Beginning June 1, it will cost convicted Butler County OH sex offenders to register at the sheriff’s office.  Report from the Dayton Daily News.

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones announced today sex offenders will be billed $25 each time they appear for registration.  Ohio law allows a sheriff’s office to charge a fee to offenders with specific annual guidelines on what amount an offender can be charged and the reason for the charge, according to a press release. A required offender can be charged for the initial registration, for registering a new residence address, and for verification of a current residence address.  Tier III offenders and child-victim offenders may be charged no more than $100 for each registration year. Offenders who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to a sexually oriented offense or a child-victim offense, excluding Tier III offenders, can not be charged more than $25 each registration year, according to Ohio law.

Fees collected will offset the expenses the county pays each year for the registration and notification of sex offenders. Butler County Sheriff’s Sgt. Melina Smith said today Butler County has 483 registered sex offenders. The tally is fluid and changes weekly, if not daily, as offenders leave the county, move in or become incarcerated. If the number of offenders stayed the same and everyone paid the fee to register, the sheriff’s office would collect approximately $24,300 annually. The cost to notify the sex offenders by mail will be approximately $200, Smith said …

Smith said a person who refuses to pay the fee or who can not due to poverty levels, will be registered. Non payment will not stop registration.  “We are going to tell them to come in a register no matter what,” Smith said. The county can take those who do not pay, but met the criteria, to civil court if they choose to do so.

vericatrajkova OH Butler County, Ohio, Sex Offenders

The Heartless Felons, a new kind of prison gang, have brazenly broken away from the unwritten convicts’ code – no rapes, no robberies, no snitching, no group attacks – and raised tensions to alarming rates at the Mansfield Correctional Institution in OH, prison guards and officials say.  Report from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

The gang formed in juvenile jails and now, slightly older but no less violent, members have migrated to the state prison system, where the Heartless Felons are wreaking havoc. The Felons, with other gangs stocked from Cleveland streets, have squared off several times against each other, increasing the tensions at the overcrowded state prison in Mansfield and raising concerns of another Easter riot.  Attacks in Ohio prisons have doubled since 2005, from nearly 500 then to more than 1,000 last year …

The Mansfield prison houses 2,475 inmates, though it was built for 1,536, a capacity rate of 161 percent. The prison nearly exploded March 20 when about 10 gang fights broke out.  The fights involved the Heartless Felons, the Up the Way gang and the Down the Way gang, the last two made up of inmates predominantly from Cleveland, prison officials said. In some fights, 25 gang members attacked each other. Guards and inmates suffered minor injuries …

Mansfield faces [familiar] problems of crowding and staff shortages, as the prison has 383 guards spread over four shifts. On a typical weekday afternoon shift, about 80 guards work the prison, creating a ratio as high as 30 inmates to every guard…

About 18 months ago, the prison began seeing a change when the Heartless Felons began filtering into Mansfield.

The [Heartless Felons] gang’s roots go back to the juvenile jails run by the Department of Youth Services, where the gang formed and battled for years with its rival, the Head Busters. As the Heartless Felons left the youth system and continued committing crimes, they were pushed to adult prisons … Older inmates – those in their 20s or early 30s – who tried to steer some of the gang’s 30 or so members away soon regretted it. The gang deals in intimidation, preferring six-on-one attacks, robberies and extortion. Its own bylaws indicate that its members will not fight one-on-one during attacks, guards said.

There is more detail and background in the Plain Dealer article.

vericatrajkova Gangs (STGs), Juvenile Justice, Ohio

The Ohio Department of Corrections has announced a proposed layoff of nearly 500 state employees has been averted, according to the Chillicothe Gazette.

Becky Williams, president of Service Employees International Union District 1199, has been involved in ongoing discussions with ODRC Director Terry Collins and other members of the ODRC team to find alternative solutions.   Williams applauded the decision by Collins to allocate federal funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act approved by Congress earlier this year to supplant the funding gap and allow workers to remain on the job.

vericatrajkova Economic Issues, Ohio, Personnel Issues

Sheriff Dwayne Wenninger of Brown County, Ohio, doesn’t want the new jail the County Commissioners are offering him.  He says he can barely pay for the jail he has now. This report from WKRC-TV.

vericatrajkova Economic Issues, OH Brown County, Ohio, Prison and Jail Construction

The Delaware County OH jail soon will house federal prisoners under a new contract arranged by the sheriff and the U.S. Marshals Service, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

Under the agreement approved Monday by county commissioners, the federal law-enforcement agency will rent beds at the jail and pay the county $65 a day per bed, starting in April … Sheriff Walter L. Davis III said, through the partnership, the jail is accepting nonviolent men and women suspected of white-collar crimes such as theft and embezzlement.   The money generated from rental fees will go toward completing the unfinished second story of the jail, Davis said.  The sheriff’s office is pursuing a similar arrangement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house illegal immigrants awaiting deportation.

vericatrajkova OH Delaware County, Ohio, US Marshall's Service

Some nonviolent offenders told to come back later when the jails around Cincinnati OH have room for them aren’t returning.  Report from WLWT.

The deferrals are the result of budget cuts that led to layoffs at the Hamilton County Sheriff’s office and forced closure of the county’s second-largest jail.   About 23 of the 90 people told to check in with jailers in Cincinnati over the past month to see if they could start their sentences didn’t call in.  Sheriff’s officials said there will be no concentrated effort to find them because there aren’t enough officers. Even the 67 offenders who did check in had their sentences delayed again.

Hamilton County Municipal Judge Brad Greenberg said the deferrals undermine the justice system.

vericatrajkova Economic Issues, OH Hamilton County, Ohio

Almost as soon as children arrive in detention, Ohio officials would begin discussing the best way to release some of them, under a plan announced Thursday aimed at overhauling the juvenile system.  Report from the News-Messenger.

