The number of inmates in England and Wales’ jails should be cut by a third, and the money saved put into community penalties, a report by MPs has said. Report from The BBC.

The cross-party Justice Committee said evidence showed community punishments would have a better chance of cutting re-offending. The committee said a £4.2bn prison building plan was a “costly mistake”. But the Ministry of Justice said its current strategy was working and reoffending rates had been falling.

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

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

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

The MPs said: ”We are worried that the government seems to accept the inevitability of a high and rising prison population and remains committed to building larger prisons. We are convinced that prison building on this scale will prove a costly mistake.

”The prison population could be safely capped at current levels and then reduced over a specified period to a safe and manageable level likely to be about two-thirds of the current population.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said prisons were investing in drug treatment, training and education. “We have bolstered community punishments to ensure they are tough, innovative and offer locally based alternatives to custody,” he said. “People who commit serious offences are going to prison for longer and are being rehabilitated – and the rate of re-offending continues to fall.”

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

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

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

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

janchavarie Overcrowding, United Kingdom

The Tulare County jail system has been overcrowded since 1988, and it’s unlikely a revised law that will result in more releases based on good behavior will help, a local jails official said Tuesday. News from the Visalia Times.

The Tulare County Sheriff’s Department was forced to release 205 inmates Monday under a modified state law that gives inmates more credit for good behavior.

“We book 30 to 50 inmates a day. The overcrowding issue will not go away with this one law change,” Capt. Jim Hinesly said. “We will be releasing more as soon as we are over capacity again.”

The law is expected to save more than $5,300 per day each housed inmate would have served. However, Hinesly says the jail will soon be back up to capacity, which is 1,554 inmates. There were 1,544 inmates as of Tuesday.

Hinesly said it would take four months to determine the total savings and effectiveness of the early releases.

The changes apply to all nonviolent inmates in California prisons who have not been convicted of a sex crime, including those in county jail facilities. The changes are intended to reduce prison and jail overcrowding and budget issues.

The Sheriff’s Department released 87 housed inmates and 118 inmates who were in alternative work programs and were not housed in a county facility.

Old guidelines gave inmates with good behavior one-third day’s credit for each full day served. Changes made to California Penal Code 4019, which took effect Monday, give one-half day’s credit for good behavior, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

The new policy concerns some local law enforcement agencies and public officials.

“If there are no consequences for bad behavior, there will be bad behavior,” said Phil Vandegrift, vice mayor of Tulare. “I don’t think anything is being fixed with this law.”

Visalia Police Department officials agree that early jail releases cause concern.

“It is always a concern when that many people are released all at once,” Visalia police Sgt. Steve Phillips said. “I wish there was an another way of getting through the economic crisis.”

janchavarie Early Release, Overcrowding

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 U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed appeals by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republican legislators of a federal court order to reduce the state’s overcrowded prison population by some 40,000 inmates within two years. Reported by Reuters.

The high court’s decision to dismiss the appeals for lack of jurisdiction occurred as part of a long-running legal battle over California’s 33 adult prisons and their often-criticized medical care for inmates.

A panel of three federal judges in August ordered the state’s prison population be reduced in stages over two years to relieve the overcrowding that has caused inadequate medical and mental health care.

California’s prisons have been filled to nearly twice their designed capacity of 80,000, according to the ruling.

The Supreme Court noted the state has come up with a plan to comply with the lower court’s order but the three-judge panel earlier this month put it on hold pending the outcome of the appeals to the high court. With the appeals dismissed, the plan can go forward.

Improving conditions in the nation’s largest state prison system has become a major legal, political and budget issue in view of California’s budget crisis and high unemployment.

janchavarie California, Overcrowding, Uncategorized

The Italian government on Wednesday declared a state of emergency in the country’s prisons and launched a four-point plan to tackle the overcrowding, ANSA news agency reported.

Talking at a press conference attended as well by Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, the Justice Minister Angelino Alfano said “the plan is without precedent in the history of this Republic.”

“We’re going to eliminate prison overcrowding once and for all without resorting to another round of amnesties,” he added, which would empty prisons by pouring criminals in the society.

Alfano announced that first on the agenda was the construction of 47 new jail annexes to boost the system’s capacity by 21,749 units.

