Some experts say that approach is best for both mothers and their children because the women are less likely to commit crimes when they get out, and children get to be with their moms during critical periods of their development.

One critic calls the program a waste of taxpayer money and says prison should be a place for punishment, not somewhere to raise babies.

Either way, one thing is not in dispute: the number of women in prison has skyrocketed in the last three decades, and most female prisoners are single mothers.

In Ohio, being a prison mom is a full-time job for up to 18 months.

In Kentucky, infants can bond with their mothers, but for only a few hours at time.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the number of women behind bars has increased 843 percent in the last three decades, growing from 12,279 in 1977 to 115,779 last year.

In that same time, Ohio saw a 577 percent increase in female inmates, from 577 in 1977 to 3,905 last year; Kentucky experienced a whopping 1,573 percent increase from 139 in 1977 to 2,326 last year.

With so many more women landing behind bars, who is left to take care of the children?

In a 2004 survey, 84 percent of imprisoned parents said they left their child with the child’s other parent. The rest went elsewhere – including 3 percent who went into foster care, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report, Parent in Prison and their Minor Children.

Ohio is one of nine states with prison nurseries.

Guidelines are stringent for Ohio’s program. Since opening in 2001, 137 women have raised babies behind bars.

Still, the benefits are indisputable, said Terry Collins, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Bonding key issue

Establishing an early bond between the infant and mother is imperative to childhood development. And for the mothers, having that strong bond with their children tends to be the impetus to play it straight on the outside.

“It is well known that family support and family bonds are among the top factors that increase a returning citizen’s chance of having a successful re-entry,” Collins said.

Ohio set up a nursery in 2001. Indiana followed last year. Kentucky has a nursery, but children are not permitted to live with their mothers.

The Women’s Prison Association, a New York-based agency that advocates for women with criminal records, recently studied babies behind bars and urged states to allow moms to serve sentences in the community or to start nurseries similar to Ohio’s.

“I think people are realizing more and more women are going to prison and the reality is that women are mothers,” said Chandra Villanueva, of the Institute on Women and Criminal Justice, part of the Women’s Prison Association. “It makes sense to keep mothers and children together and give them the foundation to build a healthy relationship with their child.”

Earlier this year, Villanueva released a report that found that women who participate in prison nursery programs are less likely to commit another crime, and their babies get to be with their mom during critical development months.

Much more on the the Cincinnati Enquirer.

jchev Female Inmates, Kentucky, Ohio

The theatre of regrets at Sun City prison: under the guidance of a project for imprisoned women, inmates deliver a cautionary message through dance and song. Reported in the Guardian.

The cast is made up of 25 women. They dance and sing in styles that blend African tribal and American gospel. They perform monologues about their lives. The audience, including 200 schoolchildren, goes wild with cheers and applause.

This is no ordinary piece of theatre. It’s Saturday morning at Johannesburg’s Sun City prison. I’m here to watch a performance by convicted murderers, armed robbers, drug smugglers and fraudsters.

Kgomotso Maine stands up and says: “I’m serving 15 years for murder.” There is an audible gasp in the recreation hall. Maine stabbed her boyfriend to death in a fit of rage after finding him with another woman. She goes on: “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. But I regret what I’ve done in the past. Now I’m focusing on the future. I want to turn that old scar to shining stars.”

This is the second year that the Medea project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women has come to South Africa. It’s the brainchild of Rhodessa Jones, a US actor, singer, teacher and writer who runs a theatre company in San Francisco. She and her co-director, Idris Ackamoor, work with female prisoners around the world.

Jones, 60, said: “Theatre saved my life. I was a 16-year-old girl with a baby. As a black girl in America, I could have gone either way. It was my brother who said I want you to meet these people, and they were theatre people, and I could bring my baby.

“All of a sudden I was making theatre and I felt needed. I understood something about what else could be possible in the world. I didn’t have to end up a junkie, I didn’t have to end up an alcoholic, I didn’t even have to end up in an abusive relationship. I could find my voice in the spaces of theatre.”

She and Ackamoor had to work hard at first to bring the women here out of their shells, but their outgoing, can-do spirit evidently rubbed off. The medium-security inmates performing Serious Fun II at Sun City are self-confident, poised and keen to be taken seriously.

