Budget restraints and a growing prison population have led lawmakers to take a closer look at the parole system and consider alternatives to incarceration. Officials are hoping Senate Bill 500, a bill on the way to Gov. John Lynch’s office, will address both issues and then some. News from the Foster’s Daily Democrat.

Lynch supports and is expected to sign the measure, according to spokesman Colin Manning. The legislation focuses on preventing repeat offenders from going back to jail by increasing the availability of substance abuse and mental health treatment as well as increasing supervision for high-concern individuals who are most likely to reoffend.

It also calls for the release of all nonviolent offenders after they have served 120 percent of their minimum prison sentences, a move geared toward freeing up the courts from holding unnecessary parole hearings. Other stipulations include a 90-day prison sentence spent in special programming for parole violators, instead of making violators serve their remaining maximum sentence.

Finally, all prisoners who haven’t been previously paroled would be released nine months before their maximum sentences expire.

The logic behind the bill is to reduce the prison population and costs to the state.

Lawmakers say New Hampshire has been one of the safest states in the nation for the last 10 years, but despite that, the state prison population has increased by 31 percent in that period, resulting in the corrections budget doubling from $52 million to $104 million.

The main causes are probation and parole revocations, which account for 57 percent of admissions to state prison, according to lawmakers.

Senate President Sylvia Larsen, D-Concord, is the primary sponsor of SB500 and said it has the potential to reduce recidivism by promoting community-based programming.

“It has both good implications for improving better public safety outcomes and reducing state spending, making wiser investments with our state dollars,” she said.

New Hampshire Chief Justice John Broderick said focusing on community-based programming and adjusting parole is the only way to get the corrections budget down, which at $104 million far surpasses the court system’s budget of $76.2 million.

Broderick, Attorney General Michael Delaney and several others were on a state task force assigned to examine ways to control the corrections budget. The group developed SB500 with the help of the Council of the State Governments’ Justice Center, which helps states create policies based on research.

“Corrections is something we looked at extensively and we noticed it was becoming increasingly expensive and the failure rate was growing,” Broderick said.

He said parole violations really stuck out to him and it became immediately apparent that something needed to be done about minor probation violations.

For example, a person could violate their probation by drinking a beer, and while it’s still a violation, it doesn’t make fiscal sense to make that person go back to prison and serve their maximum sentence.

“Some of these violations are a new crime entirely, but many are technical in nature,” he said. “We’ve never had the flexibility of having intermediate sentences for parole violations, it’s been easy to do it the old way, without thinking about the cost.”

Another harsh reality that needed to be acknowledged is that many parolees reoffend because they have some sort of substance abuse or mental problem and can’t get the proper treatment in prison because of a lack of resources, according to Broderick.

Of the 160 women incarcerated at the women’s prison in Goffstown, 70 percent have some sort of mental health or substance abuse problem, he said.

“It’s not a coincidence that people with these issues are behind bars,” he said. “We had to ask ourselves how can we ensure them better success when they leave prison? We can pretend there’s no problem or pretend that being incarcerated would solve all their mental health or substance abuse problems, or we can do something about it.”

The state is hoping to reinvest whatever savings comes from SB500 back into community-based programming dealing with mental health and substance abuse, according to Broderick.

Some, including the state Parole Board, have criticized the bill for being too soft on crime, but Broderick says something needs to change because “failure is expensive.”

“If we don’t change anything, nothing will change other than we’ll incarcerate more people,” he said.

Programs similar to SB500 are being tried in Kansas and Texas, he added.

The state Department of Corrections is in favor of bill, according to department spokesman Jeff Lyons.

He said the state now relies on county-level programs but is limited itself, outside of traditional probation, electronic monitoring and administrative home confinement.

“We’re supporting the bill because we feel strongly it will go quite a ways to making offenders successful in the community,” he said. “There’s more emphasis on community-based treatment in an effort to keep them from returning.”

The DOC estimates the bill will decrease state general fund expenditures by $22,862 in fiscal year 2011 and could result in a savings of $3,210,247 by 2014. Most of the initial savings would come from marginal savings, such as costs for medical, food, clothing and inmate pay.

By 2013, the state would start to see more savings from staff and the elimination of contracts they have with county facilities to house overflow inmates.

Lyons said he’s optimistic about a portion of the bill that calls for the early release of inmates nearing the end of their maximum sentence.

“We have over 200 prisoners a year that max out of their sentences, and once they’re done, they’re done, and we have no authority over them whatsoever,” he said.

Being released into society without any structure often leads to these prisoners reoffending and ending up back in prison, Lyons said.

“If we can get them out nine months early and get them some treatment, at least we can help them make an attempt of getting back on track,” he said.

