To improve their chances for success in the community, a Rutgers researcher recommends that NJDOC adopt a policy of universal re-entry preparedness during each inmate’s mandatory minimum term and a reallocation of funding to increase skill-building capacity on-site rather than in ultimately more costly halfway house programs.

Rutgers Professor Nancy Wolff, director of the Center for Behavioral Health Services and Criminal Justice Research, reaches those conclusions in a new study, Re-entry Readiness of Men and Women Leaving New Jersey Prisons. “Approximately 10,000 men and women leave New Jersey prisons each year. Many of them return to jail and prison for parole violations or new convictions within days, months or years post-release,” Wolff observed. She added that the criminal justice system’s current emphasis to “stop the revolving prison door” is on re-entry preparedness, with special funding under the federal Second Chance Act set aside to improve re-entry services around the country.

“While re-entry-related funding is flowing into states, its target efficiency and ultimate effectiveness in terms of public safety depend on whether it goes to the right people in the right places and in the right ways,” Wolff explained. “For this, it is critical to know the population – its needs, strengths and resources.”

Wolff conducted a Re-entry Readiness Survey from June through August 2009 of 4,000 men and women in the state’s prisons due for release within 24 months. Among the findings:

• “A sizable minority” of soon-to-be-released respondents had chronic health and/or mental health problems or chronic pain that would require follow-up treatment.
• A majority would be released with drug-related convictions that will constrain their ability to receive cash assistance, food stamps and public housing.
• More than one-third had no one helping them find housing or a job.
• More than one-quarter reported their ability to manage money, work for a living, be a responsible adult and control drug or alcohol problems as fair or poor.

Despite these impediments to success upon release, many respondents viewed favorably and utilized NJDOC re-entry and skill-building programs:

• Nearly 70 percent reported receiving needed behavioral health services.
• Nearly 70 percent knew about the STARS (Successful Transition and Re-entry Series) program; 80 percent of STARS enrollees or graduates rated the experience good or higher and would encourage a peer to enroll.
• More than 80 percent admitted to social functioning skill programs rated instruction and materials good or higher.
• More than 87 percent of participants in educational and vocational programs rated instruction and materials good or higher.

To meet the twin goals of effectively preparing soon-to-be-released prisoners to “make good” and to protect the public, the department must re-examine how it spends limited funds dedicated to re-entry-related services, Wolff said. The report recommends that the skill-preparedness of inmates be maximized during their mandatory minimum terms.

Currently, NJDOC provides less than half the functioning, educational and vocational skill-building services needed by the soon-to-be-released population. To reduce recidivism and chances of compromising public safety, Wolff recommends creating a Re-entry Preparedness Checklist at all prisons that would measure key skills and resources expected upon release and monitor the progress of individual inmates toward these goals. Results would be posted on the department’s website.

She also advocates for increased funding and skill-building capacity within NJDOC to the scale of need of prisoners during their mandatory minimum sentence, and to establish re-entry preparedness standards to determine if an inmate is eligible for parole consideration upon completion of his or her mandatory minimum term.

The research also finds that by keeping more re-entry-related services on site, rather than outsourced to halfway houses that provide community-based residential treatment for a minority of released inmates, NJDOC can accrue considerable savings. The FY 2009 budget allocated about $61 million for residential services that support an average daily halfway house population of more than 2,600 people.

“While it is often argued that a community-based halfway house bed is cheaper than a prison bed, this is true only if the services provided by the halfway house could not be provided by the Corrections Department while the inmate was serving the mandatory minimum term,” Wolff said. “Adding off-site re-entry preparedness costs to the back end of a mandatory minimum sentence term adds $23,000 per year per inmate.”

Wolff added that reduced reliance on residential service providers will free up additional funds for on-site re-entry preparedness programming and pay for a Re-entry Preparedness Performance Monitoring System. She also called for a Community Service Vouchering program that will enable parolees to buy residential, vocational and treatment services as needed in the communities to which they are returning.