The new cell blocks would cost a total 600 million euros and follow the rebuilding strategy implemented in the earthquake-struck city of L’Aquila, with construction crews working in round-the-clock shifts.

“This is the same scheme that has allowed us to put a roof over the head of everyone who lost their home” in the April 2009 quake, Alfano said.

In addition, between 2011 and 2012 the government would launch a second campaign to build brand-new prisons to accommodate a total of 80,000 inmates, almost twice its current capacity.

To depressurize jails in the meantime, the justice minister promised new legislation allowing home detention for inmates with less than one year to serve on their sentence and probation with community service for anyone sentenced to less than three.

Finally, he promised to hire some 2,000 new guards needed to oversee Italy’s swelling prison population, which hit a post-war high last year of over 65,000 detainees.

Italy’s aging jails, most of which built in the 19th century, were designed to accommodate just 43,000 prisoners.

Experts have blamed the overcrowding for a record 71 prison suicides in 2009 and another four in the first week of January.

“It’s an intolerable situation,” said Berlusconi. “A civilized state can take freedom away from a person who commits a crime, but it cannot take away his dignity or undermine his health,” he added.

“We’ve taken it upon ourselves to find a lasting solution,” he said, an oblique reference to an overwhelmingly unpopular prisoner amnesty enacted in 2006 under ex-premier Romano Prodi’s center-left government.

janchavarie Italy, Overcrowding

A federal court panel on Tuesday ordered the Schwarzenegger administration to lower California’s prison population by more than 40,000 within two years to lessen overcrowding and improve health care. Reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, a follow up to previous post: Court, CA Governor Dig In Heels.

The three-judge panel said its order, the first to require the administration to meet deadlines for reducing the number of inmates, was compelled by the state’s “long-standing failure to provide constitutionally adequate medical and mental health care.” The panel noted that the state has already proposed to meet the goal by sending fewer minor offenders to prison.

But the panel suspended its order to await the outcome of the state’s U.S. Supreme Court appeal, which argues that the judges have no such authority.

“We will fight any decision that orders early release and endangers public safety,” said Schwarzenegger’s spokesman, Aaron McLear. He said the state expects the Supreme Court to hear its appeal and decide whether judges can issue orders that compel prisoner releases.

A federal judge appointed a receiver to manage the prison health care system in 2006 after concluding that substandard treatment was killing one inmate per week. Last August, the three-judge panel ruled that overcrowding in the 33 prisons, filled to nearly twice their designed capacity of 80,000, was the main reason that medical care violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The panel said a 40,000 reduction in two years was needed to create the conditions for adequate care, found that it could be done safely, and left the details up to the state. After initial resistance, Schwarzenegger submitted a plan in November that relied on a combination of new prison construction, release of some low-level offenders, and changes in state laws and parole policies to send fewer people to prison.

The proposal includes some measures the Legislature has already rejected, such as allowing some elderly or ailing prisoners to finish their sentences in local custody or home confinement, sending criminals to county jail instead of prison for crimes such as drug possession and writing bad checks, and raising the threshold for felony grand theft from $400 to $950.

Administration officials said they would resubmit those proposals to lawmakers. In the meantime, they said, the court could put the measure into effect by ordering prisons to accept only inmates who met the proposed standards – for example, someone who had stolen $950 or more.

janchavarie California, Overcrowding

The first group of Wisconsin inmates left prison last week under a state plan to relieve overcrowding by releasing some prisoners early, corrections officials said. Story from the Green Bay Press Gazette.

The Department of Corrections has spent the past three months reviewing hundreds of nonviolent offenders eligible for early parole in exchange for good behavior. Twenty-one were released Tuesday, agency spokesman John Dipko said. None were released from the Green Bay Correctional Institution in Allouez.

The parolees came from across the state correctional system’s institutions. Their crimes include retail theft, driving while intoxicated, operating a vehicle without consent, forgery, burglary, drug possession and disorderly conduct, Dipko said in an e-mail.

States around the country have turned to early-release programs to alleviate overcrowding. Last year 13 states either created or expanded programs to speed up early release, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Critics say the programs could put the public in danger. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn suspended that state’s early out program in December after The Associated Press revealed the Illinois Department of Corrections was releasing hundreds of inmates too early. The agency had secretly changed a policy that required everyone to spend at least 61 days in prison and was awarding six months’ good-conduct credit as soon as inmates entered prison.

