The state’s prison population routinely hits 99 percent of capacity, the Board of Corrections was told Wednesday. “We have been over 99 percent in the last 30 days more times than in history,” Department of Corrections Director Justin Jones told the board at its regular monthly meeting at the Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in Taft. News from Tulsa World.

As of Aug. 2, state-run prisons were operating at 98.85 percent of capacity with 18,326 offenders, according to a population analysis provided to board members. The 99 percent figure includes contract beds at halfway houses, private prisons and county jails.

Jones said operating at such a high percentage of capacity makes it difficult to transfer inmates among facilities. “If we had to vacate a housing unit, there is no place to go,” he said.

The agency would normally rely on vacant private prison beds, among other options, but it does not have the funds to pay, Jones said.

“Our system is locked up, for lack of a better term,” he said.

State agencies have been cutting budgets as a result of declining state revenue. Jones said the Department of Corrections will ask lawmakers for a supplemental appropriation of up to $40 million to reduce the number of furlough days its employees have to take during the current budget year and to pay for offender growth. The agency is operating at 70.9 percent of its authorized level of correctional officers, Jones said.

Board member David Henneke said he was concerned that the elimination of prison treatment programs due to budget cuts could result in some offenders not being able to perform assignments ordered by the courts.

As a result, they could wind up with longer stays in prison, Henneke said. Jones said the agency has tried to educate judges and the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board about the lack of programs currently available inside the system.

jchev Oklahoma, Overcrowding, Prison Population

Inmates are on the move in Tulsa after the Oklahoma Department of Corrections cancels its contract with a correctional facility. The DOC is now relocating dozens of offenders in the Prisoner Public Work program and leaving one building almost empty in the process. Maximum capacity at Riverside Intermediate Sanction Facility is 380. Right now the real concern is minimum capacity. News and additional photos from The News on 6.

It’s only going to get quieter for administrator Donnie Coffman and his staff at the facility on Charles Page Boulevard in Tulsa.

Over the last two months, Riverside, which is run by Avalon Correctional Services, has lost almost all the inmates in the Prisoner Public Work program.

Under the program, state inmates come in and get assigned to a work crew that picks up trash, digs ditches and mows lawns around the city. Eventually those inmates move on to a halfway house and then get released back into society.

“The way that it’s set up for re-entry, I thought it was an important step in transitioning them from behind a fence to a halfway house,” said Donnie Coffman, Avalon Regional Administrator. “They do good work. It’s a good management of our tax dollars.”

And money is exactly what led to the DOC cutting the Riverside contract short.

The facility and the Muskogee Community Corrections Center were both affected by the DOC cutbacks. The two contracts saved the department $2 million.

“We’re going to have to make up $40 million in budget shortfall this year, so we’re looking at every operation we have,” said Jerry Massie, Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

The Prisoner Public Work program was the only program that didn’t make money for the DOC. The department had to shut something out.

“We don’t have the luxury now to have a function that’s not generating some income for us,” said Massie.

The few offenders left will soon be transported to other facilities, like work centers or halfway houses. The DOC says their progress in the system won’t be affected.

Avalon President Brian Costello says he has two options moving forward with the Riverside facility. Either try to renegotiate a contract with the Department of Corrections or seek new contracts to fill up the building, perhaps with federal inmates.

jchev Economic Issues, Inmate Programs, Oklahoma

In a cost-cutting move, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections is eliminating some of its community-level beds in Tulsa. The agency has canceled a contract with Avalon Correctional Services for beds to house offenders put on public works crews in Tulsa, department Director Justin Jones said. The offenders are being moved to other facilities. Story reported in Tulsa World.

Avalon President Brian Costello said the contract involves about 75 offenders. With those beds empty, the company will have trouble keeping its building open, he said.

“We are exploring some options to try to find a different population to go in there. It doesn’t look promising,” Costello said.

Jones said the state inmates should be out of Avalon’s building at 1727 Charles Page Blvd. by about Sept. 1. The department also closed the Muskogee Community Corrections Center effective Aug. 1, Jones said. It had about 87 beds. Those offenders were moved to centers in Mangum and Healdton and to vacant halfway houses.

“What we are doing now is looking at where we can add beds at existing facilities so we might have the possibility of consolidation,” Jones said.

Community level is considered to be less than minimum security. The closures in Tulsa and Muskogee are among a number of cost-cutting measures by the department, Jones said, adding that they will save about $2 million. More closures could be on the horizon, he said. Other cost-cutting measures include employee furloughs, voluntary buyouts and program cuts.