They wear white face paint, white T-shirts and ‑ a reminder of where we are ‑ regulation orange trousers that have the word “Corrections” printed in circles. Tandeka Mkwanazi, 34, is draped in a blue flag of Swaziland and has a feather in her hair. She says she used to travel the world in her job in group sales and marketing for SABC, the public broadcaster. She blames a Nigerian boyfriend for the discovery of 10kg of ecstasy in a bag she brought from Amsterdam. She was jailed in 2005 and hopes to be out in 2011.

The mother of two sons takes centre stage while the rest of the cast sing a lullaby and mime the cradling of children in their arms. “Mummy is here,” she says. “I’m dedicating this lullaby song to you boys. I remember the days when you were still babies.

“When I look at this front row here, I just see my boys. Let me tell you something. Life is about choices. The choices that you make today are the choices that are going to tell you exactly where you will be in five years’ time. Ask yourself, where will you be in five years from now?”

Ellen Dingaan, 34, is a beautician and hairdresser, which makes her popular with the prison wardens. The 1.5kg of cocaine she swallowed before flying from Sao Paolo showed up in an X-ray. She finds it suspicious that her contact was a friend of the policewoman who stopped her at customs. She says she was charged with possession of 80g of cocaine and doesn’t know what happened to the rest.

“I took the risk because at the time I had a serious problem,” she said. “I was living with somebody and he just dumped me and left me my three kids and all the responsibilities of rent, school fees, everything, and I couldn’t keep up with it. I was promised R50,000 (£4,000) and got R20,000 to pay off some of my bills and buy some Christmas presents for my kids.”

Dingaan has been in jail for nearly five years and is due for parole in 2011. She misses her children most of all. “It’s very painful for me to know I haven’t been there for my kids. I haven’t even seen them wearing their uniforms on the first day of school. That really kills me, because I always promised myself I’d be a better mother to my children.”

There are songs of repentance and remorse. Joyce Chauke, 34, serving seven and a half years for armed robbery, says: “Some people are scared of us. What I ask from the community is to accept us and give us a second chance to show them we have learned from our mistakes. We are ready to face the community. Please accept us.”

Another woman says: “I am here to apologise for what I did to the community. When I was dealing drugs, I was thinking of only myself, I was self-centred and I’ve learned. I think justice was done to save me before I jeopardised more people. I pray to God that you will find it your heart to forgive me and accept me as one of your own.”

The show finishes, the audience rises and there is a cascade of applause. Then the inmates answer questions and urge the children not to follow the same path. A woman from the Market Theatre Laboratory says: “I came here today expecting hardcore criminals and I found women, beautiful women, and that made me cry. It makes me so happy. Thank you.”

A lunch is served, but prison guards gather around the stage to ensure the performers stay where they are. I say goodbye to Rhodessa Jones and drive through the prison grounds, passing a sign that says “Place of new beginnings”. At the exit gate my car boot is opened and checked, and then I head back to the city. The women, presumably, are back in their cells by now.

jchev Female Inmates, Inmate Programs, South Africa

Jackson, Mississippi will be the site for the Thirteenth National Workshop on Adult and Juvenile Female Offenders which will bring together leaders in the fields of adult corrections, social work, law enforcement, juvenile corrections, mental health and education for a comprehensive overview of this rapidly expanding area of corrections.   The conference, hosted by the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC), will be held in Jackson, Mississippi from October 10 -14, 2009 at the Jackson Marriott, 200 Amite Street, Jackson, Mississippi.

“The Mississippi Department of Corrections is proud to host this important conference and has worked hard to provide participants with a program full of informative meetings, interesting speakers, and educational training activities,” said MDOC Commissioner Christopher Epps.  “We realize that working with the female population is a specialized field and with the training offered at this conference, we hope participants leave more informed, more inspired, and more engaged than when they arrived.”

The conference will cover topics relevant to the female inmate population, including breaking criminal behavior cycles, rebuilding lives through discharge planning and re-entry coordination, assisting inmate patients receiving psychiatric services and addressing the changing needs of adolescent females in the juvenile system.