Several of Illinois’ parolees were arrested within weeks of their release for various offenses. “This is a dangerous social experiment doomed to failure,” Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, said of Wisconsin’s programs. “These felons are headed back to a community near you.”

Dipko stressed offenders must earn the release with good behavior. “Earned release provides a positive incentive that we know from research can reduce recidivism,” he said.

Prisons are a big business in Wisconsin. The correctional system includes more than 18 institutions and costs more than $1 billion per year.

Overcrowding has been a problem for years. Corrections Secretary Rick Raemisch estimated in February that the inmate population stood at more than 22,000. A consultant’s report released last year found Wisconsin’s facilities are decaying. It recommended more than $1.2 billion in upgrades over the next 10 years.

Faced with a $6.6 billion shortfall in the state budget, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle instead proposed releasing some prisoners early to save money and space.

Killers and sex offenders aren’t eligible, but most offenders will be able to shave days off their sentences with good behavior. Convicts including drug dealers and bank robbers can seek early release from the Department of Corrections, a judge or a newly created parole commission.

Inmates with “extraordinary health conditions,” defined as advanced age, infirmity, disability or a need for medical treatment not available behind bars, also can petition for early parole.

Raemisch estimated in February the changes might affect 3,000 inmates. The Corrections Department estimates the early release programs will save about $30 million over the two-year state budget.

janchavarie Early Release, Overcrowding, Wisconsin

The extent of overcrowding in Irish prisons is highlighted by figures showing almost 400 inmates are sharing cells with at least three other people. Story from the Irish Examiner.

A further 40 prisoners are in cells of five or more people following an increase of more than 10% in the numbers of people in custody over the past 12 months.

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern admitted the number of prisoners exceeds capacity, despite significant investment by the Government. “It is quite clear that in some of our prisons, we are operating in excess of our bed capacity at this time,” he said in a written response to a Dáil question.

He said there has been “a consistent increase in the total prisoner population over recent years”.

“The situation is particularly apparent over the past 12 months during which time the total number of persons in custody has increased by 379.”

More than two-thirds of the men in Limerick Prison are sharing cells with another person while a tenth are in cells of more than three people. In Cork Prison, there are 108 people in cells of three or more people, according to Department of Justice Figures.

Mountjoy has some of the worst overcrowding, with at least 50 prisoners in cells of four or more people while 290 are sharing a cell with one other.

The figures do not include prisoners who are being held in special observation cells or rooms designed to accommodate large groups such as “The Grove” in Castlerea Prison where 55 people are held.

Mr Ahern said the Government plans to create an extra 250 prison places in the coming months. But with the prisoner population growing by 379 last year, this is likely to fall well fall short of requirements.

The opening of the separation unit in Mountjoy will provide an additional 50 short-term places and a new block at Wheatfield Prison will provide about 200 places. At the start of December 2009, there were 4,041 prisoners in custody. A review of prisoner population projections is being finalised by the Irish Prison Service. “The outcomes of this review will inform the Irish Prison Service and my department on matters relevant to the prison estate,” said Mr Ahern.

“The Irish Prison Service must accept all prisoners committed by the courts into its custody and does not have the option of refusing committals,” he said.

janchavarie Ireland, Overcrowding

A smoother process for handling paroles of prison inmates, and possibly easing the population crunch in penal institutions, is the intent of legislation crafted by an interims committee. News reported in The Montgomery Herald.

But the parole idea might not be the lone one advanced by the Legislative Oversight Committee on Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority, says a co-chairman, Delegate Dave Perry, D-Fayette.

While Gov. Joe Manchin set up a special task force to look at the crowded conditions in prisons and jails, Perry’s committee decided to commission a separate report, performed by the West Virginia University Law Institute.

A report is due in the committee’s hands at the January interims session, Perry said.

“I won’t know until we see the final report,” he said when asked if additional legislation is contemplated.

Prison overcrowding has been a constant them in recent years, and the situation hasn’t improved. Some lawmakers are talking about expansion of alternative sentencing and reforms in the criminal sentencing code so that non-violent offenders aren’t put behind bars.