“Contracting for residential rehabilitation services has resulted in a concentration of services in such urban areas as Camden, Newark and Trenton,” Wolff said. “A vouchering system is consistent with community reinvestment strategies and goals to distribute service capacity more evenly across the state.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Lanigan, a financial guru, will replace George Hayman as commissioner of the $1.1 billion department responsible for about 25,600 inmates.

“Gary Lanigan has the experience, know-how and determination needed to effectively manage and focus our corrections’ system,” Christie said. “Gary will bring to the New Jersey Department of Corrections an understanding and care that is needed to not only protect the public, but ensure positive reintegration of those currently in the system.”

The department now operates 13 prisons after Riverfront State Prison in Camden was shut last year to make room for development.

Although the inmate population has dropped in recent years, state prisons hold about 400 more inmates than they were designed for, and another 5,000 inmates are held at other facilities such as county jails.The department has faced criticism since a May report from the State Commission of Investigation said it has failed to crack down on gang activity.

Lanigan has worked for several New York City agencies, always in a financial capacity. After leaving the Navy in 1975, he worked for the mayor at the Office of Management and Budget.

He served as assistant commissioner for financial affairs at the New York City Police Department before joining the city’s Department of Corrections in 1994. Lanigan rose to the position of first deputy commissioner in 1998, overseeing a $792 million budget and 12,400 uniformed and civilian employees. He joined New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 2003 as the director of budgets and financial management, responsible for financial planning at the authority, which has an $11 billion budget and 70,000 employees.

The fourth cabinet member named by Christie, Lanigan lives on Staten Island and plans move to New Jersey after the school year is over, said Christie spokeswoman Maria Comella. All cabinet members are required to live in the state.

Hayman has applied to retire on April 1, according to Treasury spokesman Tom Vincz. He started his career at the department in 1983 as a social worker in New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, and became commissioner in 2006.

Leaning back in a chair with his arms crossed, Javier Herrera watched his classmates practice fade haircuts with electric clippers as he described his big plans for a men’s salon in Newark. He’ll offer manicures and stylish haircuts but also provide masculine touches, maybe even a cigar lounge. “A lot of guys are going metro now,” he said. “It’s big.”

For Herrera, 28, opening the salon is not just a business plan, it’s also a lifestyle change. The last time he paid the bills, he did so by selling cocaine — which landed him at Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Yardville for drug, weapons and resisting arrest offenses.

With more than three years to go until he’s eligible for parole, Herrera is working in the prison barbershop to earn his cosmetology license. “Hair’s always going to grow,” he said. “It’s something you can always make money off of.”

Prison workshops are more than a diversion from the monotony of life behind bars. They can give inmates a head start on one of their biggest and most important challenges: finding jobs after their release.

“That’s what’s going to decide whether you’re going to stay out there or come back in here,” Herrera said.

With 65 percent of New Jersey’s inmates back in jail within five years of their release, state officials are emphasizing job training because employment is a crucial indicator of whether former prisoners will return to a life of crime. The Department of Corrections is spending $26 million on prison education this year, and some legislators are pushing for more funding.
About one-fifth of the state’s inmates, 5,237 men and women, are enrolled in vocational classes, according to department statistics. Another 2,068 are on waiting lists.

But finding work is more difficult than ever, and the state has shed 101,400 private-sector jobs in the last year as it slogs through the recession. In November, just over half of the 13,257 ex-offenders who were under parole supervision and considered viable for employment had jobs.

And always, lurking in the background, is the lure of easy money from selling drugs, a job that doesn’t require a resume or a background check.

That’s what enticed Marquise Allen, 23, when he was released from prison in August of last year. Within a month, he was arrested on drug charges. “There weren’t any jobs calling me back,” he said. “At the end of the day, you gotta do what you gotta do.”

Extra-Curricular Activities
The section of Garden State prison for classrooms is reminiscent of a high school hallway, and colorful signs advertise classes like graphic arts, computers and electronics. Popular ones like Herrera’s cosmetology course can take a year to get into, inmates said.

On a recent weekday, David Fontanez, 29, was one of several students trimming classmates’ hair. “You learn everything. You learn how to curl, perm,” he said. “It’s important to learn something in here and take it out there.”