The Department of Corrections’ budget for fiscal year 2011 is $462 million, down from $503 million in 2010. The agency is seeking a supplemental appropriation of up to $40 million, Jones said. At a time when the department has less money available, the state’s inmate population is growing.

The department had a net offender growth of 721 inmates in the last fiscal year, Jones said. The agency is furloughing employees one day a month from July through February.

“DOC employees are furloughing to pay for net offender growth and unfunded mandates,” Jones said.

“So, if we don’t get a supplemental in February, the message to our employees would be that they are expected to take pay cuts to pay for net offender growth.”

The Oklahoma Public Employees Association is calling on legislative leaders to come to an agreement about the supplemental funding.

“This would allow Director Jones to stop the furloughs, which are crushing the morale of our public safety employees,” said Sterling Zearley, the OPEA’s executive director.

jchev Community Corrections, Economic Issues, Oklahoma

The total state prison population across the nation declined in 2009 for the first time in almost 40 years. The numbers didn’t exactly plummet — less than half a percentage point, or 4,777 fewer inmates than in 2008. The decrease, however, represents a sharp contrast from 1972 to 2008 when state prison populations grew by 708 percent. News from the Tulsa World.

Even with the slight decrease, the number of inmates in state institutions — 1,404,053 — is equivalent to locking up every man, woman and child in Philadelphia.

Last year, 26 states housed fewer inmates than they did the year before, according to a recent report by the Pew Center on the States. Twenty-four states, including Oklahoma, continued to add inmates — some with a vengeance.

As of Dec. 31, Oklahoma had 26,397 inmates, up about 530 inmates from 2008. That 2.1 percent increase might not sound so bad unless you consider that the prison system:

• Is at 99 percent capacity with 1,500 inmates backed up in county jails
• Is down 700 corrections officers
• Is in a state that has a $1.2 billion revenue shortfall going into the new fiscal year beginning July 1

Oklahoma is tough on crime. Its Legislature, in fact, is habitually TOC, in good times and in bad, and especially in election years. As one retired lawmaker put it: “We’ve felonized just about everything but flatulence and I hear that’s coming soon.”

Even with a funding crisis, the drumbeat to felonize more crimes — 26 — and to enhance penalties for existing crimes — 19 more — continued this legislative session.

Board of Corrections member David Henneke recently called the prison population levels “beyond critical.” Board member Robert Rainey complained lawmakers had mostly ignored the board’s suggestions on ways to save money.

Several states,the Pew report aid, have enacted reforms designed to give taxpayers a better return on their public safety dollars. Strategies include:

• Diverting low-level offenders and probation and parole violators from prison
• Strengthening community supervision and re-entry programs
• Accelerating the release of low-risk inmates who complete risk-reduction programs

Oklahoma has adopted some of those policies but not in great enough numbers to make a major difference.

About 90 percent of the offenders we lock up eventually get out and live among us. But the state spends relatively little money treating inmates for addictions or training them for jobs. And, we make it impossible for most felons to find employment when they do get out. So, too many career criminals take up where they left off when released because they have no other skills and drug abusers return to their addictions. It’s a sure-fire combination for keeping the prisons full.

In the past 20 years, corrections costs nationally have quadrupled and account for one of every 15 state general fund discretionary dollars. Corrections represents the second fastest-growing category of state budgets behind Medicaid.

The Pew report, however, found that the public is warming to prison alternatives.

“The public is supportive of using community corrections rather than prison for nonviolent offenders,” authors said. For instance, in a 2007 voter poll, 71 percent of Texas respondents preferred a mandatory intensive treatment program as an alternative to prison, a level of support that increased to 83 percent when respondents were told the diversion of lower-level offenders could help avert $1 billion in new prison costs.

Declining state revenues are starting to make policy leaders realize that the public’s support of incarceration may wane when it’s done on a scale that robs mightily from other state services.

Advances in supervision technology, including GPS monitors, faster drug tests and ATM-like reporting kiosks, offer authorities new technologies to monitor the whereabouts and activities of offenders in the community.

“These capabilities are giving lawmakers, judges and prosecutors greater confidence that they can protect public safety and hold offenders accountable with sanctions other than prison,” Pew authors said. Policy leaders are realizing that they can effectively reduce their prison populations, and save public funds without sacrificing public safety.

“That’s a drastically different policy environment than the one that existed in the 1970s and 1980s, when states decided that building more and more prison cells was the answer to crime,” authors said.