Otherwise, some have warned, West Virginia would have no choice but to build a new prison, costing in the neighborhood of $20 million.

One step is being taken in dealing with paroles. Under existing policy, an inmate must have a home plan approved as a requirement for release.

“This necessitates that they could have parole without assuming the family home plan has been approved,” Perry said of the bill approved by his panel this month.

“Under current practice, they have to have a home plan approved prior to being considered. This would expedite the parole process. I think it would make it a more efficient process for those who are eligible.”

Perry said he believes a number of inmates are being held back from release due to the home plan.

Before the 2010 session opens, Perry suggested his committee might draft legislation to impose tougher penalties on sexual offenses behind bars.

Within a five-year stretch, the state was hit with 21 lawsuits involving alleged sexual misconduct in penal institutions.

“Our intention is to have a piece of legislation to address that issue,” Perry said.

Based on data supplied his panel, Perry said it appears the problem is one that demands legislative action.

In a recent interims meeting, Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein said the problems were confined to the Anthony youthful offender facility in Greenbrier County and a women’s prison at Lakin, Mason County. Mount Olive Correctional Complex in Fayette County wasn’t involved.

“We’re very proactive on this,” Rubenstein told the panel. “We have zero tolerance.”

janchavarie Overcrowding, Parole, West Virginia

Prison crowding that often has Nebraska teetering on the edge of an emergency situation as defined by state law hasn’t convinced many lawmakers that another prison is needed. Reported by the Associated Press in the Beatrice Daily.

The majority of lawmakers who responded to an annual legislative survey from The Associated Press said they didn’t think preparations to build another state prison were necessary, with some saying that alternatives to incarceration should be pursued.

“I don’t think we have to build a new prison and we couldn’t afford it in any event,” said Sen. Pete Pirsch of Omaha, chairman of a legislative task force addressing the issue. A new prison could cost hundreds of millions of dollars for construction and staffing, Pirsch said.

Instead, he said, the state needs to have adequate community-corrections programs for some nonviolent, low-risk offenders and ensure there is prison space for violent criminals.

Community-corrections programs that hinge on intensive, probationary supervision were put in place after Nebraska built a $73 million prison in Tecumseh in 2001 to relieve overcrowding at its other facilities.

But after a big push to implement the programs, critics say, the state hasn’t spent enough money to develop them or created sentencing guidelines so the programs can be used more.

Some experts say lawmakers may have guaranteed the prison population will continue to rise when, earlier this year, they increased penalties for more than a dozen crimes to help curb gun and gang violence, mainly in Omaha.

The prison population has been hovering near a threshold – 140 percent of prison capacity – that allows the governor to declare an emergency and release inmates to decrease overcrowding. Last week, it was at nearly 138 percent.

University of Nebraska at Omaha professor T. Hank Robinson has said the tough-on-crime bill passed by lawmakers could cost the state $7.5 million to $10 million by increasing the prison population and keeping inmates incarcerated for longer periods.

State Sen. Kent Rogert of Tekamah was one of the 22 lawmakers in The Associated Press survey who said the state should not begin preparing to build another prison but said more must be done to boost community programs.

Thirty-four of the Legislature’s 49 senators responded to the survey. Nine said they were unsure whether the state should prepare to build another prison; three said the state should start preparing.

“Nebraska has stiffened penalties on many crimes over the past decade … in contrast to many other states,” Rogert said. “I believe we need more ways to reduce our prison costs by recidivism programs and more community corrections. Juvenile-justice overhaul must happen and must happen soon. Our young people are left out in the cold too often.”

Sen. Ken Schilz of Ogallala, one of the three senators who said the state should begin preparing to build another prison, suggested the state stop short of a full-blown prison and instead look to a facility that can hold nonviolent offenders, such as the Work Ethic Camp in McCook.

The camp should be “a model to start more facilities placed in rural Nebraska to alleviate overcrowding” in prisons, Schilz said.

The camp isn’t a lockdown facility. About two-thirds of the offenders committed nonviolent felonies and were ordered to spend time at the camp as conditions of their probation.

They attend classes that apply to their offenses and provide labor to government and nonprofit groups.

janchavarie Jail and Prison Construction, Nebraska, Overcrowding

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

The first walls are up in the Jay County jail expansion, a project that’s been in the making for eight years. Story in Newslink Indiana.