Featured speakers include Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, Mary Leftridge Byrd, Federal Security Director, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Dr. Stephanie Covington, Co-Director, Center for Gender and Justice, La Jolla, CA, and MDOC Commissioner Chris Epps.

jakking Female Inmates, Juvenile Justice, Mississippi

The Draper prison in Utah was expected to run out of space for women by 2007. Instead, the booming growth rates suddenly leveled off and 50 beds sit empty. Corrections officials are uncertain what exactly has brought the relief, but they’re focusing on fending off future booms by making sure when women get out of prison, they stay out for good.  Story from the Salt Lake Tribune.

Spokeswoman Angie Welling said 65 to 75 percent of released prisoners return to prison at some point. But when they go through some form of programming, the figure plummets to about 30 percent.    “We owe it to these women to make sure they have access to the resources necessary to reconstruct their lives,” said Craig Burr, director of the Corrections department’s Division of Programming. With little help from state funding for the preventative and rehabilitative programs, the department is now leaning on community organizations to bolster life-skills and usher them into crime-free lives …

Deputy Warden for Prison Programming Lee Liston said it’s “heartening” to see the extent of help from the community, especially during an economic downturn. Big Brothers Big Sisters is one organization sending volunteers to help thanks to a federal grant. Liston noted that if there are 180 women in prison, that translates to about 400 children without a mom. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Utah spokeswoman Michele Beckstrand said there is a lot of shame and anger in families when women are incarcerated. “Sometimes the impact in having another caring adult to step in is beyond words,” Beckstrand said. “A mentor is that friend, that shoulder to lean on” …

Other efforts to reform female prisoners include substance-abuse programs, therapeutic communities and “Bridges out of Poverty” — an effort run by Utah homelessness czar Lloyd Pendleton to create plans to get women into housing, land a job and be productive. “We’re seeing changes — significant changes,” Pendleton said. Utah advocate for the poor Pamela Atkinson adds that YPREP’s targeted programs are “literally changing people’s lives.”

Despite the aid, realistic Corrections officials say it’s only a matter of time until figures rebound and the state runs out of space at the Draper Timpanogos female housing area. “We are likely going to need another women’s facility,” said Corrections Deputy Director Mike Haddon … But it’s unclear how soon Corrections could build any relief. Officials already have plans to expand the Gunnison prison and open a halfway house for parolees to stop the male inmate population from spilling over. And all those goals come amid budget blows that recently forced hefty department cutbacks. “We realize we can’t build our way out of this,” Haddon said. “We just try to provide as much programming or education, so when it comes time to go back into the community they’re better citizens and more likely to succeed.”

jakking Female Inmates, Inmate Programs, Re-Entry, Recidivism, Utah

Iowa Corrections Director John Baldwin says he has appointed Patti Wachtendorf as warden of the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women at Mitchellville.

Wachtendorf is a longtime deputy warden and has served as acting warden since March, when then-warden Diann Wilder-Tomlinson was appointed to a statewide post. Baldwin announced her promotion Friday. Wachtendorf will oversee all operations of the multi-security-level women’s institution. She has worked for the Department of Corrections since 1983, and served at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison and the Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility before joining the ICIW staff in 2001.

jakking Female Inmates, Iowa

The majority of 128 female inmates from Hawaii housed at a private Kentucky correctional facility will return to the islands within a month, Public Safety Director Clayton Frank said yesterday, according to the Star Bulletin.

Forty Hawaii inmates returned Monday from Otter Creek Correctional Facility, where guards were accused of sexually assaulting 23 women, including seven from Hawaii. A task force visited Otter Creek on July 5 and found that a 2007 sexual assault case was substantiated, with the guard being terminated and convicted. One case was dismissed, two female inmates denied assault allegations, and three cases are being investigated by Kentucky police, Public Safety Deputy Director Tommy Johnson said.

The Senate Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs, headed by Sen. Will Espero, interviewed Frank and Johnson at the state Capitol yesterday for an update on the allegations and the possibility of returning the women to Hawaii. “The biggest concern we have is the cost,” Frank said. The cost to house an inmate at Hawaii’s Women’s Community Correctional Center is $86 per day, or $3.6 million a year, compared with $58.46 a day in Kentucky.