Fontanez has been locked up three years — his second stint in state prison, this time for burglary and drug possession — and has less than a year left before he can be paroled. “I’m trying not to be 40 and coming back in here,” he said.

Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Mercer) is leading efforts to pump millions of dollars into prison education through legislation intended to reduce recidivism. She says the state will save money in the long run by putting former inmates to work.

Although her bills would cost less than 1 percent of the department’s approximately $1 billion budget, Corrections says that’s cash the department doesn’t have right now. “We recognize that there is always room for improvement,” legislative liaison Michelle Hammel told an Assembly committee on Dec. 3. “We just simply do not have the money to do that.”

Inmates who worked or received training in prison are more likely to find a job when released, according to a 2008 study from the Urban Institute, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C.

Also, ex-offenders earning at least $10 an hour were half as likely to be re-incarcerated as those making less than $7 an hour, according to the same study, which was conducted in Illinois, Ohio and Texas.

Hunting For Work
There are about 25,500 state inmates in New Jersey, and 14,400 are released each year. Once they hit the streets, it can be a race against time to find them jobs.

“Most inmates come out wanting to do the right thing. When they obtain employment, they fulfill that hope,” said Parole Board Lt. Paul McIntyre, who oversees the agency’s employment efforts. “If after a few months they don’t find employment, that optimism they came out with starts to disappear.”

Without legal work, it becomes more likely an ex-offender will return to crime. “They don’t have any money,” said Vernon Long, who works with former inmates to find jobs. “And the first person that’s going to give them any money is someone they used to do crime with.”

Long runs Opportunities for All in Hamilton, one of 11 day-reporting centers for New Jersey’s parolees. His organization’s database lists 333 companies with job openings, mostly for entry-level positions at car washes, retail stores and factories unhurt by the recession. Long said big retailers like Target and Wal-Mart have programs for hiring ex-offenders, which can earn companies tax credits.

Still, the struggling economy has taken its toll. Some ex-offenders were trained to weatherize homes and then joined a union. But there wasn’t enough work to go around, and they remain unemployed.

Playing Catch-Up
State officials have claimed some success. About 1,500 inmates were enrolled in the Another Chance program, a partnership between several state agencies that provides ex-offenders with job coaches and other services. Officials said participants are 20 percent less likely to be re-arrested within six months of release.

“We’re working with people who don’t have the basic skills to have an interview,” said Wanda Moore, who oversees efforts at the state Attorney General’s Office to re-integrate ex-offenders. “We run up against some of the same problems that contributed to them being incarcerated in the first place.”

Drug sales remain lucrative, too. Anthony Versace, 23, sold LSD despite holding part-time jobs as a cook and ski-lift operator. “I could make what I could in a month in two hours,” said Versace, now an inmate at Garden State prison.

Lenny Ward, director of community programs for the state parole board, said low-level dealers usually can be convinced to give up drugs.

“That’s not exactly a glamorous job, worrying about whether you’re going to be shot or arrested,” he said. “If we can give them a taste of legitimate employment, then we can hook them.”

“We’re not asking for anyone to be given a free ride. But if you live and you breath, you have made mistakes,” she said. “If you don’t have a chance to correct those mistakes, you will continue to make them.”

Supporters waved signs reading “Support treatment not jail” and “Give people a second chance.”

A package of legislation would allow former inmates to receive financial help from state welfare programs, encourage the corrections system to place prisoners in facilities close to their families and seek ways to maintain bonds between incarcerated parents and their children.

One of the laws would require inmates to finish high school classes and receive vocational training.

The state would shed almost $5 million if one of the bills (A4197) is passed, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services. The bills are in danger of failing because lawmakers are hesitant to spend any money with the state’s deficit hitting $1 billion in the current budget year.

Watson Coleman (D-Mercer) said her legislation will save money down the line because more former inmates would be educated and working.

“These individuals will not need to worry about being on a whole realm of public support,” she said. “We’ll have people contributing as taxpayers.”

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) did not post the bills for a vote today, but Watson Coleman said she’s working to get them on the calendar for the Jan. 7 session.