The plan filed in federal court shifts the approach of releasing a child away from rigid sentencing requirements to a plan that follows a youth’s progress during imprisonment. The goal: to make sure decisions about releases are fair, consistent and that youth aren’t being held in prison longer than needed.   The plan is part of negotiations that followed a 2004 lawsuit alleging serious problems with Ohio’s juvenile detention system, including excessive force by guards.

The state should evaluate every youth entering the juvenile system to determine if he is eligible for a speedy release and promote opportunities for early release based on a child’s behavior and security classification, according to the plan.  Decisions “regarding release should evaluate positive steps taken by the youth toward successful re-entry as well as factor in public safety,” the plan says … The Department of Youth Services must also conduct a review exploring release options within three months of a youth being returned to detention for a parole violation.

vericatrajkova Juvenile Justice, Ohio

State Sen. Bill Seitz says sweeping prison reform is the only way to reduce overcrowding and ease strain on Ohio’s incarceration budget, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The conservative Green Township Republican last week introduced Senate Bill 22, which would allow more minor offenders to be sentenced to community programs, give more good-time credit to inmates, give the parole authority the ability to deal with parole violators and create sentencing alternatives for parents convicted of failing to pay child support.  “While it is important that the Legislature continues to pass strong laws to help keep our communities safe, this effort must be balanced with policies that work to responsibly reduce Ohio’s prison population and its financial impact on taxpayers across the state,” Seitz said …

Currently the state’s 32 prisons are operating at 132 percent of their designed inmate capacity. The two state prisons in Warren County on Friday were holding inmates at 73 and 76 percent above their designed capacity.  The annual cost to house an inmate is $24,875.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters stopped short of criticizing a fellow Republican, but said the bill would compromise safety and if the budget needs relief, cuts should be made elsewhere. “The problem with any of these laws is they are entirely budget driven, and not safety driven,” Deters said …

Seitz’s bill mirrors proposals by the Strickland administration.  Gov. Ted Strickland’s two-year budget, which must be passed by June 30, proposes spending $3.65 billion in fiscal years 2010 and 2011 to run prisons. Collins said there is about $10 million in the state budget for counties to fund community-correction programs, including halfway houses.    Strickland’s budget bill recommends sentencing people to alternative programs for failing to pay child support, freeing 527 prison beds annually; increasing from one to seven days per month the possible earned credit time for eligible inmates, freeing 2,644 prison beds; redefining supervision for parole violators, freeing 591 prison beds; and raising the felony theft thresholds from $500 to $750, freeing 300 prison beds.  Those and other reforms could eventually save $29 million and reduce the prison population by 6,736 annually, according to budget estimates.

The full article in the Cincinnati Enquirer has a lot more information.

vericatrajkova Community Corrections, Economic Issues, OH Hamilton County, Ohio, Overcrowding, Probation and Parole

The head of Ohio’s prison system gave state legislators a no-nonsense budget talk yesterday, saying, “We’ve lost the war on drugs, yet we keep sending people to state prisons.”  The Columbus Dispatch reports:

Terry Collins, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, made an impassioned plea for sentencing reforms to divert more offenders from overcrowded state prisons and ease the burden on the financially strapped system.  The alternative: closing another prison in 2011, Collins told a House committee reviewing the state budget.  “We are at a critical and urgent stage,” he said.   The director said state prisons are bulging with 32 percent more inmates than they are designed to hold, and the population will hit 60,000 in the next decade unless changes are made. It was 50,719 on Monday.

Gov. Ted Strickland’s two-year budget proposes spending a total of $3.65 billion in fiscal years 2010 and 2011 to operate prisons, community-corrections facilities and halfway houses funded by the state. Collins said the proposed budget, though large, will require cutting about 500 positions from his payroll. The Strickland administration’s blueprint recommends a package of changes to sentencing laws, including allowing inmates to accumulate seven days a month of “earned credit” to reduce their sentences if they participate in education and treatment programs …

“We cannot continue to believe the only option is to punish people by sending them to prison,” Collins said. “We need to stop sending people to prison who we are just ‘mad at.’  … Prison beds should be maintained for those who are just plain ‘bad.’  ” Collins warned that if the reforms are not enacted, he will have no option but to close another prison to save money.

vericatrajkova Economic Issues, Ohio, Overcrowding, Sentencing

County commissioners on Monday unanimously voted to approve a resolution declaring an intent to finish the second floor of the Delaware County OH Jail.  The Delaware Gazette reports:

The language of the resolution referenced that money for the construction would be raised by renting out space in the jail to house federal prisoners. Delaware County Sheriff Walter L. Davis III said the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) was also interested in paying the county to hold illegal aliens. In addition to finishing the jail, federal dollars would also pay for an additional 12 correctional officers and three school resource officers, he said … U.S. Marshals and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency would provide $65 a day for each one of its prisoners housed at the jail, Davis said. The federal agencies would also cover medical expenses.

Davis said on Monday that the prisoners from the U.S. Marshals would “white-collar, non-violent” criminals. He also said 90 percent of the illegal aliens ICE handles are not criminal offenders beyond their illegal status in this country.   They would only be in the jail a short time while awaiting deportation.   “They’ll be in and out,” Davis said.   ICE is interested in renting 15 beds in the jail immediately, pending an inspection of the facility …

Costs of finishing the jail were not discussed at the meeting, although in November, Davis asked the commissioners at his year budget hearing for about $1,000,000 for the project.  To raise that amount without using local taxpayer money, the jail would need to house about 42 federal prisoners and/or illegal immigrants at $65 a day for one full year.

vericatrajkova Federal Payments, ICE, Immigration Issues / Illegal Aliens, OH Delaware County, Prison and Jail Construction