The DOC also has taken its own steps to reduce recidivism by expanding its division of community corrections. It was expanded through a federal grant and by using leftover funds from a discontinued academy program.

Lyons said the academy program was limited to only first-time offenders and involved multiple treatment programs. He said the state’s focus now is to open up treatment programs to a wider range of prisoners.

The state also is looking to hire case counselors to help develop treatment programs for inmates, a job that now falls to the parole officers, Lyons said.

“This would allow for the parole officers to focus more on law enforcement, while councilors can focus on counseling,” he said.

Community-based programming and alternative sentencing programs have been successful on the jail population at the county level.

Strafford County has numerous community programs and alternative sentencing options available, including a drug court and drug academy, mental health court, therapeutic communities within the jail, community work programs and traditional pre- and post-trial monitoring.

County Administrator Ray Bower said the county has a less than 10 percent failure rate in its programs, which save the county more than $6 million annually.

“Based on our success from early release and monitoring, as long as the state is committed to helping these early release inmates be successful, I have no doubt it will be successful,” he said.

However, he did caution there are sometimes differences between a jail inmate and prison inmate, based on seriousness of crime, and notes the state needs to be cautious about how they apply some of the new policies.

SB500 does call for a risk assessment of all parolees to determine their risk of reoffending.

Other bills geared toward reducing the recidivism rate include:
— House Bill 621: Establishes earlier time frames for conducting a pretrial examination by a psychiatrist or psychologist, requires the establishment of mental illness screening procedures and establishes new procedures for the appointment of counsel for a person with a mental illness. This bill has a Senate hearing set for May 26.

— HB1177: Establishes a committee to study educational and career development programs for youths and young adults in the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems. That bill has passed both the House and Senate.

jchev New Hampshire, Parole, Re-offending, Recidivism

The State Prison population would shrink nearly 20 percent in five years if the state paid for mental health treatment and more intense supervision of high-risk offenders while letting nonviolent offenders get out of jail earlier and face shorter supervision than they do now, a state report finds.News published by the Nashua Telegraph.

Judges, prosecutors, key state legislators and correction professionals overseeing a three-year study on prison recidivism Monday praised the findings of the Council of State Governments Justice Center’s report.

“These options would change how we think about the size of prison we need to build for offenders in this state,” said Senate President Sylvia Larsen, D-Concord.

The group will meet early next month to review the estimated costs and savings from these reforms and decide whether to urge the Legislature to adopt them.

To save money on prison spending long term requires spending it now, the authors concede.

For example, it would cost $2.4 million a year to give mental health treatment and rapid drug testing for all high- and medium-risk offenders in the community who need it, the report said.

Serving the high-risk offenders alone would cost $1.3 million, the study said.

Dr. Fred Osher is CSG director of health policy and said community treatment has a more lasting effect on keeping offenders from coming back.

“That’s where the action is,” Osher said.

The report urges that lawmakers spend 50 percent of the millions they would save on additional treatment in the community for offenders with alcohol and drug abuse problems, mental health illnesses or both at the same time.

National studies find that while counseling in prison cuts recidivism by 6 percent, combining that with treatment after release curbs it by 12 percent.

With the state already facing a significant revenue shortfall, some members of the panel asked the authors to list changes that won’t cost any money.

“There is a major cash flow problem we are facing, not just in this biennium but in the next biennium as well,” said state Rep. Neal Kurk, R-Weare.

Attorney General Michael Delaney urged quick action on one item after the report found that after serving maximum prison terms, more than 220 inmates each year were released into the community with no supervision.

Every offender should get at least nine months in the community with a tiered length of supervision depending on the severity of their crime, the study urged.

“These are law enforcement improvements that are long overdue and will make a big difference on the streets in the cities and towns of New Hampshire,” Delaney said.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick said community supports for inmates beyond mental health treatment need to be in place such as housing and available jobs.

“If somebody told me tomorrow I would have no home and no job, how would I do?” Broderick asked rhetorically.

Since 2000, the prison population has grown by 31 percent, but only 3 percent of that growth has come from new offenders committing crimes, said Marshall Clement, project director.

Within three years, more than half (51 percent) of those sent to State Prison return and that rate is above the national average.

Without change, the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies estimates that by 2015, the State Prison population will grow 6 percent to 3,029.

The Department of Corrections says inmate ranks will grow 4 percent over the same time, in part because it set up with legislative support last year a Community Corrections Division to focus more intense supervision on high-risk offenders.

If these recommendations are adopted, the authors claim inmate population will ‘’gradually flatten out’’ and drop 18 percent to 2,340 inmates in 2015.