Roberts has said he supports the bills, saying it “looks to be a very smart approach to saving taxpayer dollars and helping give those released from our prisons a better chance at success.”

Arthur Townes, who helps former inmates find housing, jobs and rehabilitation programs, said people face “double jeopardy” when they commit a crime in New Jersey. After they’re convicted, he said, they’re penalized again by a myriad of state laws and regulations.

Watson Coleman’s bills could help change that, he said.

“It will give ex-offenders and people who slipped and went another way another chance,” he said. “It’s something we say they deserve, but the laws don’t support.”

Darryl Mikell Brooks, a former political candidate, said he supports the bills but doesn’t expect today’s rally to be effective.

“The people leading this don’t have the strength, don’t have the votes,” he said. “I hate to see people get all excited.”

The package is sponsored by Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman and Assembly members Albert Coutinho, Elease Evans, Mila M. Jasey, L. Grace Spencer and Cleopatra G. Tucker. It stems from a series of hearings on Watson Coleman hosted throughout New Jersey to hear from citizens and experts on how to cut into recidivism and save public money.

The bills were released by the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee.

“The pervasive cycle of arrest, release and re-arrest is failed system that wastes lives and costs taxpayers dearly,” said Watson Coleman (D-Mercer). “Quite simply, it’s a disgraceful and destructive cycle that must come to an end for the good of all New Jersey taxpayers and those directly affected by our failed system. We’ve seen too much money unsuccessfully spent on programs that don’t work. These reforms are a long overdue step toward progress.”

“These reforms range from improving education and job training to enhancing family support to eliminating antiquated roadblocks to success for those released from prison,” said Coutinho (D-Essex). “These common sense steps will give people an opportunity to earn their second chance and ensure we spend public money wisely.”

“None of these bills would make it easier to serve sentences,” said Spencer (D-Essex). “What they would do is make serving that time more sensible and help ensure that after their time is served, prisoners re-enter society ready to be productive citizens. That will save lives and taxpayer dollars.”

“The simple fact is that of the thousands people released from New Jersey prisons each year, 65 percent of the adults and 37 percent of the juveniles will return within two years,” said Tucker (D-Essex). “That is unacceptable, and these bills aim to not only to improve lives and neighborhoods, but to save money.”

“Spending money time and time again on prisoners who come and go from our prison systems is, quite simply, a waste,” said Evans (D-Passaic). “We need to do better, not only for the wellbeing of the people whose lives are being lost in our prisons, but for taxpayers who need to know their money is spent smartly.”

“We simply cannot afford to continue the present system of spending money repeatedly on repeat offenders,” said Jasey (D-Essex). “The time has come to change our approach so that we can give people and our society a better chance at a better future.”

The “Women and Families Strengthening Act” (A-4197), which would:

• End the prohibition in state law against released prisoners from receiving cash assistance benefits provided under Work First New Jersey.
• Require the state to contract with the lowest bidder for inmate telephone services, prohibit the contractor from imposing surcharges on inmate calls and bar the state from accepting revenue in excess of the cost of operating inmate telephone services.
• Establish a commission to examine strategies for strengthening bonds between jailed parents and their children.
• Require an assistant corrections commissioner establish and monitor policies affecting incarcerated mothers and their children.
• Prohibit the state from housing female inmates in the same facility as male inmates, if it results in conditions more restrictive than the male inmates.
• Require the state to make every effort to assign an inmate to a facility close to where the inmate’s family resides.

A bill (A-4199) designed to address incarceration concerns, which would:

• Allow prisoners in a state or county jail to keep $25 of their monthly income earned for labor performed at the facility, up from $15.
• Require the state to semiannually submit all inmate complaints to the Department of the Public Advocate.
• Require the state to develop an in-service training program for corrections officers that must include mental health sensitivity.

