In January, a consultant told Lancaster County PA prison officials it would cost $169 million to build a new prison.  Next week, the same consultant will discuss the financial wisdom of abandoning the current prison entirely if a new prison is built.   Yet officials say that when it comes to dealing with the county’s prison overcrowding problem, they’ll be passing out thinking caps long before they break out any shovels.  Reported by LancasterOnline.

At next Thursday’s prison board meeting, L. Robert Kimball & Associates will outline for the board how much cheaper it would be to operate one big, new prison than to run the current prison and a scaled-down prison to be built somewhere else.  A January report prepared Kimball detailed the shortcomings of the circa-1851 prison at 625 E. King St., which  has a design capacity for 658 beds, but today is home to 1,143 prisoners.  That report discussed the projected need in 2025 for 2,114 prison beds, then laid out several scenarios to build a new prison. The most ambitious plan was for a new, 2,158-bed facility that would cost  $169.42 million to build, an amount roughly equal to the cost of the downtown hotel/convention center.  Yet most prison board members say the are now focused on how to save money, not how to spend it on a new prison …

“We’re just not going to build ourselves out of this problem right now when there’s other things we could be doing before we get to that point,” said County Commissioner Scott Martin.   Martin, who chairs the seven-member prison board, said streamlining some court operations and setting up a day-reporting center are among the options that would free up space at the East King Street prison, delaying the need for a new jail …

Among the improvements, [District Attorney Craig] Stedman said, would be to streamline the court’s scheduling system to get people to trial quicker, thereby cutting down on the number of prisoners who are waiting for a trial date.   In 2006, the Kimball report said the average stay in the county prison was 71 days, while adding that every day knocked off that average could reduce the daily prison population by 16 prisoners.  And since about 80 percent of prisoners in the county prison that year were awaiting trial, getting them through the court system quicker could free up a lot of space …

Commissioner Craig Lehman also highlighted the benefits of a day reporting center, which could be set up apart from the prison and include drug testing and job training services.  With such a center here, probation officers could send violators there instead of simply adding them to an already overcrowded prison, local officials say.

vericatrajkova Court Delays, Drug Treatment & Diversion, Economic Issues, Overcrowding, PA Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Pre-Trial, Prison and Jail Construction

The Canadian government believes its move to scrap “two-for-one” credit for time offenders serve in pre-trial custody will clear up clogged courts and provincial facilities.  Reported by the Calgary Herald.

Calgary MP Jim Prentice, a lawyer and the government’s regional minister, said Friday the proposed changes will be a deterrent to criminals, adding the current system provides offenders with an incentive to remain in remand and pile up credit that ultimately reduces their jail term.  “It’s created a system where there are many sentence delays which actually benefit the accused because they’re getting additional credit for time served in provincial custody,” Prentice said at a press conference at Calgary’s Remand Centre …

It has become standard practice for courts to give offenders double credit for so-called “dead time” in remand centres. The credit is sometimes given because of overcrowding or a lack of programs for inmates.  Inmates have received credit as high as three-for-one.  The proposed legislation would cap the credit for time served to a one-to-one ratio allowing individuals one day of credit for each day spent in custody prior to sentencing. However, it would allow courts to permit a ratio up to 1.5 where circumstances are justified.

vericatrajkova Americas, Canada, INTERNATIONAL, Pre-Trial, Sentencing

Having spent much of the first half of the session filling a big budget hole, legislators in Kentucky are now scrambling to push through a series of measures aimed at reducing prison costs.

With just 12 legislative days to go, at least six such bills approach skyrocketing costs from a variety of angles — including expanded drug treatment, more credits for education and good behavior and raising the threshold for certain theft offenses.   “There are a number of things coming together which are going to be foundations,” Justice Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown said. Officials are hurriedly working to draft two additional proposals that would expand eligibility for parole for sick and disabled inmates and allow pre-sentence investigations to be waived if all sides agree, Brown said …

Kentucky is expected to spend about $450 million to house prisoners this year, compared with $7 million in 1973. Even adjusting for inflation, the state spends about 14 times more to house inmates now than it did then.   The state’s prison population — about 22,000 — is the fastest-growing in the nation and could reach 31,000 within 10 years, according to a recent report by the Pew Center on the States …

One of the measures … could save the state and counties an estimated $4.9 million a year by slashing the rate they pay for inmate medical care.   SB 73, sponsored by Sen. Robert Stivers,  … would cut the rate states and counties pay for most inmate medical care by about 18 to 20 percent.  “Savings would be substantial for the state, (and) we are in some tough times,” he said last week. Hospitals oppose the measure, saying they already struggle to cover the costs of treating the poor.