The report states lawmakers should set a limit on how long nonviolent offenders must remain in prison. The proposed cap would be no more than 120 percent of their minimum mandatory sentence, it said.

Superior Court Chief Justice Robert Lynn said he would prefer Corrections Commissioner William Wrenn be able to override and ignore any such limit in dealing with difficult, nonviolent offenders.

“I tend to think that might go too far and wonder if it would make more sense to enact legislation that gives the commissioner more flexibility on that,” Lynn told the group.

jchev Mental Health Issues, New Hampshire, Statistics

New Hampshire Department of Corrections Commissioner William L. Wrenn announced that several employee in-service training courses will now be provided electronically through E-learning. Reported in Corrections.com.

The courses include Harassment and Discrimination, Responding to Correctional Emergencies, Fire Response and Evacuation, Warning Signs of an Impending Disturbance, Domestic Violence, the Prison Rape Elimination Act, Suicide Prevention, and Defensive Driving for Government Employees. Additional courses will be added.

Many employees will be able to participate in these classes at their desks. Computer work stations are being set up at each of the state’s prison facilities for employees who do not have regular computer access. Training coordinators at each location will facilitate scheduling employees for their required annual training.

“It is important to take advantage of technology in providing staff training. E-learning is less expensive, more efficient, and reduces the time staff must be away from their posts,” Commissioner Wrenn said.

Department of Corrections employees are required to receive forty hours of annual in-service training to maintain their certifications. E-training will begin in December 2009.

jchev New Hampshire, Officer Training

States trying to fight recession by closing prisons are finding a Catch-22: what saves scarce money costs precious jobs.  Reported by USA Today.

New Hampshire, Tennessee and Kansas are among states that have closed prisons this year as they struggle to balance budgets. In 2008, states spent about $47 billion from general funds on corrections, four times as much as in 1988, according to the Pew Center on the States. Nearly 90% of corrections budgets were spent on prisons, as opposed to probation, parole or other programs.

States are closing prisons by moving inmates, reducing their numbers through increased use of electronic monitoring, boosting support for offenders on probation and declining to return them to prison for every probation violation. That’s been controversial: “Inmates are getting released that wouldn’t have been released in good budget times,” says Tom Tylutki, president of the corrections officers’ union in Michigan, where eight facilities are scheduled to close. “We believe (public safety) is being compromised.”

Towns that have relied on prison jobs for years now find the local economy jeopardized.

• In Michigan, plans to close three prisons and five prison camps will cost 1,000 jobs, including in the tiny town of Standish, where a 19-year-old maximum security prison is the county’s largest employer. If Standish shuts down on Oct. 1 as scheduled, “it will be catastrophic, there is no doubt,” for the town of about 1,800 people, says the Rev. James Fitzpatrick, who organized a rally and prayer vigil to protest the prison’s closing.

• In Vermont, cost-cutting plans to close a 122-bed prison in St. Johnsbury, in the thinly populated northeastern corner of the state, were shelved by the Legislature over concerns about the loss of jobs. The state had planned to send prisoners out of state at a savings of $2 million.

• In New York, three prison camps and seven prison annexes, all located in the northern part of the state, are to close this year, saving the state an estimated $52 million over two years. About 550 jobs will be lost in a region that has long relied on prisons as a major employer. Camp Gabriels, in Franklin, N.Y., provided jobs for three of Mary Ellen Keith’s sons, a daughter and granddaughter until it closed this year. Inmates also cleared the rural town’s roadsides of brush, something the town can’t afford to do. “Up here, there’s absolutely no industry or anything,” says Keith, Franklin’s town supervisor. Without the prisons as employers, her family “probably would never have been able to remain in this area,” she says. “It’s a hardship.”

jakking Economic Issues, Kansas, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Tennessee, Vermont

NH – The state Department of Corrections is changing the way it treats and supervises insane prisoners as they are transitioned back into the community. Complete details on the Nashua Telegraph.

A new policy adopted by the department governs how mental-health services are administered to the state’s more than two dozen patients found not guilty of their crimes because they were legally insane, according to Dr. Robert MacLeod, director of the DOC’s division of medical and forensic services.

Those prisoners had committed a crime but were found not guilty by a court because a mental illness triggered their infraction, MacLeod said.

The prison system, usually over a course of several years, works with people found not guilty by reason of insanity to transition them from the prison to a mental-health hospital and eventually to the community at large. That process involves a number of “baby steps” and extensive supervision, MacLeod said.

“They’re well tethered to our mental-health case management,” he said.

