But age 37 has been different. Jurik is working and staying clean. She is going to school and learning there are people in the world who care about her. Report by LJWorld.com.

“I feel like somebody worth something,” she said, sitting between the two women she credits with much of her success.

The women are Dot Fernandez and Cindy Manske, co-founders of Freedom Foundation Ministries. Since last June, they have been holding life-skills classes for women in Topeka Correctional Facility and pairing them with mentors for when they are released. The group also offers optional religious services.

“It’s important for them to have that support from somebody who doesn’t want anything from them,” Fernandez said.

After Jurik was released from prison last April, Fernandez helped her get a job at a restaurant and enroll in cosmetology school in Topeka. She has also helped Jurik avoid her old way of life, which included alcohol abuse and bad relationships. She was convicted multiple times for forgery and drug possession.

Jurik said she has had one addiction relapse since being released from prison. In the past, that would have been the beginning of a downward spiral that likely would have ended in another prison cell. This time she called for help, and Fernandez spent an emotional hour in a cafe counseling Jurik.

Jurik said she has been clean since.

“I’ve used her to pick me up when I’ve fallen,” Jurik said.

Progress lost

Kansas was recently a model for helping people like Jurik.

In 2007, former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed legislation to grant up to 60 days in reduced sentences for inmates who attended offender re-entry programs and appropriated $4 million in grants for communities with plans to reduce recidivism.

Kansas was among the top three states with the largest improvement in its recidivism rate from 2004-2007, according to a 2011 Pew Study, and its inmate population fell 5 percent from fiscal year 2006 fiscal to year 2009, according to the Kansas Legislative Research Department.

Gov. Sam Brownback, then a U.S. senator, championed a bipartisan bill inspired by the Kansas law. It was later signed by President George W. Bush and became the Second Chance Act, which awarded grants to governments and organizations that helped offenders better return to society.

But Kansas’ fiscal woes have taken a toll on such programs, and the Kansas inmate population has been back on the rise. Every year since fiscal year 2009, there have been more people in Kansas prisons and jails than the year before. There were 9,186 prisoners in September 2011, the highest number in a decade.

It’s a trend the Department of Corrections worries will continue given current funding levels for offender programs. The Kansas Legislative Research Department included that concern in its 2012 legislators’ briefing book, a guide of issues provided to state lawmakers.

Fernandez believes her program is allowed access to the prison because of the state’s diminished ability to provide such services. But she praised Brownback, who has called for every Kansas inmate to have a mentor during the months before and after they are released.

“I know he (Brownback) isn’t always the most popular, but that’s something very positive he’s done,” Fernandez said.

As of December, 500 volunteers have been recruited for Brownback’s Mentoring 4 Success initiative.

Manske, the other Freedom Foundation co-founder, acknowledges the teaching and the mentoring is time intensive and affects relatively few. They have resources to help just 10 women each year. To her, it’s still progress.

“It’s one woman at a time,” Manske said.

Hope

Jurik has 12-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. They live in Louisiana, and she hasn’t seen them since they were 3.

A few weeks ago, their father unexpectedly emailed her a link to a Facebook page he had created. She opened it up and saw pictures of her twins, happy and doing well. She hopes she will get to see them again.

“It’s just one little step,” Jurik said. “Now I’m being reunited with my children slowly. It’s just a lot of good things.”

Public safety spending trimmed by 9 percent. Funding for community corrections programs, re-entry programs for parolees and juvenile detention facilities is sharply cut …

Rep. Pat Colloton, a Leawood Republican, urged lawmakers to return $5 million to the state’s prison system to avoid reduced funding for community corrections programs and initiatives helping parolees overcome addiction and mental health issues.   Lawmakers credit such programs with reducing recidivism and eliminating the need for new prisons. Now, with funding cut, “crime will increase,” Colloton warned. “Our prisoner population will go up.” Lawmakers agreed to restore about $1.2 million of the funds.

Excerpted from a much longer article on the budget at the Kansas City Star.