With the transferred inmates, state prisons will be at 97 to 98 percent capacity, while 91 to 92 percent would be ideal, Frank said. “If there are any more additional intakes … we would have to be very careful that there is no federal intervention,” said Frank, who added that there is enough staff at the women’s facility and the federal detention center. Overcrowding at Hawaii prisons led to federal oversight from 1985 to 1999.

Espero asked whether $500,000 appropriated by the Legislature for GPS electronic monitoring could be used to offset costs, but Frank said the allocated money was part of Gov. Linda Lingle’s budget cut. “I was afraid you’d say that. But that is a cost-saving measure that, in my opinion, has the potential to save the state millions of dollars over years, so, although I understand the governor’s decision, I think it’s the wrong one,” Espero said.

jakking Female Inmates, Hawaii, Private Prisons

The plans to expand a womens’ jail in San Diego County CA is causing waves in the community.  This report from the San Diego Union-Tribune.

When county officials chose a site in Santee for a girls’ rehabilitation center in the 1960s, the community was dotted with farmland and new neighborhoods were starting to sprout.  Today, Las Colinas Detention Facility – the only all-women jail in the county – sits in the middle of suburbia. It’s surrounded by office buildings, shopping centers and some of the only undeveloped land left in the center of the East County city.  Some residents say the jail no longer belongs in what they consider their thriving community. And they definitely don’t want one that would be nearly three times bigger.

County supervisors on Wednesday will consider approving an estimated $308.5 million plan to expand the jail and certify a report spelling out the environmental effects of the project. County officials plan to pay for the project with a $100 million state grant and county funds … Santee officials and several residents are clear on their position. They say a larger jail would hurt the city’s image and economic progress, decrease property values and possibly increase traffic and crime.   “We have five Starbucks now,” said Kathy Box of Santee, including one just over the border in unincorporated El Cajon. “Our city is doing well. The people who go there are doing well, and things are moving forward. Las Colinas sets us back.”  Mayor Randy Voepel said a jail would spread across too much land that is too valuable for a jail …

The tan, one-story jail sits on 16 acres, and some residents said they lived in the city for years before realizing it was there. The new jail would take up 45 acres.  City officials have spent nearly half a million dollars fighting the jail expansion. The city lost a lawsuit against the county over its handling of the state grant and has recently appealed. City officials have also hired outside companies to help, including a marketing firm to create Twitter and Facebook accounts to lobby against the project …

The county has been studying the replacement of Las Colinas for the past decade, and at least eight county grand jury reports have recommended building a new jail. Sheriff’s officials said they have spent more than $4 million on repairs and upgrades since 2003.  Conditions are also crowded. The jail houses far more beds than state standards dictate. Up to three women share cells, and some dormitories sleep 32 women in rows of closely placed bunk beds.

There is more background detail in the full article.

jakking CA San Diego County, California, County-City Issues, Female Inmates, Jail and Prison Construction, Overcrowding

After a review by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards found the Austin County jail to be deficient in its space for female inmates, county commissioners discussed how to correct the problem last month.  Report from the Sealy News.

Austin County Judge Carolyn Bilski [said] “When they built the jail in the 1980s, women weren’t in jail as often. It was very unusual to see females have to be jailed.”  But the growing population and change in laws have contributed to the increase in female inmates. More and more, women are being jailed for offenses like theft by check, drug charges and driving under the influence, according to Bilski.

After the jail commission’s review of the county’s facilities, though, officials are looking at other alternatives, such as adding on to the current facility or building a new jail.  But with the cost to build a new facility hovering around $15 million – not including maintenance costs – the county is considering adding on to the current facility as a more cost-effective remedy.

In the meantime, county sheriff’s office personnel have brought in portable buildings and have reallocated some of their space, “so some of the crowding issues have been resolved,” Bilski said.  “They have made extra effort to resolve their problem on a pay-as-you-go basis,” she added.  [However] “We’re anticipating that the male and female population will continue to be the same or increase, and the seriousness of the offender and the safety concerns regarding inmates are going to continue to increase,” Bilski said.

jakking Female Inmates, Overcrowding, TX Austin County, Texas

Most of San Diego’s 31 detention facilities are in good shape and managed well, but the Las Colinas jail for women is too old, crowded and has poor medical facilities, the county grand jury said in a report released Thursday, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Las Colinas has a court-ordered maximum capacity of 500 inmates, but frequently houses more than 700. On the day the grand jury visited, it had 771 inmates, the 22-page report said. The grand jury praised the sheriff’s staff for keeping Las Colinas operating and effectively serving inmates’ needs. It pointed out, for example, that during the past year, several housing units were painted inside and out, all housing-unit roofs were resealed, six dormitories were renovated, and rotted wood floors were removed and concrete floors installed.