A bill that passed a House committee last week would make permanent a controversial program that gives prisoners credit for time spent on parole before being returned to prison for technical violations.  House Bill 372, sponsored by Tilley, would exclude all prisoners convicted of violent or sexual offenses from being eligible for the parole supervision credit. In the previous session, the legislature included the parole supervision credit in its budget as part of a plan to trim $30 million from the corrections budget. A Legislative Research Commission report says that the credit has saved the state nearly $13 million this fiscal year and could save another $1.1 million through the remainder of the year. More than 2,000 inmates have been released since May …

Another corrections measure, HB 369, sponsored by Tilley, would increase the threshold for felony theft to $500, from $300, thereby decreasing penalties for low-level theft and decreasing prison costs.Currently, a person can be sentenced to one to five years in prison — at an average annual cost to the state of $19,031 — for stealing an item valued at $300.

There is even more detail in the article at the Louisville Courier-Journal.

vericatrajkova Early Release, Economic Issues, Inmate Health, Kentucky, Pre-Trial, Probation and Parole, Sentencing

McLean County IL officials agree that because of the expense involved, construction of additional beds to ease overcrowding should be a last resort.  So, the agenda of the recently-formed Criminal Justice Coordinating Council will include discussion of possible alternatives to jail.  Report from the Bloomington Pantagraph.

Options for Justice is an advocate of electronic monitoring, a system that tracks inmates’ whereabouts via an ankle bracelet.  Committee member Carol Reitan said releasing pre-trial detainees and people sentenced on lesser offenses could help parents stay with their children and keep novice criminals from coming into contact with serious offenders while in jail. At a cost of about $10 per day, monitoring also saves money, she said.    “With electronic monitoring we’re not providing a public bed and food every night,” said Reitan.

Another option is establishing a reporting center that would require offenders to check in daily … The county’s drug court, in place since 2006, is helping divert some people from prosecution.  A mental health court that would put larger numbers of inmates on track for treatment instead of jail is in the early stages of development.

vericatrajkova Drug Treatment & Diversion, Early Release, Electronic Monitoring, IL McLean County, Overcrowding, Pre-Trial

Sending alleged criminals to live in “bail houses” in residential areas in England has led to an outcry among many people who live near them.

To those charged with keeping a lid on Britain’s growing prison population, they are a common-sense method of coping with defendants going through the courts, and with inmates who have been released from prison.  However, for many of those who live near them, the bail homes – unsupervised and without formal planning approval – threaten to create a haven for drug addicts and become a magnet for crime.   Petitions are frequently started by neighbours fearful of burglars, predatory paedophiles or violent thugs.

However, the government maintains that much misinformation surrounds the homes and that they never house high-risk offenders.  Those who cannot be sent to bail houses include anyone convicted or accused of sexual offences, murder, arson, causing death by dangerous driving, weapons offences, cruelty to children or racially-aggravated crimes …

Private firm ClearSprings now runs 166 homes, with room for 613 people. They are ordinary two-to-five-bedroom houses in residential areas and, unlike traditional bail hostels, they have no on-site supervision …  Opposition Justice spokesman Dominic Grieve said there would always be a need for bail hostels but favours the traditional model, with permanent supervision.”These are not really bail hostels, they are places for people to be sent on early release,” he said, referring to the government’s controversial policy of releasing people early from prison sentences to ease overcrowding.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman acknowledged the pressures on the prison system but said early release prisoners made up a minority in ClearSprings accommodation … “These are people who would be bailed into the community but who, for whatever reason, don’t have a home to go to,” he said …  As the government points out, many of those who stay in bail houses have not been convicted of any crime.

vericatrajkova Bail, England & Wales, Europe, Pre-Trial

In Baldwin County AL, the power to manage and operate Community Corrections in the county has been transfered to Sheriff Huey Mack jr. The Sheriff has a three part plan for the future.

After his office takes over April 1, the sheriff said he expects a pre-trial release component of the program to launch in May or June. That will be the first of three phases in community corrections, Mack said. He explained that pre-trial release for community corrections would be similar to releasing someone who had posted a bond, but with added means to monitor the defendant. People accused of lesser crimes who cannot afford a bond may be eligible for the pre-trial release consideration, Mack said, but it will not be open for people suspected of violent or sex-related crimes. “It will add a supervision and an accountability component to pretrial release,” Mack said. “We’re hoping that by adding that extra check and balance system that we’ll be able to get the people that qualify into that system” … Once pre-trial release is set up, the program allows for community service and a post-conviction corrections center, for which the commission already has allotted $1 million. Mack said he did not yet have a time frame for either of those components.

There’s more on this story from the Birmingham Press-Register.

vericatrajkova AL Baldwin County, Community Corrections, Pre-Trial

Newsday has a long article about the growth in the use of monitored home detention for what would otherwise be pre-trial inmates.