The Portland jail has been experiencing over crowding for some time now and has been operating much of the time at maximum capacity. However, once the new expansion project is completed the Portland jail should no longer have a problem with housing prisoners.

The old jail had the capacity to hold about 30 to 40 prisoners and the new facility will allow up to 120 cell blocks. There will also be cameras installed in each cell to provide constant supervision.

Along with cameras, according to site manager Jeff Bladder, this jail will feature a central control room that offers a 360-degree view of all the cells from one place.

“The person in the central control can look both up and down to observe at all times the prisoners. That is a very cost effective of doing supervision and in a jail the supervision and labor costs is the number one expense in a jail,” Bladder said.

According to Bladder, in terms of square feet, the current jail is about 14,000, the new expansion will provide 25,000 square feet of additional space.

After the expansion is completed, the next step will involve the remodeling of the old county jail. The new cell blocks should be completed by next fall and the entire project should be finished in late winter of 2011.

The project is currently on schedule and under budget.

janchavarie Indiana, Jail and Prison Construction, Overcrowding

County jails are intended to house prisoners awaiting trial. But a recent report from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs shows that the number of state-sentenced inmates being held in jails has risen from 3,278 last January to 5,277 a year later. News reported by Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Officials with the Georgia Department of Corrections told the Atlanta Journal Constitution they are working on reducing that backlog. According to the AJC, those plans include adding 2,300 beds to prisons across the state and triple-bunking inmates at some facilities.

Representative Judy Manning of Marietta told the AJC that the state relies on jails to house inmates because they simply don’t have enough space or money to build new facilities.

According to the DOC Georgia’s prison system is running at 105 percent capacity.

janchavarie Georgia, Overcrowding

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.

janchavarie DE Sussex County, Female Inmates, Overcrowding

Jails across the state are overcrowded and the cost of incarcerating all those people is growing increasingly expensive in a time of severe budget shortfalls. Story in the Bowling Green Daily News.

But an initiative selected by the Kentucky Supreme Court that will allow people who are arrested for nonviolent crimes in nine counties to post bail immediately instead of going to jail is a small step toward easing this problem – step that should be expanded statewide.

The court has selected Bell, Boone, Boyd, Butler, Campbell, Edmonson, Kenton, Ohio and Pike counties for the program, which will begin Jan. 1.

The 35-page list of charges covered by the program include marijuana possession, prostitution, minor traffic offenses, hunting violations and shoplifting. It also includes 24 first felony theft charges, such as stealing electrical service. People charged with violent crimes won’t be eligible.

One would hope that this program would be a success and serious consideration would be given for expanding it statewide.

Not only would this program help cut down on overcrowding in our jails, it could also save the state a lot of money for housing non-violent offenders.

Justice Will T. Scott said if the project is successful, it could save the state $150 million a year, or more than $400,000 a day, by allowing people arrested on any of more than 700 mostly misdemeanor charges to immediately post bail and go home.

This is not pocket change and considering the budget shortfall our state is facing, it is a step in the right direction.

Jail operations are also one of the larger line items in many county budgets, so this change could greatly benefit counties.

The initiative would also be beneficial to offenders arrested on the weekends or nights when judges are off duty and unavailable to approve bonds.

It would also be particularly beneficial for counties such as Edmonson County, which has no jail and has to send its prisoners elsewhere. It would also benefit Butler County, which has to send its women arrestees elsewhere.

This is a win-win situation that could really help our state by cutting down on jail overcrowding and saving a lot of money spent on housing people who should be able to bail out immediately for certain misdemeanors and non-violent offenses.

janchavarie Bail, Kentucky, Overcrowding

A state report shows the increase in Iowa’s prison population is easing. Reported in the Chicago Tribune.

The report issued Monday forecasts that by 2019, the state’s nine prisons will hold about 9,000 inmates, up about 8 percent from current numbers.

In the past two decades, Iowa’s prison population soared by more than 150 percent. The state built new prisons, in Clarinda, Fort Dodge and Newton.

According to the study, fewer people are being sent to prison because of felony convictions and drug convictions.