A bill (A-4201) designed to address release concerns, which would:

• Establish a faith-based programs coordinator with the state Department of Corrections to compile and disseminate information about faith-based groups and programs, especially those that provide assistance and services to inmates re-entering society.
• Establish Mental Health Courts to facilitate voluntary treatment of defendants who have mental health illnesses.
• Create a Prisoner Re-entry Commission and require the collection of data on recidivism and a fiscal estimate or the potential cost of any legislation that increases prison sentences.
• Give prisoners a 90-day grace period on outstanding fines and other monetary penalties.
• A bill (A-4202) designed to address education and job training, which would:
• Require the state to create a mandatory workforce skills training and a mandatory education program in each state correctional facility.
• Require inmates to attain a high school equivalency certificate or high school diploma.
• Allow inmates and parolees to enter into agreements with institutions for education, training or other activities that, if successfully completed, could reduce parole terms.
• Establish a mandatory six-month period of post-release supervision for all state inmates.
• Allow a person who has been released from prison to obtain a court order that allows them to visit prisons, if they can show that such visits are likely to motivate and help rehabilitate other inmates.

“This is important unfinished business from the many hearings we held throughout New Jersey, during which we heard from thousands of people about how our system has failed people and cost us money,” Watson Coleman said. “A broad coalition of community organizations, faith leaders, law enforcement officials and ordinary citizens have lined up behind these ideas and will work to build support for these well-informed and carefully crafted bills that reflect a desire to improve lives and save money.”

A $1 billion cost-cutting plan announced last week by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) will translate into layoffs for more than a thousand state prison workers. In Oregon, a voter-approved plan to hand longer prison sentences to those who commit property crimes was delayed by state lawmakers who said they could not pay for it. Tennessee’s department of corrections has sought to save money by offering inmates less milk and meat in their daily meals. And in Kansas — which has received national attention in recent years for shifting resources from locking up prisoners to rehabilitating them — the state eliminated 85 percent of the slots in its substance-abuse treatment program for inmates, citing budget constraints.

Six states — Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska and Washington — cut funding for corrections by more than 10 percent from last year’s levels, according to the study. Kansas saw the biggest recorded decrease, spending 22 percent less than it did last year.

Corrections is the fifth-largest area of state spending after Medicaid, secondary education, higher education and transportation. State spending on prisons has swelled as the nation’s jail and prison population has climbed to 2.3 million people, or about one in every 100 adults. But grim budget realities are forcing state lawmakers’ hand.

According to the Vera survey, many states are wringing savings from their correctional systems by trying to reduce the huge operational costs of running prisons — including by laying off workers, freezing their wages or cutting services to inmates. They also are exploring new ways to reduce recidivism and achieve long-term savings, in some cases easing sanctions on “technical violators” who break conditions of their parole and frequently are sent back to prison. Some states, including Colorado and Oregon, are allowing more prisoners to reduce their prison sentences through “earned-time credits” for good behavior and other forms of early release.

Some of the cost-cutting moves — using videoconferencing to avoid physically transporting inmates for court appearances, for example, and cutting back on inmates’ meal offerings — have targeted the basics of daily prison life and reaped relatively modest savings. But other changes will save tens of millions of dollars and have not come without political fights.

According to Stateline.org’s annual review of states’ legislative sessions, at least seven states — Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Washington — this year decided to close prisons. In some states, those plans touched off resistance among prison unions and in hard-hit communities anxious about losing even more jobs.   New York’s prison workers’ union earlier this year accused the administration of Gov. David Paterson (D) of creating “the most dangerous conditions ever” for correctional officers by closing 10 prisons and packing inmates into other facilities. In Michigan, which has the nation’s highest unemployment rate, Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) is trying to avoid closing some prisons — and laying off prison guards — by accepting inmates from California’s teeming system. Some state officials have backed the idea of housing detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Early releases also have caused alarm, particularly in California, where a federal panel of three judges last week ordered the state to free more than 40,000 inmates — or about 27 percent of its prison population — within the next two years to ease dangerous overcrowding. Attorney General Jerry Brown (D), who is widely expected to run for governor next year, attacked the decision and could appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court. The early release of thousands of inmates also is being considered in Illinois.   While some criminal justice advocates contend that early releases and other cost-cutting moves could endanger public safety, others say states have not gone far enough in cutting inmate numbers.