Before the new standards were adopted, those patients received mental-health treatment based on general DOC policies, according to department spokesman Jeff Lyons. The new procedures include systematic steps specific to working with inmates in the state’s Secure Psychiatric Unit and those found not guilty by reason of insanity in the prison’s other treatment programs, including the New Hampshire Hospital, and parolees enrolled in community health programs.

There are five such inmates in the prison’s psychiatric unit and another 20 under supervision in the other programs, Lyons said.

MacLeod said the biggest change under the new policy was the creation of a position whose duties specifically include tracking and evaluating the treatment and progress made by inmates found not guilty by reason of insanity.

That person will meet with each resident at least once a month and stay in contact with doctors regarding their treatment to make sure treatments are effective and to spot warning signs that they aren’t, MacLeod said.

Most of the other new guidelines include step-by-step instructions governing admission and orientation to the psychiatric unit, staff responsibilities and the makeup of a treatment team. It also sets up procedures for discharge to other prison units, MacLeod said.

“It makes it more comprehensive. It’s more concise at this point,” MacLeod said. “It’s an evolving science, the whole issue of trying to predict risk. There’s a recognition that some of these services are best delivered out in the community.”

Lyons said the department started examining its policy

after high-profile defendants employed the defense of not guilty by reason of insanity in recent years.

Sheila LaBarre’s attorneys argued she was suffering from delusions when she killed two boyfriends in 2005 and 2006. A jury disagreed and ruled she was sane at the time of the murders.

In 2008, a judge accepted an insanity plea by Susan Disharoon, who was charged with murdering her landlord, Syed Ali Hussain, in July 2006.

“People seem to be using that defense more, so we thought it was important to get it in writing,” Lyons said.

jchev Mental Health Issues, New Hampshire

Some of the 865 male sex offenders in the New Hampshire state prison system are being held past their parole dates because there are just 90 spots in the treatment program most of them must take.

One man told the Concord Monitor that he wasn’t allowed to apply for the 18-month program until a year after he became eligible for parole. Keeping an inmate in prison one year past his parole date costs about $30,000, versus $800 for a year of parole.

Prison officials acknowledge the backlog but say some prisoners cause the delay themselves. Sex offenders can’t begin the program until they admit to their offense and those who misbehave while enrolled can get kicked out of the program.

jakking Inmate Programs, New Hampshire, Sex Offenders

New Hampshire’s newest correctional facility is a three-story brick walk-up that looks like any other along Manchester’s upper Elm Street. But step inside Hampshire House and enter the highly structured and supervised world of a federal prison inmate.  This report from the Manchester Union-Leader.

The newly renovated townhouse … is a locked facility laced with surveillance cameras. Here federal offenders serve out the final two to six months of their sentences. Inmates must submit to random and routine drug testing, thrice nightly head counts, spot room checks, pat downs and, once employed, rigorous staff oversight.   “Everything they do is structured,” Hampshire House Director John L. Sullivan explained during a tour of the building yesterday.   “They are still technically inmates. If they fail our program, they go back to prison,” he said.

The first inmate arrives tomorrow. By June, there should be a waiting list to get one of the 30 beds — 20 for men and 10 for women, Sullivan said … Up until now, the only halfway houses available to federal inmates convicted of New Hampshire offenses were in Boston …

Inmates first undergo a skills assessment and training for employment readiness, money management, parenting and other life skills, Sullivan said. They then must get full-time work and connect with counseling or other social service programs. Inmates gradually earn more freedoms — such as a pass to briefly visit with family or go out to dinner — as they prove they can handle them, Sullivan said.   “When they leave here, they will have a pretty good chance of making it in a community,” he explained …

There aren’t enough halfway houses to accommodate every returning inmate, Sullivan said. But every inmate isn’t suitable for a halfway house …”The Bureau of Prisons does not send out serious, violent criminals and serious sex offenders,” he said.

jakking Federal Systems, New Hampshire, Re-Entry

New Hampshire Corrections Commissioner William Wrenn, with the support of Gov. John Lynch, is creating a new state division to help keep parolees free even after they have violated their parole agreements, as long as the violations do not involve new crimes.