Sen. Eugene Fraise (FRAY’-zee), a Fort Madison Democrat, says the report is an indication that the string of prison projects may be nearing an end.

Iowa plans $256 million in prison construction that includes projects at Fort Madison and the women’s prison in Mitchellville.

janchavarie Iowa, Overcrowding

Pennsylvania’s corrections chief says last year’s temporary moratorium on parole compounded the prison overcrowding that may force the state to board hundreds of inmates in other states. Reported on Philly.com.

Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard told a panel of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday that the parole rate began to plummet last year after the first of two highly publicized shootings of police officers in Philadelphia.

Gov. Ed Rendell ordered a two-month moratorium following the second shooting.

Beard says the parole rate is rebounding, but that the more than 51,000 state prison inmates are nearly 2,000 more than the approved capacity of the system.

Even with plans to add new prisons with 8,000 beds by 2013, Beard says boarding prisoners out of state may be necessary in the long term.

janchavarie Overcrowding, PA Philadelphia, Parole

With Lorain’s City Jail slated to close in a few weeks, Lorain County Sheriff Phil Stammitti is scrambling to figure out how to legally and safely accommodate the additional prisoners he will have to take in. Reported in the Morning Journal.

After the county’s half-percent sales tax increase failed last week, Stammitti said he will have to operate a jail that has cost more than $12 million a year to run with less funding while also dealing with overcrowding issues.

The sales tax increase would have been used for the criminal justice services. It failed 35,302 to 48,074, according to unofficial Lorain County Board of Elections results.

“We live off the sales tax, which didn’t pass,” Stammitti said. “The county can not absorb any more of these costs.”

The county pays $92 per day to house an inmate. Inmates have stayed in the county jail for as long as 18 months and one stayed four years. The county is also stuck with any medical bills for treatment prisoners need while in its custody. One prisoner had three heart attacks last year, costing the county about $80,000, Stammitti said.

Because Lorain and Elyria police and the sheriff’s office all run their own dispatch centers, Stammitti said combining the centers could potentially be one way to save money.

Overcrowding is another issue Stammitti is dealing with. There are 422 beds in the county jail, but there are usually more inmates than that locked up. When the jail runs out of beds, inmates are given a mattress, a plastic cot and put in common rooms until a bunk is available. The jail can not release inmates early, Stammitti said.

Currently, each of the 102 correctional officers is assigned to oversee 48 prisoners. The officers will have to patrol additional prisoners when Lorain’s City Jail closes.

County Commissioner Ted Kalo has been working with other elected officials to go through the county jail’s operating budget line by line looking for savings. He said the biggest problem is operating without the needed capital, but said overcrowding is just as pertinent.

Kalo said he anticipates the jail will take on between 60 and 70 additional prisoners between the Lorain and Elyria jails closing, 34 of which will come from Lorain.

“We need to talk to courts on how to get some of the lower level offenders out of the jail so we don’t end up with lawsuits or any issues with prisoners.”

Stammitti said he would support programs for low-risk prisoners instead of throwing them in jail. About 30 percent of the jail’s current population has a misdemeanor, or minor, offense, he said.

“The answer is not building a bigger and better jail,” Stammitti said. “Let’s keep the most violent people in jail and get programs for repeat offenders. It would be cheaper than keeping these guys in jail.”

Thirty percent of the offenders at the county jail are serving time for misdemeanors, he said.

The jail is currently taking in who would have gone to Elyria’s jail, which closed last month. Elyria decided to close the jail because of a significant lack of revenue this year, city Safety Service Director Chris Eichenlaub said. Twelve officers and three supervisors were laid off.

Lorain Mayor Anthony Krasienko said he is still looking at ways to keep his city’s jail open and operating, but would not discuss any of his ideas. He sent out layoff notices to Lorain’s three correctional officers who run the jail last week.

“The city of Lorain never wanted to be in the jail business,” Krasienko said. “When we got out, we had no intention of ever getting back in. We only went back in as a last resort necessity because we had nowhere to take our prisoners.”

The city jail was closed in 2004 because of high operating costs. It reopened May 2, 2008, after City Council approved spending more than $300,000 for renovations. The jail is used as a 12-day holding facility with 34 beds.