Some advocates say state lawmakers have avoided what they see as the “elephant in the room” — tough sentencing policies that have put many low-level offenders behind bars for longer and been a major factor behind the explosive growth in the nation’s prison population since the 1970s, when many of the laws were passed. The federal panel that ruled on California’s prison overcrowding cited sentencing laws as a factor behind the Golden State’s huge prison population.  While New York this year revised its drug sentencing laws to give judges more discretion to keep offenders out of jail, other high-profile sentencing changes in the states have been far more limited in their scope. Texas, for instance, eliminated life without parole for juveniles, a penalty that currently affects only seven inmates. New Mexico abolished capital punishment, but had only two men on death row when the bill was signed into law in March.

Washington state’s legislative session this year was “completely upside down in terms of criminal justice policy,” said state Rep. Roger Goodman (D), vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Goodman said lawmakers cut funding for the wrong programs — such as housing and other transitional services that can help ex-inmates stay out of trouble — and refused to make substantial changes to the sentencing policies that he said have put too many nonviolent and drug-addicted people in prison in the first place. Goodman explained lawmakers’ distaste for making sentencing changes this way: “There aren’t enough political points to be gained by taking this issue on. There are political points to be gained by attacking it.”

While broad changes to criminal sentencing laws remain a tough sell issue in many state capitols, corrections officials are pushing other, less controversial changes to reduce prison populations. Many states have made sick or dying inmates eligible for early parole. Other states, including Florida and Tennessee, have invested more heavily in drug treatment courts and community supervision programs in the hopes of keeping offenders from returning to prison.  “Changing sentences is a very difficult thing to do. And so we’ve gone around it,” Pennsylvania Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard said during an annual summit of state legislators in Philadelphia last month.

An effort to reverse a trend that saw $2.8 million spent in overtime pay last year, up from $2.64 million in 2007, the measure is being called the first major step in reducing not only the stress on employees, but on the taxpayers as well. In a joint statement from Salem County Sheriff Chuck Miller and Freeholder David Lindenmuth, chair of the county Public Safety Committee, they introduced a plan to take on 14 recruits this year and seven more by the following December. “Public safety is paramount and we aim to reduce the cost to the taxpayer without compromising safety,” said Miller. “Right now we have no relief built in. When someone takes off, it is going straight to overtime.”

Overall the county’s various departments and agencies doled out approximately $4.4 million to many of its estimated 480 employees last year, for working a total of 125,855 hours past their normal shifts. Jail staff accounted for 74,595 of those extra hours.

Warden Ray Skradzinski said the starting salary for the 21 new officers will be an estimated $31,000 annually. He said the jail’s current 100 officers take 12-hour shifts, though right now routinely work up to 16 hours.  “Certainly cutting back on overtime will affect some of their earning potential,” Skradzinski said. “When it comes down to the morale and the fatigue … it’s a balance from an administrative point of view we have to take.”

“The RAC program is the proverbial ‘win-win’ for New Jersey. The State avoids the costs of incarceration and technical parole violators receive the reentry services they need to lead productive lives. This report confirms what university-based research has told us for years–reentry programs work,” said Dr. Robert Mackey. The report states that community-based reentry programs are cost effective and improve public safety and cites New Jersey as one of “six states (that) are increasing the likelihood that people on probation or parole stay out of prison.”

“New Jersey has long focused on community corrections through the utilization of an assessment/treatment model as an effective alternative to incarceration. RAC is an important program to address the reentry needs of technical parole violators,” added Dr. Mackey.

The citation appears in “Pruning Prisons: How Cutting Corrections Can Save Money and Protect Public Safety,” an independent report released May 20, 2009 by the Justice Policy Institute. The report is available at the institute’s website, http://www.justicepolicy.org/index.htm.

The Regional Assessment Centers were developed as an investment in public safety, and a method to save taxpayer dollars by reducing the rate at which technical parole violators are returned to prison. Technical parole violators are parolees who have committed a technical violation of the conditions of their supervision, but have not been charged with a new crime or significantly threatened public safety. Most technical violations are consistent with a relapse in addiction and indicate intensified supervision and treatment as an appropriate response for public safety. The RACs hold technical parole violators to a 15- to 30-day lockdown period, while subjecting them to a clinical risk-needs assessment. The assessment helps the New Jersey State Parole Board make better-informed decisions as to whether the technical violator should continue on parole with intensified supervision and programming, or whether the individual should return to prison.