Wrenn estimates the division, called the Division of Community Corrections, will cost between $1.4 million and $2 million and involve hiring between 10 and 20 case managers at 10 local parole offices around the state. He hopes to have at least some of the programs up and running by summer.   “I’d like these positions to work with individuals out in the community, keep (parolees) in their houses and jobs and with their families,” Wrenn said. “If they do step over the line, deal with them there; don’t always bring them back.”   The aim is to help parolees succeed and reduce costs, Wrenn said …

According to Wrenn, keeping an inmate in prison costs about $100 a day plus their full medical care, while keeping someone under the direction of field services costs about $2.80 a day. Even if the cost went up to $5 to $10 a day with new programming, he said, that would be a substantial savings …

Veteran probation/parole officer Keith Phelps said the pressure is coming from the top of the Department of Corrections to work with offenders in the community rather than return them to prison when they violate parole. He also said he understands why Commissioner Wrenn is exerting that pressure.  “It’s budget-driven. I blame the Legislature for slashing budgets,” Phelps said … Keeping parole violators out of prison without adequate services only increases the likelihood they will commit new crimes, and there are not enough substance-abuse and mental health treatment options available in the community, Phelps said …

Paul Cascio, a corrections lieutenant and president of local 255 of the New England Police Benevolent Association… believes budget dollars, not public safety, are driving changes in the DOC … Cascio said Wrenn’s parole plan won’t work because there aren’t enough treatment programs in the community to support it, especially when some parole and probation officers’ caseloads already are more than double what they should be. “If you’re going to put more people on the street, more supervision is required — more enforcement and more programs,” Cascio said. “There are not enough programs to meet the needs of people getting out of prison already” …

Parole Board Chairman George Khoury said Wrenn promised there would be more substance-abuse counselors at local parole offices.  Khoury also expects greater participation from community treatment services working under contract with the state.   “Nobody is minimizing how difficult it is to overcome drug and alcohol problems, but we need to give them all the assistance we can,” Khoury said. “Our job is to do the best we can and never at the public risk.”  In preparing to open the Division of Community Corrections, according to Wrenn, state officials are working with the National Institute of Corrections on writing policies and procedures.

jakking Community Corrections, New Hampshire, Parole

Some states are starting to believe that the solution to problems with corrections is not to throw more money at the system. Instead, they’re talking about putting fewer people in jail.  This report from National Public Radio.

“There’s this long New Hampshire tradition of tough on crime, but there’s a huge New Hampshire tradition of being pretty darn stingy,” says Chris Keating, executive director of New Hampshire’s public defender program.   But being tough on crime can be expensive, and Keating says in New Hampshire, the tradition of stinginess is starting to win out. The insider term is “decriminalization.”

New Hampshire’s state Legislature is considering measures that would take away the threat of jail time for some offenses, and in the U.S., the government only has to pay for a defense lawyer when poor defendants face incarceration. So taking away the threat of jail saves money, and Keating believes New Hampshire is trying to distinguish between people society is mad at and people society is afraid of … “I think they want to move these people and cases through the system because they realize they’ve got finite resources and these cases are just bogging them down.”

William Wren, the commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Corrections, says tough budget prospects are forcing him to look at closing a whole prison and laying off 97 positions. For that reason, Wren wants fewer people sent to prison, and he is asking lawmakers to examine which crimes really deserve time behind bars.   “I’ll give you a good example — our theft statutes, the threshold dollar amount for going from a misdemeanor to a felony crime is $500. That was set 31 years ago. What $500 was 31 years ago is a lot different from what it would equate to today,” he says.

These kinds of conversations are happening across the country.

Chief public defender for Massachusetts, Bill Leahy, says cuts have to come from somewhere.  “We’ve got a 3 1/2 billion-dollar deficiency in Massachusetts this year, all kinds of worthy programs are being cut, and we’re continuing to waste money on prosecuting crimes that are criminal only by statute,” Leahy says …

“I think it’s a major shift,” says David Carroll, the director of research for the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. “We’ve had a hangover on the tough-on-crime movement and realize that to keep going down that path we’re only escalating costs at ever greater rates.”

jakking Economic Issues, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Re-Entry

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.

jakking California, Colorado, Death Penalty, Economic Issues, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas, Washington

New Hampshire Corrections Commissioner William Wrenn is looking at new ways to reduce the state-prison population while putting on temporary hold another new program that offers early release to inmates the department deems suitable.

Wrenn also defended remarks to lawmakers regarding whether the state should incarcerate habitual offenders.   On average, about 500 paroled inmates return every year for violating the terms of their release, the commissioner said. Reducing recidivism could mean substantial savings, given that there are 2,600 inmates in the entire prison system in facilities in Concord, Goffstown, Berlin and Laconia.   The Laconia facility is scheduled to close due to the state’s budget crunch, with an anticipated savings of $8 million to $10 million …

Wrenn … wants to put case managers and program workers in district probation and parole offices to provide additional treatment at the local level, and leave supervision and enforcement to parole officers.  The prison staff also needs to help inmates find housing and jobs after their parole plans are approved, he said.