For some offenders incarceration is the appropriate punishment. Other offenders might serve their debt to society through less costly means, freeing up funds for other priorities such as seeing that students are educated, that roads, bridges and other infrastructure are maintained, that the elderly and fragile are protected and that the health care system is adequate.

In punishing lawbreakers it’s important to distinguish between those we fear and those we’re just mad at. We have to prioritize spending. Do we throw Bubba in prison or do we throw grandma out on the street? When we put people behind bars who might be punished through less expensive means, we sometimes end up punishing ourselves.

jchev Alternative Sentencing, Economic Issues, Oklahoma, Overcrowding

An Oklahoma Senate budget committee on Wednesday derailed a plan to seek a statewide vote on merging the Pardon and Parole Board with the Department of Corrections. Reported in Business Week.

The House Appropriations Committee voted 12-9 against Senate President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee’s joint resolution, which called for a public vote on an amendment to the state constitution.

Another state agency merger bill that would consolidate the Scenic Rivers Commission with the Oklahoma Department of Tourism narrowly passed the committee.

Lawmakers are considering merging several state agencies as they grapple with a $1.2 billion shortfall in next year’s budget.

In other legislative action Wednesday, the full Senate approved a bill to exempt animal husbandry, or livestock breeding, along with horseshoeing and teeth filing from the Oklahoma Veterinary Practices Act.

The proposal to merge the Pardon and Parole Board ran into trouble when several senators voiced concern it could create a conflict of interest for DOC personnel to decide which inmates should be paroled. Currently, that function is performed by investigators with the Pardon and Parole Board.

“I could see the department being under pressure to release inmates to get the numbers down to make budget,” said Sen. Kenneth Corn, D-Poteau. “I think we’re better served with an independent Pardon and Parole board.”

Sen. Anthony Sykes, who carried the bill, said the proposal eliminates a duplication of services performed by employees at the two agencies and would save the state about $500,000 each year. Sykes says the merge would eliminate the need for a director and general counsel at the Pardon and Parole Board.

“It’s efficiency of government that we’re looking for,” said Sykes, R-Moore. “I think they’re both performing the same function.”

The practice of filing horses’ teeth, or teeth floating, has been a source of controversy at the Legislature since rodeo star Bobby Griswold was arrested last year and charged with a felony count of practicing veterinary medicine without a license.

Griswold, who has lobbied for a change in state law, later pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of possession of a dangerous drug without a prescription and received a deferred sentence.

“They obviously wanted to make an example out of me because I was high-profile,” said Griswold, who was in the Senate gallery when the bill passed. It now heads to the House.

Sen. Mike Schulz, who authored the bill, said Griswold’s prosecution made it clear the law should be changed.

“That sent shock waves across Oklahoma among livestock producers who were doing something they’ve always done,” said Schulz, R-Altus.

jchev Oklahoma, Parole

A state Board of Corrections member on Friday called legislative inaction on proposals to reduce the prison population shameful. News in the Tulsa World.

Board member Robert Rainey said the Department of Corrections submitted to lawmakers a list of evidence-based, best-practices suggestions to reduce the prison population and lower incarceration costs.

Fourteen bills were introduced in the current legislative session; only one remained alive after Thursday’s deadline for measures to make it out of their chamber of origin.

“To see these fail out of the starting gate is frustrating,” Rainey said at a Board of Corrections meeting. He said board members might have been naive to believe that the Legislature would be “more productive.”

He said the Department of Corrections has cut to the bone and eliminated programs in the face of required budget reductions and added that he hoped the public and offenders would not be hurt as a result.

“If that happens, it is no one’s fault but the Legislature,” Rainey said. “It is a failure of legislative leadership, and it is shameful.” The agency’s staff levels are 1,411 employees fewer than the authorization of 5,895.

Board member David Henneke said the Department of Corrections can’t continue to lose employees and keep the public safe. “Someone at the Capitol has got to understand we can’t continue the way it is, or someone is going to die,” he said.

Henneke noted that the only measure still alive — Senate Bill 2292 — would create a Drug Offenders Sentencing Task Force. “We are tired of task forces,” he said, adding that such groups spend money and produce no results.

Lawmakers are more worried about campaigning than addressing critical issues, Henneke said. They don’t want to pass measures because they are afraid that doing so will harm their re-election bids, he said.

“It is about time these people started to do what is best for the state of Oklahoma, not what is best for their campaigns,” he said.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee, R-Oklahoma City, said the comments from board members are one more example of growing frustration with a difficult budget year.