Source:  CEC press release.

Investigators said jails are like a “branch office” for gang members who are able to easily sell drugs, communicate by using smuggled cell phones and launder money with official inmate accounts. The report says that incarceration is not an obstacle to gang members, who are able to easily sell drugs, communicate using smuggled cell phones and launder money using official inmate accounts …

The SCI, a fact-finding agency that examines crime and corruption and which reports to the Legislature, recommended widespread changes within the Department of Corrections, including better oversight of inmate finances, reforming prison hiring practices and improving inspections to prevent smuggling …

Law enforcement efforts are succeeding in putting more gang members behind bars, the report said, but that has created new challenges for state prisons. “The growing influx of convicted gang members has transformed the prison system into a breeding ground for gang-related criminal activity at a level far more expansive than ever before,” the report said. Prison staff monitor inmate phone calls, read mail and receive some training on how to deal with gangs. But, the report said, it is not enough. “Those who manage and staff these institutions go to work every day in what amounts to a defensive holding action against worsening odds, and all too often, as they reach for practical tools to get the job done properly, they find the system lacking,” the report says …

According to the report, a top Corrections official believes up to half of all state prison inmates are involved with a gang, either by choice or through extortion. The SCI identified an East Coast chapter of the Bloods as the primary catalyst for criminal activity behind bars. During a November hearing, state investigators said the Bloods — which reportedly account for about half of all incarcerated gang members — exploit corrupt prison guards to smuggle drugs and other contraband. Shawn Williams, president of the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Association, said the biggest problem is the proliferation of cell phones, which allows inmates to circumvent monitored prison phones …

SCI Chairman Cary Edwards … said some problems can be tackled without more money, noting that the Department of Corrections’ investigative operations need fundamental restructuring. The division is responsible for both internal affairs and gang suppression, creating a toxic relationship with the guards needed for gathering basic intelligence, Edwards said. He also said police and prison officials need to do a better job sharing intelligence on gang activity.

State Parole Board officials say it’s the first of its kind in the nation. “We have to take full credit for this one,” said Director of Community Programs Lenny Ward. “This is a New Jersey initiative.”

The idea is to take technical parole violators — people who haven’t committed a new crime but may have failed a drug test or missed a meeting — and house them for 15 to 30 days at secure facilities run by a private company, Community Education Centers, in Newark or Trenton. Officials hope the program, which can house 45 parole violators at a time, will help the state avoid $14 million in incarceration costs in the coming budget year. In New Jersey, the overwhelming majority of parolees returning to prison each year — about 85 percent of almost 3,000 — committed technical violations, not new crimes. Lowering that number would help take a bite out of prison overcrowding at a time when state prisons have about 5,500 more inmates than what they were designed for …

Jeff Mellow, professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said that [economics are] changing how people view minor parole violations. “There has been a shift across the country due to the high costs of incarcerations, prison overcrowding, and a new emphasis on rehabilitation that makes us rethink this whole notion of ‘zero tolerance,’” Mellow said. “Everyone is realizing that they can no longer incarcerate their way out of this problem.”

For several years, New Jersey has used a system of “graduated sanctions,” in which parole officers have more options than simply returning their offenders to prison. Parolees who have not committed a new crime can receive increased supervision, electronic monitoring or substance abuse treatment. As a result, the number of technical violators returning to prison dropped 37 percent from 2001 to 2008. The Residential Assessment Centers, which opened last summer, use the same concept …

That doesn’t mean the program is cheap. The state has already spent $4.51 million on it and is expected to fork over another $3.786 million in the budget year that begins July 1. But parole officials say that money will pay dividends, as more parolees receive the attention they need to get their lives back on track. “Every day that the person is not in county jail or in a state prison, New Jersey basically saves money,” Ward said.