New Hampshire has about a 40 percent recidivism rate. Reducing that even modestly could free up about 300 beds a year, Wrenn said.  “That’s what we’re hoping for. In closing Laconia, we have to do a better job keeping people on the outside. We’re not going to have a lot of bed space,” Wrenn said, adding that he also plans to improve education programs …

A program allowing inmates to file petitions with a newly formed clemency board to seek early release, quietly launched Jan. 1, has been temporarily suspended while the new policy is rewritten, Wrenn said.   Of the nine inmates whose petitions already have been heard by the board, only a few will likely be accepted, Wrenn said. The hearings are not open to the public. A revised law requires Wrenn to accept applications for early release and to make recommendations to the sentencing court if the inmate is a “suitable” candidate. A judge will have the final say.

The policy outlines how inmates can become suitable candidates by completing programs and remaining on good behavior. All inmates are eligible to apply except those convicted of capital or first-degree murder and those deemed to be sexually violent predators, a small percentage of all sex offenders.

The Union-Leader article has a lot more information.

jakking Early Release, New Hampshire, Overcrowding, Recidivism

Early reports by AP from the New Hampshire Governor’s budget proposal include closing the state prison in Laconia, speeding up deportation of illegal immigrants in custody and making a gym at the Berlin prison into a dorm to handle about 100 Laconia inmates.

jakking Economic Issues, New Hampshire

As the recession worsens, some New Hampshire towns are asking Grafton County to hold off on plans to build a new jail.

With at least 15 towns calling for a delay in construction of a new county jail, two of the three Grafton County Commissioners last week said they are open to scaling back the size of the $38 million project.   But, they said, the existing facility, which includes sections that are more than 110 years old and is often overcrowded, still needs to be replaced soon … The current jail was designed to hold about 70 inmates but often sees its headcount top 100. A new 108,000-square-foot, 206-bed jail was narrowly approved by the county delegation — comprising House members from Grafton County — last winter, but the jail project has been temporarily stalled by a court case challenging the vote on the construction bond. A Superior Court judge upheld the vote, but the plaintiffs might appeal.  Besides reducing overcrowding, the new facility would also have space for substance-abuse treatment programs and other activities corrections officials say are critical to reducing recidivism …

“I am willing to compromise a bit on the size of the jail, because I just feel so strongly we need this new facility now,” added Commissioner Martha Richards, a Holderness Democrat. “If we can knock off a few million here and there with some changes, I’m all for that. But I will not in one iota change that mental health unit we need so badly.”   The third commissioner, Bath Republican Ray Burton, said he was opposed to delaying the project but said the jail plans are “an ongoing process”.   “In my opinion, (the existing) jail is not a safe facility for the number of inmates that are put in there by the court,” Burton said.

The article in the Valley News contains a fuller account.

jakking County-City Issues, Economic Issues, NH Grafton County

New Hampshire’s corrections budget is one of the biggest and one of the hardest departments to cut because Commissioner William Wrenn can’t simply close his prisons and send inmates home. But many think this economic crisis might be the state’s best chance to find cheaper, better ways to do its prison business.

“There is nothing like lean times to make you smart,” said former speaker of the New Hampshire House Donna Sytek, who saw lawmakers through a similarly severe downturn in the 1990s. It was out of that crisis that Sytek persuaded lawmakers to rewrite misdemeanor laws so more minor offenses could be punished with just a fine, not jail time.  Doing so has meant big savings for the state, she said. Those low-level offenders weren’t getting jail time anyway, but because incarceration was a possibility on the books, the state was obligated to provide a free lawyer to those poor defendants. By eliminating the threat of jail time, the state eliminated its obligation to pay for lawyers in minor cases … “It’s like eating an elephant,” she said of tackling the rising costs of corrections, whose budget was about $107 million last year.    “You have to start somewhere. Start nibbling at the ear. You can’t do it all at once.”

Wrenn has delivered his requested budget to Gov. John Lynch, but the details and bottom line won’t be shared with the public or lawmakers until mid-February, when Lynch unveils his proposed budget. In the meantime, Wrenn has been preparing legislators to think beyond budget cuts as the solution to the corrections budget.  For one, he’s asked legislators to rethink the threshold for theft cases. Stealing something worth $500 or more can carry a prison sentence, lesser values are punishable by a fine or jail time. Wrenn likes to say a good bike costs more than $500 and wonders whether stealing one is severe enough to send someone to prison, where a year’s stay costs taxpayers about $32,000. “Is that being smart on crime?” Wrenn asked in a recent interview …