“I certainly understand that part,” he said. Coffee said most of the recommendations wouldn’t have affected this year’s budget and that some of the suggestions would threaten public safety.

He said he doesn’t think the agency is making adequate use of private prison beds and halfway houses to reduce costs.

An MGT of America audit of the agency, requested by the Legislature and released in 2008, noted that the state’s standards for putting offenders in community facilities and halfway houses rank “among the most liberal community placement criteria in the nation, allowing some offenders to be placed in a community setting as much as eight years before the end of their sentences.”

jchev Oklahoma, Overcrowding

Thirty-six state legislators share the same names as 206 felons who are listed in an Oklahoma Department of Corrections database, a Tulsa World computer-aided analysis indicates. Reported by Tulsa World.

The list of felons whose names match those of state lawmakers includes six murderers, four rapists, 58 burglars and 17 embezzlers, to name a few.

While none of the current state lawmakers are felons, determining the background of any future political candidates or other public employees with any certainty would be more difficult if a bill introduced this year becomes law, government openness advocates say.

Senate Bill 1753 by Sen. Debbe Leftwich, D-Oklahoma City, has triggered a debate regarding limiting access to certain public employee records.

Leftwich has said she authored the bill, which would make secret public employees’ birth dates, over identity theft concerns. The Oklahoma Public Employees Association and State Troopers Association favor the bill.

The state’s two largest newspapers — the Tulsa World and The Oklahoman — and the Oklahoma Press Association have argued against passage of the bill.

OPA lobbyist Mark Thomas has said keeping public employees’ dates of birth public is critical to the media. Reporters
use birth dates to confirm or exclude individuals when researching public employees’ pasts.

The bill, if approved, also would nullify a recent opinion issued by the state attorney general’s office, which indicated that state agencies should assume that birth dates are public unless the state Open Records Act or other pertinent statutes close them.

The Dec. 8 opinion indicates “since dates of birth are not declared by the Legislature to be confidential, the presumption of the law is that they are public and should be released upon request.”

The public employees’ union has argued that the dates of birth should be made secret to protect workers’ personal safety and their identity from theft. In arguing for closure of the records, the association has not cited a single case in which an employee’s identity was stolen using public records.

The state Open Records Act already keeps secret several types of records related to public employees. The list of confidential records includes public employees’ home addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, work evaluations, internal personnel investigations and payroll deductions.

News organizations routinely use birth dates when examining large computerized lists of public employees’ names and comparing them with computerized prison and arrest records. The World has used the process to help identify felons who worked with vulnerable populations such as school bus drivers and nursing home employees.

Birth dates were utilized in a 1998 Tulsa World series that identified more than 200 school employees who had past brushes with the law.

A former Tulsa World reporter who worked on the series, now on the Washington Post investigative staff, said making dates of birth secret will make it harder for news organizations to do their jobs and may have unintended consequences.

“Every time lawmakers whittle away at access to public records, it gets more difficult for journalists to report fully — and accurately — on the workings of government,” said the former World reporter, David S. Fallis.

Leaving dates of birth public also protects public employees with common names from being linked to others who may have past criminal records, Fallis said. As an example, having just a first and last name would lead to three dozen state lawmakers’ names being matched with 206 state felons.

House member Mike Brown has the distinction of perhaps having one of the more common names among legislators. So it should come as no surprise that there are 68 Michael Browns who are Oklahoma felons.

Sometimes having a middle name doesn’t distinguish either. There are seven Michael R. Browns who share the same middle initial as the lawmaker.

Even having a year of birth does not always help distinguish two people. There are two Michael Browns who are felons and share the same year of birth as the non-felon legislator. One of the felon Michael Browns with the same birth year is a murderer. Rep. Brown, D-Tahlequah, could not be reached for comment.

Joey Senat, an associate professor of journalism at Oklahoma State University and former president of FOI Oklahoma Inc., said the felon-legislator matching exercise “demonstrates you can be mistaken for someone who has committed a crime if you have the same name.”

“So having that date of birth as a secondary identifier, it’s a way to distinguish between people,” Senat said. “And in the end it protects your privacy.”

Senat said FOI Oklahoma, a freedom of information organization, doesn’t dismiss the identity theft problem.

“But the reality is, we’ve got a lot of experts that say a date of birth is not going to be used to steal a person’s identity,” Senat said. Ironically, birth dates already are easily obtainable for most lawmakers.

The Oklahoma Almanac, produced by the state Department of Libraries, includes biographical information submitted by every current state lawmaker. Eighty-five percent of the 149 members of the Legislature included their full date of birth with their self-contributed biographies.