Cuts already announced in corrections would amount to $14.8 million, Werholtz said in a memo issued Friday, Feb. 27. This is about 5 percent of the department’s total spending. Werholtz said approval of the governor’s revised budget would allow the department to continue funding a number of programs that have been considered for possible reduction or elimination. “Specifically these include the suspension of operations of the facilities at Winfield and Norton,” he said. The department would also avoid significant reductions in parole services and community corrections, Werholtz said, and “elimination of special enforcement officers and virtual elimination of the remainder of offender programs” …

The state expects to receive $1.7 billion in stimulus funds. The Sebelius administration has allocated $81 million of that money to the department of corrections over two years, according to Werholtz.

In this time of economic turmoil some legislators in Kansas and elsewhere say the price of justice is too high. They have introduced legislation to take the death penalty off the books over financial concerns. CNN reports.

“Because of the downturn in the national economy, we are facing one of the largest budget deficits in our history,” state Sen. Carolyn McGinn, a Republican, said in an opinion piece posted on TheKansan.com Friday. “What is certain is we are all going to have to look at new and creative ways to fund state and community programs and services.”   The state would save more than $500,000 per case by not seeking the death penalty, McGinn wrote, money that could be used for “prevention programs, community corrections and other programs to decrease future crimes against society” …

A 2008 study by the Urban Institute, an economic and social policy research group based in Maryland, found that an average capital murder trial in the state resulting in a death sentence costs about $3 million, or $1.9 million more than a case where the death penalty is not sought.  A similar 2008 study by the ACLU in Northern California found that a death- penalty trial costs about $1.1 million more than a non-death-penalty trial in California …

New Mexico, which also has a bill before the Legislature to abolish the death penalty, has already seen a case where costs dictated the outcome. Last year, the New Mexico attorney general’s office agreed to drop the death penalty for two inmates involved in the stabbing death of a guard, Ralph Garcia, during a 1999 riot at the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility.   The change came after the state Legislature failed to provide additional funding for defense attorneys contracted to handle the case by the public defender’s office.  In court documents filed at the time, Attorney General Gary King said his office could not “in good faith under these circumstances” pursue the death penalty against Robert Young and Reis Lopez …

In Colorado, House Bill 1274 proposes to put the anticipated savings from abolishing the death penalty toward the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s cold case homicide team.

Other States with bills for an economic end to the death penalty include Washington, Montana, Nebraska, Texas and New Hampshire.

In Wichita, which last year ran up a bill of more than $3 million in jail fees that it has refused to pay, bookings were down 10.4 percent.   In the six other cities that haven’t been paying the fees, bookings were down an average of 8.6 percent.  In the nine cities that have paid the fees, bookings were up 7.7 percent …

[E]ven though the number of bookings has slowed, it was more than offset by an increase in the average length of stay of inmates.  “It’s still growing,” Sheriff Bob Hinshaw said of the jail’s daily population. “It’s just not growing as fast.”  Hinshaw said the number of bookings has slowed in recent years thanks to a new day-reporting center and other programs that offer alternatives to incarceration … Hinshaw said Sedgwick County continues to house nearly 300 of its inmates in other counties. Jail officials recently have been looking into the feasibility of using the recently closed Labette County Boot Camp or other unused state prison facilities as possible sources of extra jail beds. “We’re starting to run out of options,” Hinshaw said.

The story from the Wichita Eagle has a lot more information about the County’s dispute with its cities.

Kansas Secretary of Corrections Roger Werholtz today announced that the operations at the Norton Correctional Facility – East Unit will be suspended effective April 1, 2009. Suspending operations at Stockton had previously been scheduled to occur June 30, 2009, but has been advanced in the ongoing effort to reduce the Fiscal Year 2009 budget.

“Suspending operations at Stockton is expected to save the Department approximately $339,000 in the current fiscal year,” Werholtz said. “Governor Sebelius included plans to suspend operations in June as part of the Fiscal Year 2010 reductions, but the need to further reduce the budget for this year has placed us in a position where advancing that date to April 1 is necessary.”