Inmates cost the state not only the $32,000 a year for basic incarceration, but also thousands in medical bills because the state is obligated to cover medical expenses when inmates are behind bars. Inmates supervised on the outside, however, are eligible for private insurance or Medicaid, which means savings for the state.  It’s also far cheaper to pay a probation officer to supervise an inmate in an intense alternative program than to house someone inside a prison. In a recent study, The New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies compared that cost by looking at a year inside prison against a year in Strafford County’s Drug Court, an intensive supervision and treatment program that lets inmates live at home.  The difference was staggering: $32,000 a year in prison versus about $11,400 a year in the Strafford County’s alternative program …

Wrenn at least has some supporters in the right places.  Rep. David Welch, a Kingston Republican who sits on the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, supports Wrenn’s notion of rethinking penalties for nonviolent crimes. He also remains hopeful that the state will build a new women’s prison, which is one of Wrenn’s top priorities. The investment now would save money, Welch believes, because the current facility’s infrastructure requires more staff than a properly built prison would need. He’d also like to build a women’s prison on the state’s initiative rather than be forced into by a lawsuit over the lack of programming offered at the women’s prison. Rep. Marjorie Smith, a Durham Democrat who chairs the House Finance Committee, also liked what she heard from Wrenn on alternative ideas. And while she believes violent offenders belong in prison, she doesn’t believe it makes financial or moral sense to keep people there who could be supervised and better treated outside the walls.

This is just a sample of the long and worthwhile article in the Concord Monitor.

jakking Early Release, Economic Issues, Female Inmates, New Hampshire

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has just released the 2005 Census of Federal and State Correctional Facilities.  The document has a wealth of data across all States, including the numbers of privately-operated facilities.

The document can be accessed from the Basic Stats list at the top right sidebar.

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How ex-cons fare beyond the walls is largely up to them, but how much help they get in New Hampshire depends in part on whether they’ve been convicted of a state or federal crime.

The New Hampshire state prison system releases roughly 1,300 inmates a year, spokesman Jeff Lyons said. Most are paroled, but about 15 percent of them – about 200 people – are cut loose with no further supervision whatsoever, having “maxed out,” or served out the maximum term of their sentences.   At any given time, there are about 275 to 300 people under supervision by federal probation officers in New Hampshire, said Thomas Tarr, head of the federal probation office in New Hampshire … The majority are under supervision after having completed a federal prison sentence, while about 30 percent were sentenced solely to probation, he said.  That 70-30 ratio was reversed a few decades back, Tarr said, but tougher sentencing laws and the increasing number of people prosecuted in federal courts have flipped the balance toward imprisonment.

The transition from prison to society can be rough under the best of circumstances, officials said, and many inmates don’t make it on their first try. Roughly 42 percent of paroled inmates wind up back in state prison before completing their sentence, either for violations of the terms of parole or for new crimes they’ve committed, Lyons said. The percentage is higher for men, lower for women, and varies by other characteristics, as well.  Nationally, the average recidivism rate for inmates under federal supervised release is just slightly higher, about 46 percent, U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics show.

There are similarities between federal supervised release and the state’s parole programs, but the differences are striking. Both systems assign an officer to supervise a number of people, and inmates work with their state parole or federal probation officer before their release to draw up a plan for how and where they’ll live.  “We don’t just release them and say, ‘Go find a place to live.’ At the very least, they have to have a verified residence,” said the New Hampshire Parole Board’s executive assistant, John Eckert.  Treatment programs or counseling are often required in both systems … Parole officers can steer parolees toward providers, but the parolees must pay for the services themselves. That can be tough, Eckert said, considering all the various other obligations they may shoulder.

People on parole typically are under court orders to pay back the state for their court-appointed lawyer, and many are obliged to pay restitution for their crimes, he said. The state Department of Corrections handles the collection of restitution and fines and charges a whopping 17 percent interest fee for the service. “Are they being squeezed? Yes, they are,” Eckert said. “It can be quite stressful. Sometimes you get the feeling some of these guys owe so much money, you wonder how they are going to make it; is it just setting them up to fail?”  Naturally, inmates must also cover housing, food, clothing and transportation, all on a paycheck that is likely sub-par; most employers don’t see “convicted felon” as a desirable qualification for jobs.  “It’s a bad situation,” Eckert said. “There are a lot of people reaching into the person’s wallet, so to speak.”