Bill Young, public information manager for the libraries department, said he was not aware of any identity theft issues or other problems that have arisen from the publication of the lawmakers’ birth dates, which are not requested by the almanac’s editors.

The bill awaits action in the House after it was approved Feb. 18 by a 44-0 vote in the Senate. If passed by the House, the measure will return to the Senate for consideration

jchev Data Sharing, Oklahoma, Public Release

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections has reduced its staff by 59 as it struggles to deal with the effects of the state’s $729 million budget shortfall. Report from Bartlesville Live.

Corrections Department spokesman Jerry Massie said Friday that even though the agency is slated to receive a supplemental appropriation from the Legislature, officials still had to fill an $11 million gap after being told to trim their budgets by 10 percent for the rest of the fiscal year.

Massie says DOC Director Justin Jones told the Oklahoma Board of Corrections that 39 of the affected workers accepted early retirement buyouts. He says no corrections officers were included in the cuts.

Massie says the agency received a $503 million appropriation for the fiscal year, but the cuts mean officials will have about $48 million less to spend.

jchev Oklahoma, Personnel Issues

With many employees in both the public and private sectors set for furlough from their jobs, at least one group of state employees has seen a reprieve — at least for now. News reported in the McAlester News-Capital.

Furloughs which had been scheduled to begin next month for state Department of Corrections employees have been lifted at least until the beginning of the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1.

The planned furloughs were lifted due to an agreement between Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry and the state legislative leadership for a $7.2 million supplemental appropriation to the DOC.

In McAlester that means DOC employees at Oklahoma State Penitentiary, the Jackie Brannon Correctional Center, the District Three Probation and Parole offices and the DOC regional office, are no longer facing the furloughs, or unpaid days off work— at least until after June 30, when furloughs could come up again because of the new 2010-2011 budget.

jchev Oklahoma, Personnel Issues

Frustrated Board of Corrections members on Friday criticized what they called a lack of interest among lawmakers to fund the state prison system. News reported in the Tulsa World.

The Department of Corrections plans to begin furloughing all of its 4,514 employees starting in March to deal with budget cuts.

Some 119 employees took an early buyout offer as the agency worked to trim its budget, DOC Director Justin Jones said.

And if his budget is further cut by the minimum 7.5 percent he was told to expect in the next fiscal year, Jones said, the Corrections Department also will have to lay off 459 employees.

“That is not crying wolf,” Jones said during a regular Board of Corrections meeting at the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center.

The agency also may close some prisons by increasing capacity at others, he said.

State agencies have been told to reduce their budgets as a result of declining revenue.

The cuts had been 5 percent starting in August but rose to 10 percent for December and January. Assuming that the cuts revert to 5 percent in February and stay there until the end of the fiscal year on June 30, the agency will have cut $41 million from a $503 million budget, Jones said.

Since July 1, the Department of Correction has added 709 inmates, DOC chief of operations Ken Klinger said.

The prison system is operating at 100 percent capacity, Jones said.

The board’s suggestions on ways to curb the growing prison population and reduce costs don’t seem to interest lawmakers or state leaders, Corrections Board member David Henneke said.

Board member Robert Rainey said he was “surprised, shocked and dismayed” by the response the agency has gotten from the Legislature.

He said sentencing reform will come only after a federal judicial order requires lawmakers to spend money.

“The Legislature wants to incarcerate low-risk offenders and not pay for it,” Rainey said. “It is shameful. I am embarrassed.”

The Department of Corrections can’t do more with less forever, he said.

“At the end of the day, it is a failure of our leadership,” Rainey said.

Board member Ted Logan said he envisions a scenario in which someone is hurt or killed as a result of the cuts, followed by finger-pointing.

“I hope something gives before it reaches that point,” he said.

jchev Budgets, Oklahoma

You might be surprised to learn that abused and abandoned dogs are helping out in Oklahoma’s prisons, providing a way for hardened criminals to get a second chance. Story from ABC News.

Think of Unit 7 at Lexington Prison as a transfer station for thousands of inmates who enter the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. Among those who enter the gates and live beyond the razor wire are men convicted of sex crimes, drugs and even murder.

With sentences from several months to life, hope is sometimes difficult to see. That is until, in walks a lady.

“She’s brought all that out you just want to be a nice person anymore,” says Wade Adams. “So, Lady has taught you to be a gentleman? Ahh. I think she has.”

Wade is still a work in progress. He’s doing time for murder. He trains dogs for placement with senior citizens and the disabled. He’s one of ten men who help rehabilitate abused and abandoned animals.