The Stockton Unit is a minimum security facility with a capacity for 128 inmates. Currently, the facility has a population of 64. Those inmates will be transferred to open capacity at other facilities throughout the correctional system.

“This is another difficult decision we must take in an effort to reduce expenditures,” Werholtz said. “We recognize that some of our outstanding staff will be directly impacted by this decision, as well as the Stockton community. We will be working with all affected parties to minimize the impact of this action.”

The Kansas Department of Corrections has floated a list of possible cuts that would include a 3 percent cut to community corrections programs and another one that would include 10 percent.  “We can probably absorb the 3 percent reduction without losing people, but I don’t know how we would handle that bigger cut,” Stegall said.

In Douglas County, community corrections officers supervise about 200 people sentenced to probation for more serious crimes. The department has seven full-time probation officers, including Stegall who also supervises the county’s court services department, which handles less severe probation offenders.   Community corrections, which has a $512,000 budget, also has two part-time surveillance officers who check on offenders, typically in the evenings, to make sure they are meeting terms of their probation.  The surveillance officers could be the first to go if the department has to make deep cuts, Stegall said …

Stegall said if his department is forced to deal with significant cuts, like personnel, he would likely ask the county commission for some financial support.   [Douglas County Administrator Craig] Weinaug has said the administration would recommend doing what it can to help the probation office.   “At some point the county has to consider taking over that function with local tax dollars rather than state tax dollars,” he said. “Obviously it’s very difficult to do when all these other things are being cut. But to not fund that costs the bottom line more dollars because it costs more to have them in jail.”

“This needs to be done very, very carefully,” says Gene Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He sees the need for savings, he says, “but at what cost?”   Probation and parole violators account for up to two-thirds of prison admissions each year in some states. The cost of locking them up for technical violations, such as drug-test failures or missed meetings with officers, is straining local budgets.   “Although some violators must be returned to prison to protect public safety, states are looking at how they can get people out of prison without risking public safety,” says Alison Lawrence of the National Conference of State Legislatures …Among the policy changes:

• Kansas is allowing probation and parole officers to decide whether those who violate early release conditions for non-violent offenses should go back to prison.  “The response to every violation doesn’t have to be a revocation of parole or probation,” Kansas Department of Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz says. The initiative has helped cut probation revocations by more than 20%.

• Tennessee Department of Corrections Commissioner George Little wants accelerated releases for probation and parole violators who are sent back to prison and complete drug-abuse and other counseling programs. The program would cut their prison time from about 17 months to three months.

• Arizona lawmakers approved a 2008 measure that lets thousands of probationers end their terms early. The program accelerates the “good time” they can apply against their sentences, reducing the chances they could be sent to prison for condition violations.

The prisons at Toronto, Osawatomie and Stockton have produced tens of thousands of work hours each year for some state parks, towns and nonprofit organizations. But to save about $900,000 this year, the Kansas Department of Corrections is closing those facilities …

Some state parks have depended on inmate labor for more than 40 years and don’t have the budget to hire replacements. “It’s going to affect us drastically,” said Kim Jones, interim manager for Fall River and Cross Timbers state parks in southeast Kansas. “For years, inmates have been our main source of labor. Probably 98 percent of the improvements we’ve had in the last 20 years have been from inmate work.” Jones said the two parks received more than 25,000 hours of inmate labor from Toronto Correctional Facility last year. The closing equates to losing 12 full-time employees. It would cost about $347,000 to replace that labor by hiring replacement workers, Jones said, but there’s no budget for such spending.

There is much more information at the Wichita Eagle story.

The closing of the unit will eliminate 16 full-time equivalent positions at the prison and save $160,000 during the remainder of fiscal year 2009, according to a written statement. The actual number of affected employees was not provided.  In the event that the unit remains shuttered for all of fiscal year 2010, the department of corrections would save $592,000, according to Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz.

Werholtz said Winfield has a capacity of 554 minimum custody inmates and a population of 423. “Now the inmate population system wide has decreased to a point where we can relocate more than 100 inmates to open beds (in other units) at Winfield and reduce our staffing expenditures,” he said.