Like the first time it closed, Lorain police Chief Cel Rivera said officers will be forced to issue citations instead of taking offenders off the streets. The other option is for officers to charge offenders under state codes so they can be sent to the county jail without cost to the city. If people are charged under city ordinance violations and sent to the county, it costs the city about $75 a day per prisoner.

janchavarie Economic Issues, OH Lorain City, Overcrowding

Canyon County considers a May election after Tuesday’s jail bond defeat; authorities worry about crime, and consequences with no teeth. The failure last week of a bond measure to pay for a new Canyon County jail leaves officials stymied on how to deal with overcrowding — and with a lawsuit-sparked limit on the number of inmates the jail can house. One alternative: sentence criminals to the Sheriff’s Inmate Labor Detail, like this one cleaning up trash at the Canyon County public shooting range. Complete details in the Idaho Statesman.

Local officials have long lamented the overcrowding at Canyon County’s jail. But now that the prisoner population has been capped to ward off a civil-rights lawsuit, local police and court leaders are equally worried about the toll from keeping the jail uncrowded.

“We’re letting people out of jail I really wish could be kept in jail,” said Caldwell police Chief Chris Allgood. “And most people with misdemeanors don’t even go to jail in the first place, because there’s no room.

“I believe the people who regularly commit crimes will realize they won’t be going to jail, and the deterrent will go away,” Allgood said. “Our crime rate could go back up.”

Police issue tickets or book and release nonviolent offenders who otherwise would go directly to jail. Prosecutors are seeking, and judges are granting, varied alternative sentences for crimes that earlier would have landed the perpetrators behind bars.

“My perception is, everyone is frustrated that Canyon County’s brand of justice can’t be enforced any more because the jail can’t hold the people,” County Prosecutor John Bujak said Friday, three days after voters defeated a $46 million bond measure to build a new, much bigger jail.

County leaders are considering putting the jail issue back on the ballot, possibly in May. But even if the bond had passed Tuesday, it would have taken at least two years to get the new jail up and running.

And in the meantime, the county must abide by an agreement it forged with the American Civil Liberties Union to keep the jail population within state standards. The August pact, prompted by a class-action lawsuit alleging inhumane conditions, means no more than 296 inmates in a structure that has held as many as twice that number in recent years. About 60 more can be kept in the adjacent 1940s-era jail, now known as “the annex.”

As a result of the inmate cap, local law enforcement agencies have signed agreements with the county not to jail most misdemeanor offenders.

“We’ll still take people to jail for anything violent – domestic violence, violation of protection orders,” Allgood said. “The jail has worked very well with us to take the people we bring in. They may have to make room somewhere else.”

Report continues on the Idaho Statesman.

janchavarie Early Release, ID Canyon County, Idaho, Overcrowding, Sentencing

Indiana has a prison problem. It’s not new. It’s just something that continues to be ignored. Story in the Post-Tribune.

And it is something that Edwin Buss, the commissioner of the Indiana Department of Correction, is addressing.

“Every murderer or armed robber sentenced today has no bed waiting for them,” Buss told the Journal-Gazette of Fort Wayne a couple weeks ago. “It hasn’t had a traumatic effect yet, but I liken prison overcrowding to playing Russian roulette.”

Indiana has 27,300 men and women behind bars. That number grows between 1,000 and 1,200 each year.

In the first half of 2009, Indiana’s prisons had 514 inmate-on-inmate attacks, 62 of which caused serious injuries. That compares with 719 such attacks, 101 with serious injuries, during all of 2008.

And the attacks on the prison staff are on the increase.

There essentially are two answers to the problem — build more prisons or release the minor offenders. Even when the state was flush with money, there was little enthusiasm for building new prisons. With today’s tight economic conditions, there is virtually no push for the construction of new facilities. There is a reluctance to build even though prison officials said the recent escape of three inmates from the state prison at Michigan City occurred, in part, because it is such an aging facility.

There are a couple of reasons why there are more inmates. Through a variety of federal spending programs, there are more police officers on our streets. And there is more law enforcement emphasis on narcotics.

Elected officials, particularly those in the General Assembly, take pride in the laws they have passed calling for mandatory penalties for some offenses — particularly those involving narcotics. It’s time they revisit those laws as well as turn attention to community corrections as an alternative to prison.

janchavarie Indiana, Overcrowding