The courts, many experts say, are embracing home-confinement technology as it becomes available and as affordable ways of using it are developed. The more common use is for home detention after conviction, but use of pretrial electronic monitoring with electronic ankle bracelets and other devices is growing. “The general public is chafing under paying taxes for prisons,” said Marc Renzema, a criminal justice professor at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, who tracks the impact of monitoring and confinement techniques. The expense of prisons is the “driver” of increasingly elaborate bail agreements, he said, noting that, nationally, the number of offenders being monitored electronically grew from zero in 1982 to between 8,000 and 9,000 in 1990. Today, Renzema said, as many as 200,000 Americans — most of them already convicted, and some having served prison time –are being monitored electronically.

Much of the article is about the kind of security conditions imposed on alleged criminals who have lots of money to protect them from the every-day jail experience.

When the Muttontown NY couple convicted of keeping domestic servants in slave-like conditions were granted bail before their trial last year, they temporarily escaped imprisonment. But the home Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani returned to was hardly sweet: Their activities, communications and visitors were monitored 24 hours a day by private security guards — a system that cost the couple about $15,000 a day … All doors are locked and only armed security guards hold the keys to their Muttontown home. Guards are posted at two of the doors at all times. The alarm system code was changed, and only guards know the code. All communications are monitored by another guard in the home’s basement. Only one phone, one computer and one fax machine can be used, and all conversations must be in English. Two children with severe diabetes can keep cell phones for medical emergencies; all calls are monitored …

Some of the conditions for the pretrial release of David Brooks, who is accused of looting DHB Industries:

• Post $400-million personal-recognizance bond, secured by $48 million in assets.
• Surrender passport.
• Remain in an apartment in an undisclosed location, where he is monitored through an electronic bracelet.
• Employ a security firm approved by the U.S. attorney’s office. The firm posts two guards, at least one of them armed, who can use “reasonable force” to detain Brooks if he attempts to flee.
• Access to only one computer in the apartment with one Internet connection.
• Consent to unannounced searches by the security firm.
• Monitoring of any visitors to the apartment, who are limited primarily to family and attorneys.
• Movement outside of the apartment is restricted to court appearances and doctor appointments, and only after notifying the U.S. attorney’s office.

More details in the article.

vericatrajkova Bail, Electronic Monitoring, Pre-Trial

In England, Canada and many other countries, agreeing to pay a defendant’s bond in exchange for money is a crime akin to witness tampering or bribing a juror — a form of obstruction of justice.

Other countries almost universally reject and condemn [the bailbondsman's] trade, in which defendants who are presumed innocent but cannot make bail on their own pay an outsider a nonrefundable fee for their freedom. “It’s a very American invention,” John Goldkamp, a professor of criminal justice at Temple University said of the commercial bail bond system. “It’s really the only place in the criminal justice system where a liberty decision is governed by a profit-making businessman who will or will not take your business.”

… Most of the legal establishment, including the American Bar Association and the National District Attorneys Association, hates the bail bond business, saying it discriminates against poor and middle-class defendants, does nothing for public safety, and usurps decisions that ought to be made by the justice system … Commercial bail bond companies dominate the pretrial release systems of only two nations, the United States and the Philippines.

The New York Times article is a fascinating look into this business that is a thriving part of our North American industry.

vericatrajkova Bail, Pre-Trial

The London Daily Telegraph reports on the costs of a private bail service in England.

Inmates held in a series of new privately run bail hostels have cost the taxpayer more than £6,000 each in their first five months of operation, figures show. The news comes after it emerged that almost 75,000 violent crime suspects, including 10,000 alleged sex offenders, were freed on bail last year.

Last Summer, the National Offender Management Service awarded a contract for a new bail accomodation and support service to a private company, Clearsprings Ltd. Figures obtained by the shadow justice secretary Nick Herbert showed that in the first five and a half months of the contract, 223 defendants were housed at the hostels. A further 152 offenders were kept under “home detention curfew” by Clearsprings. The total bill to the taxpayer was £2.4 million – or £6,400 per inmate.

The news comes after a parliamentary answer revealed that last year magistrates and judges were putting 205 violent crime suspects back on the streets every day. Some 13,900 people suspected of violence were remanded in custody, compared to 64,800 set free. For sex offences, 10,100 suspects were bailed, while 2,300 were held. Victims’ groups were outraged. A spokesman for Victim Support said: “The protection of victims is paramount: they are entitled to information and protection.”

vericatrajkova England & Wales, INTERNATIONAL, Pre-Trial

• This article has a good view of a work-release center in Clark County, Indiana.
• Also in Indiana, McLean County’s Jail Committee pushes for pre-trial GPS monitoring.
• RemoteDMX (SecureAlert) reports annual figures.
• Alabama’s Chief Justice praises county’s use of diversion alternatives.

vericatrajkova Alabama, Community Corrections, Electronic Monitoring, IN Clark County, IN McLean County, Pre-Trial, SecureAlert, Work Release