Both systems can help steer former inmates toward potential employers and landlords, but the federal prison system can help former inmates with financial assistance for housing, when needed, Tarr said.  Halfway houses are another big difference in the federal and state systems. The New Hampshire state prison has halfway houses for men in Concord and Manchester, with a total capacity of 120, and a halfway house in Concord that can house up to 40 women, Lyons said.   The three halfway houses serve as another step between the minimum-security barracks and living out in the community. Inmates can hold a job and get reacquainted with the world outside, while returning to the halfway house each evening.  “The inmate works their way through the system based on their behavior and completion of programs,” Lyons said. “We want to give them the opportunity to transition back to the community.”  Some stay a few weeks, others a few months. Most never get the chance at all, however, given the limited number of beds available. Of the 954 inmates paroled from state prison last year, Lyons said, just 301 passed through a halfway house …

When inmates “max out” of the New Hampshire State Prison, they walk out the gate with the clothes on their back and perhaps a little pocket money. The state has no authority to keep tabs on where they go or what they do, Lyons said.  “We have no control over them, once they’ve maxed out,” Lyons said. “We have no authority to discipline them or anything. . . . Once they’ve maxed out, they are free to go where they want to go.”

A great deal more detail is available at the Nashua Telegraph

jakking Community Corrections, New Hampshire

New Hampshire Commissioner of Corrections Bill Wrenn recently spoke at a Rotarian’s dinner about the state of corrections in NH and across the nation.

The number of inmates has grown drastically in recent years, Wrenn said, with laws imposing harsher sentences and restrictive parole policies. “It’s added a large number to our population and also costs,” he said. To build one cell in the Rockingham County House of Corrections costs $65,000 with operating costs, including supervision and housing, at $30,000 per year, per inmate, Wrenn said. Medical care for an inmate suffering from drug addition or mental illness is an additional cost of $10 to $15 million per year for a population of 2,800. Eighty-five percent of inmates enter the facility with a substance-abuse problem and 65 percent with mental illness, he said. “There is no Medicare subsidy for somebody who is incarcerated,” Wrenn said. “We pay 100 percent of the bill. As a result, the prison system costs $50 billion per year to incarcerate people in the United States, which is four times what it cost 20 years ago. In the next five years, it is projected to increase by $25 billion.”

He went on:

“We have to forget about being tough or soft on crime, we have to be smart on crime in the future because it costs too much money,” Wrenn said.  The average stay for an inmate in state prison is three years and 97 percent of those placed into the facility are released back into the community. Wrenn said they need to be better prepared to return as community members and that the state’s prison system is treating them medically and offering education. “There are one million more beds across the country than 20 years ago, yet the average length of stay has only extended by six months. That equates to a lot of non-violent, low-level offenders,” Wrenn said. “For a lot of years it was lock them up and throw away the key. That’s not going to make that person a better person when they come out and are your neighbor” …

Another issue that needs to be examined, Wrenn said, is alternative sentencing. “It’s not one-size-fits-all in the court system anymore,” he said. Inmates enter facilities with various issues, including mental-health or drug problems, and should be sentenced accordingly, Wrenn said. “When we talk about crimes and new legislation comes through, we have to think about the sentencing of that crime and what impact it might have on our system,” he said. “Drug abusers, the mentally ill, those nobody knows what to do with, are now living in a prison cell. Habitual offenders who are arrested for driving offenses — someone may have to drive for their job, get a little crazy one day and as a habitual offender, they end up in state prison. I don’t know that they belong there. They go in a good guy with maybe a speeding problem and come out a criminal.”

 You can read the full report of the speech on SeacoastOnline.

jakking Inmate Health Care, New Hampshire, Re-Entry, Sentencing

• Lawyers claim that Colorado DOC is still failing to comply with a 2003 agreement to improve services under the Americans With Disabilities Act.
• An officer describes how one major state has dealt with gang activity over the last twenty years.
• In the face of mounting local pressure, a non-profit group has dropped plans to site a low-risk women’s facility in East San Jose.
• Belknap County NH finds success with GPS: “Perhaps the biggest benefit is that those using the bracelets are not under the medical care of the county.”
• Nevada’s Chief of Probation and Parole has resigned; he held the job since 2004.

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The New Hampshire Department of Corrections has a lot of work to do. The federal government is requiring New Hampshire to execute convicted murder Gary Sampson. And Attorney General Kelly Ayotte is seeking the death penalty in the murder cases against Michael Addison and John Brooks. But right now the state doesn’t have a place to put people to death- it doesn’t even have a death row. New Hampshire Public Radio’s Dan Gorenstein looked into just what New Hampshire must do to prepare. Select here for the audio broadcast. And here is the written transcript.

jakking Death Penalty, New Hampshire

• Butler County PA’s building plans hit snags, overruns.
• Eighteen months ago, Illinois set up a new Juvenile Justice Department with much fanfare. It is still not staffed.
• Sullivan County NH plans to build a $4.2 community corrections unit and spend another $1.5 million on jail improvements.

jakking Illinois, Juvenile Justice, NH Sullivan County, PA Butler County