“And most of them do come here with some issues,” says Lee Fairchild who runs the program called Friends For Folks.

The dogs are trained in basic obedience and also housebroken. The animals live with the inmates for weeks sometimes months. Without question, the program is life changing. For the trainer, the dog, and folks like 84-year-old Artie Nixon.

She makes her way to a 30-pound border collie whom she wants to share her home.

“She’s scared right now,” Artie says. “But we’ll bond together. It won’t take too long,  a few days.”

“It’s a proven fact that when an elderly person or any person for that matter pets a dog, their blood pressure goes down. They start feeling a little bit better,” says Fairchild.

Artie’s health is changing and she needs companionship.

“Well with my problem of hard of hearing, I don’t always hear my door bell and I don’t always hear my telephone. So I know I’ll watch her expression and then I’ll find out what it is.”

But you say it’s just a dog? Well no, it isn’t. At times, it’s unclear who benefits most from the training, the dog or the inmate.

“It just makes them a lot more responsible and caring,” Fairchild says.

And better prepared for the outside world, and better equipped to handle their emotions — men like Larry Raffaell, who is already serving 33 years for murder and been denied parole more than a dozen times.

“I could watch TV and not get emotional at all, anymore anytime an emotional program comes on I’m finding I’m wiping tears, I got something in my eye,” he says.

Inmates like Larry learn to value another life and strangely it begins with an animal. Then they have to let it go.

“I hope I don’t cry. It’ll be alright. Hopefully, the next one comes in real soon.”

The Friends for Folks program costs four-thousand dollars a year to operate and the animals are free to qualifying applicants.

jchev Inmate Programs, Oklahoma

Pennsylvania is exploring the idea of housing 1,000 to 1,500 prison inmates in other states for the next four years as it completes an expansion of its own correctional facilities, a plan that has piqued the interest of states that are struggling with budget deficits.  Story from the Wall Street Journal.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections is currently in contact with five other states — Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, Oklahoma and Virginia — and has asked the states their specific proposals for housing the prisoners, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania corrections department said Thursday.

Michigan is actively pursuing a deal with Pennsylvania, according to Russell Marlan, a spokesman for Michigan’s Department of Corrections. The state has excess prison capacity and is looking to cut $120 million from its $2 billion annual prison budget. Bringing in prisoners from other states would also preserve hundreds of corrections jobs in the state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation. “We will be going after this aggressively,” Mr. Marlan said Thursday. The Obama administration is also considering housing some of the detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in Michigan. The administration is in the process of determining whether a maximum security facility in Standish, Mich., could house terrorism suspects. An alternative is the federal prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Like, Michigan, Virginia is also facing deficits. On Tuesday, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said the state will close three correctional facilities due to budget woes. Kansas has considered shortening sentences for imprisoned criminals to cut costs and help close a budget gap.

“Nobody has said ‘yup, we’re going to do this,’” said Susan McNaughton, a Pennsylvania corrections spokeswoman. But Pennsylvania has already been forced to place 234 prison inmates in roughly a half a dozen county prisons, she said, due to overcrowding in prisons. “This will all have to be taken into consideration,” she said. “They’re looking at the opportunity that best fits them, and best fits fiscally,” said Mr. Marlan. “We are interested and we are going to respond.”

jakking Economic Issues, Michigan, Nevada, Oklahoma, Overcrowding, Pennsylvania, Virginia

The $400 million price tag attached last month to a proposed new or renovated Oklahoma County jail left county officials stunned and bewildered.  It also raised the question of whether the county missed its chance to fix the jail before the U.S. Justice Department steps in to correct problems that led to a scathing report last year on civil rights abuses at the lockup.  Report by NewsOK.

Sheriff John Whetsel put a doomed tax initiative before voters in 2003, a proposal he now admits was flawed and lacked accountability. Current and former county officials said the timing might have been right, but the politics of the day killed any chance for a successful fix. Now that county officials are united behind the cause, the price tag appears out of reach.

If the county can’t come up with a solution that is palatable to voters, the federal government could mandate changes that would go on the county’s property tax rolls without giving voters or local officials any say.  “I think certainly the DOJ (Justice Department) is saying that there has been a lack of political will to see this resolved,” District 2 Commissioner Brian Maughan said.  “They are saying collectively it’s not been there and they are tired of messing with us and will take it into their own hands, which is the grave risk we run,” he said.