In the meantime, county officials are hoping to review an environmental impact report in June for a new 1,216-bed jail proposed to replace Las Colinas at a cost of up to $300 million. Last year, the state announced tentative approval of $100 million for the project. If fully funded, the replacement jail would take about five years to complete.

jakking CA San Diego County, California, Female Inmates, Overcrowding

Scotland’s chief prisons inspector has hit out at the policy of having just one female-only prison.  Reported by the BBC.

Dr Andrew McLellan told [Members of the Scottish Parliament] it was a major factor in overcrowding at Cornton Vale Prison and meant many women were too far away from their families.  The Scottish Prison Service admitted the regime at the prison, near Stirling, had slipped amid population increases and pressure on staff time …

Dr McLellan told its inquiry on female offenders in the justice system it did not seem to be “fair or honest” to make the argument that all women prisoners should be at one site to help them benefit from rehabilitation programmes.  “I do not agree with the policy of the Scottish Prison Service which is to concentrate all women prisoners in one site,” he said.   “That by itself is a significant factor of overcrowding in Cornton Vale.”

Pointing out that women prisoners were, until recently, held in Aberdeen, Inverness and Dumfries, Dr McLellan added “Almost all of the women who were in these local units were there for a very short time and largely were there on remand, for five days or seven days or at the most three weeks, so none of these people in Cornton Vale were ever going to take advantage of the critical mass.  “But the closing of these units increases significantly the overcrowding in Cornton Vale and severely impairs the family contact and family support which women in Aberdeen or Inverness or Dumfries might have had.”

Sue Brookes, head of offender strategy and partnership development with the prison service, agreed more female prisoners should be closer to home.  But she dismissed re-opening the Aberdeen and Inverness female prison facilities, saying many of the women in Cornton Vale had acute physical and mental problems. “The reasons for closing them were not just about access to programmes,” said Ms Brookes – a former governor of Cornton Vale.  “They were because, certainly in my view, some of the medical care that was available was not appropriate and was putting women at risk.”

jakking Europe, Female Inmates, INTERNATIONAL, Scotland, United Kingdom

A federal judge ruled Friday that the Wisconsin Department of Corrections must make changes to its inmate prescription system at Taycheedah Correctional Institution and hire licensed practical nurses to hand out drugs there, all within two months.  Reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Chief U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa’s order came in response to an American Civil Liberties Union motion for an injunction forcing the state to make changes.   The action is part of a federal class-action lawsuit the ACLU filed in 2006 on behalf of inmates at the state’s largest women’s prison.   The ACLU contends the state is violating the rights of Taycheedah prisoners by having guards without medical training dispense drugs to inmates, routinely resulting in the wrong medications or wrong dosages being given to inmates.

The state admits there are problems but says it is working to fix them. It argued that it has a plan to hire nursing assistants to hand out drugs and that the ACLU’s timetable was unreasonable.   Randa disagreed, writing that “matters of administrative convenience must ultimately give way when constitutional rights are in jeopardy.”  Randa ordered the state to draw up a plan to hire licensed practical nurses for Taycheedah within a week and have them in place in 60 days. In the issue of computerizing the prescription system, Randa gave the state two months to take “interim steps” to improve drug distribution accuracy …

Department of Corrections spokesman John Dipko said he did not know how many nurses would be hired or how much it would cost … Dipko said agency officials had not determined whether they will appeal the order, but even if they do, they will comply with the order in the meantime.

Larry Dupuis, legal director for the ACLU of Wisconsin, said, “Judge Randa has taken a huge step toward alleviating the needless pain and suffering caused by Taycheedah’s failed medication system.”

jakking Female Inmates, Inmate Health Care, Inmate Lawsuits, Wisconsin