Whetsel’s 2003 proposal would have established a permanent two-fifths-cent countywide sales tax which he estimated would bring in $30 million a year. Whetsel would have used the money to hire more employees for the jail and deputies for his enforcement activities. The proposal did not include money for jail renovations or any oversight for how the money could be used.   Voters shot it down by a 4-to-1 margin.  County officials at the time were sharply divided …

Voter distrust after mistakes in the jail’s 1991 construction made it almost impossible to come up with a successful proposal.  “I think there is truth to the fact that the citizens put a lot of faith in county officials many years ago and county officials let them down,” Whetsel said. “As honest as I believe the county officials are now as a group, people have a long memory.”

County officials are now unanimous in their efforts to fix the jail. A process that began shortly after the Justice Department’s report a year ago led the county to hire a group of engineers to develop a plan for fixing the jail’s problems. But the $400 million price tag the group came up with is unacceptable, Maughan said. All three commissioners agreed voters will never approve such a plan and have asked the engineers to significantly trim their proposal to make it more reasonable. “We have to do something,” Maughan said. “We have to make some last-ditch effort before we just concede and allow DOJ to come in and take over.”

jakking Economic Issues, Jail and Prison Construction, OK Oklahoma County, Oklahoma

Private prisons in Oklahoma soon could be housing maximum security inmates from other states under a new law that was approved in the waning days of the 2009 legislative session, according to a story at KFSM.

The language inserted in an omnibus corrections bill changes state policy that previously allowed only minimum and medium security from other states to be housed in state prisons.  House author Randy Terrill says several safeguards were put in place, including a policy that allows the Oklahoma Department of Corrections to review and approve inmates and the facilities where they will be housed.

But Judith Greene, director of the criminal justice research institute Justice Strategies, says such a policy change is a “recipe for disaster.”

jakking Maximum Security, Oklahoma, Private Prisons

The cost for a jail solution stuns Oklahoma County officials. Reported on NewsOK.

Oklahoma County commissioners were stunned Wednesday at

Oklahoma County Jail

the price tag for a new or renovated county jail — at least $391 million.

Commissioners had planned to bring a sales tax initiative before voters to pay for fixes to the jail. But after hearing cost estimates from the architects hired to come up with a plan, commissioners said they were pessimistic such a project would have any chance of winning voter approval unless major savings can be found.

“It’s very sobering,” District 3 Commissioner Ray Vaughn said. “We operated under the assumption that the renovation would be in the $120 million ballpark. What we see today is it’s not even in the same ZIP code.”

The county began looking at its options for renovating the jail after the U.S. Justice Department issued a scathing report on the jail’s conditions last year.

If the county doesn’t fix the problems on its own, the Justice Department could sue in federal court. Any changes mandated by a federal judge would go on the county’s property tax rolls.

The county hired an architectural team combining Frankfort Short Bruza Associates of Oklahoma City with international firm HOK. A criminal justice consultant firm, Pulitzer, Bogard & Associates, also helped with the plan.

The architects said renovating and expanding the jail to bring it up to code and add enough bed space for the next 20 years would cost $436.7 million.

They estimated building a new jail outside the downtown area on a 50-acre parcel of land would cost $391.1 million.

Curtis Pulitzer, principal of Pulitzer, Bogard & Associates, assured commissioners the cost estimate was as cheap as it could be for the jail to be brought to the proper standard.

District 2 Commissioner Brian Maughan said commissioners will work with the sheriff and the architects to see where costs might be reduced before the architects’ final report is presented in September.

Sheriff John Whetsel, who was out of town during Wednesday morning’s meeting, said he wasn’t surprised that building a new jail would be cheaper than renovating and expanding the existing jail because of all the problems he sees on a daily basis.

“But the amounts they delivered today — it’s shocking,” Whetsel said. “There has to be an effort to make this thing affordable. I think we just have to sit down and go back to the drawing board.”

jchev County-City Issues, Economic Issues, Jail and Prison Construction, OK Oklahoma County

The cash-strapped Oklahoma Department of Corrections has been able to offset the cost of feeding nearly 18,500 inmates daily because of an agricultural program that gives prisoners valuable skills, agency officials said.  Report from The Oklahoman.

In the past fiscal year, the agency’s Agriculture Services unit has earned more than $888,000 in profit from the sale of agriculture products such as beef, firewood and pecans, according to a report given to the Board of Corrections on Friday.   Ken Klinger, who oversees the unit, told board members the agency’s agriculture services not only makes a profit but gives inmates useful skills and occupies their time during incarceration.  “Making money on this is a side thing,” Klinger said. “The true value of this program is that we work with inmates and give them skills and help the agency save money on its food costs.”

Using vegetables or meat raised and processed within the prison system allows the agency to better control its daily cost of feeding inmates, said Justin Jones, Corrections Department director. It costs the department $2.42 a day to feed inmates three meals a day, the fourth lowest figure in the country, Jones said.  Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina have lower daily rates for feeding inmates.  “I’d say we’re feeding our inmates a little better,” Jones said. Menus in the state’s prison must be approved by a registered dietitian.

The state prisons’ agriculture services unit has a budget of $10.6 million and includes dairy and beef cattle operations, a meat processing plant, gardens where vegetables are grown and a facility where those vegetables are processed and frozen for use later in the year or by other facilities.

jakking Economic Issues, Food Services, Oklahoma

Taxpayers now know terms of the new jail contract between the city of Tulsa OK and the county.

The city will pay $45 to house prisoners facing municipal only charges. That rate applies for the first 35 inmates. After that, it goes up to $54.13 per inmate. Both sides came to an agreement Monday night and released details of the contract Tuesday. They had been operating without a contract since December 2008.

This agreement means both sides avoid heading to trial. Reaching a new contract over jail fees became such a contentious issue that the city sued the county last December. The county wanted the city to pay $54.13 for inmates facing both municipal and state charges. “That’s not the way other cities have worked, and that’s not the way our contract had worked in the past,” said Mayor Kathy Taylor. “That would have increased our cost dramatically, ten or twelve fold.” It took more than a year for both sides to agree on who qualifies as a municipal prisoner. “In the end we ended up compromising on that issue,” said county commission chair John Smaligo. “The city got the definition they wanted. From our side, we ended up getting what we felt was a fair rate.”

To save money, the city will not jail suspects arrested for non-violent offenses. “We’re looking at a good business model that prioritizes public safety but doesn’t unnecessarily place people in David L. Moss and put a strain on the Sheriff’s system,” said Taylor.

This jail agreement lasts five years.

jakking County-City Issues, Economic Issues, OK Tulsa County, Oklahoma

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections is seeking an exit clause in a proposed contract to house inmates at private prisons.  Report from KFSM.

The state is ending a five-year contract with the private Corrections Corporation of America and hopes to have a new deal in place by July 1.   Under the new proposal, the Corrections Department is requesting clauses allowing it to end the contract for any reason or to buy a private prison.  The proposed contract would also require private prisons housing Oklahoma inmates to offer access to psychologists, substance abuse services and basic behavioral counseling.

According to Corrections Department data, Oklahoma currently has about 4,300 state inmates in private prisons at a cost of $53 per inmate per day.

jakking CCA, Oklahoma, Private Prisons

A bill that could result in swift deportation of illegal aliens currently in Oklahoma state prisons has passed in the state Senate.  Story from News8.

House Bill 2245 passed with a vote of 43 to 0 in the Senate Thursday morning. The bill would create the “Oklahoma Criminal Illegal Alien Rapid Repatriation Act of 2009″.
The act would allow the Oklahoma Department of Corrections to immediately send inmates who are in the country illegally to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation.  The bill applies only to criminals who are in prison for non-violent crimes who have served at least half of their sentence.

“The people of Oklahoma should not have to pay the tab for the federal government’s failures,” said the bill’s author, Randy Terrill after its unanimous passage in the House last month. “The Criminal Illegal Alien Rapid Repatriation Act will shift the financial burden of imprisoning these inmates to the federal government and save the state more than $3 million.”
Terrill says there are currently more than five hundred illegal immigrants in state prisons and that nearly 70-percent of them are eligible for the proposed deportation program.   The state currently pays about 20-thousand dollars per year to house each inmate.

House Bill 2245 now returns to the House for final consideration.

jakking Illegal Aliens, Oklahoma

Idaho Department of Correction officials say a decline in the number of state inmates has made room for 130 prisoners to be brought back to the Gem State from Oklahoma.  Report from the AP.

The inmates arrived in Idaho on Monday.

Idaho has been relying on out-of-state prisons to house its inmates for a decade. But Department of Correction Director Brent Reinke said in a prepared statement Monday that the criminal justice system – from the courts to the treatment providers to the parole board – are functioning more efficiently. He says that’s led to an unprecedented decline in the state’s prison population, with 100 fewer inmates in state custody compared to last July.

Now 188 Idaho inmates remain at the Oklahoma prison. They are expected to be brought back by this fall.

jakking California, Idaho, Oklahoma, Overcrowding