The head of the state prison system wants to make sure Washington has more control over which out-of-state felons are allowed into the state. Story from KOMO News.

On Thursday those in charge of interstate movement of felons gathered in Olympia to discuss possible changes.

State Department of Corrections Secretary Eldon Vail called for tighter oversight and more accountability in the wake of the killings of four Lakewood officers by Maurice Clemmons, a felon from Arkansas.

Clemmons, who served time in an Arkansas prison, was relocated to Washington under an interstate compact that allows felons from one state to be supervised by the corrections department in another.

“I think in honor of those folks who were tragically murdered, we’re looking for solutions to prevent the next Maurice Clemmons,” Vail said.

Washington corrections officers told the compact that they want more say over who comes here, as well as the ability to return them to their home state.

“We might, in some cases, say, ‘Nope, this person you want to send here is too dangerous. We don’t want to supervise them and refuse to take them.’ I’d like to see that happen,” said Rep. Al O’Brien.

As it stands now, the state can’t send a felon like Clemmons back to the state where he served time.

“That’s not what the rules allow,” said Vail. “The rules are complicated; they’re cumbersome. We think they need to be more streamlined and simple.”

With the next meeting of the interstate compact not scheduled until next year, there was a sense of urgency at Thursday’s meeting.

“It’s like a treaty. You’ve got 50 states and every body is at the table and we don’t want to wait for that table to come together again in 2011,” Vail said. “We want to do something faster than that.”

Despite spiked anxiety, there were no final decisions made at the meeting; however, Vail hopes the meeting leads to action, and soon.

The state of Washington currently has a ban on receiving new felons from Arkansas.

janchavarie Arkansas, Washington

When Snohomish County last year moved supervision of its jail from the county executive’s office to the sheriff’s office, not everybody was convinced the change would help morale or save taxpayers’ money. Reported by HeraldNet.

Initial feedback points to some dramatic improvements during the past year, including huge drops in mandatory overtime, sick leave and worker grievances.

Undersheriff Tom Davis said the sheriff’s office has focused on building relationships with corrections bureau employees and law-enforcement agencies who pay to house inmates in the jail.

“If we focus on the relationships, other efficiencies will start to fall into place,” Davis said. “We’re never done, but we’re very pleased with where we are after 12 months. We still have a lot to accomplish.”

The jail has an annual budget of about $39 million and employs 341 people. It locked up about 25,500 inmates last year from 19 Snohomish County municipalities, the state and other outside agencies. In January, it had an average daily population of 1,161.

Councilman Mike Cooper in September 2008 proposed taking the Corrections Department away from County Executive Aaron Reardon’s office, citing considerable cost overruns at the jail.

That fall, a majority of the council voted to make jail operations part of Sheriff John Lovick’s job, starting Jan. 1, 2009.

Council Chairman Dave Gossett voted to move the jail, but worried the council was acting too quickly. The past year has dispelled those initial doubts, he said.

“I think it’s been going very well. I’ve been very impressed with the job that Sheriff Lovick has done,” he said. “There are two key issues. One is better labor relations. Two is a better control over overtime.”

Last week, Reardon said he advocated moving the jail for years before the council acted, and that it was “an idea that I pushed for a very long time.”

In a Nov. 6, 2008, memo to the County Council, Reardon urged delay.

“Rather than making this precipitous move at this time, I urge the council to take a step back and to engage in a thoughtful analysis of the ramifications of such a decision,” he wrote. “Until and unless such an analysis is done, I cannot support this action.”

The county’s Department of Corrections had been part of the executive’s office since the 1980s. Before that, it had belonged to the sheriff, which is the arrangement in most of Washington’s 39 counties.

Snohomish County moved the jail away from the sheriff because problems there led to civil rights lawsuits. Still, the jail remained a source of legal trouble.

Former jail director Steve Thompson was hired in 2003 when the Corrections Department became the focus of repeated criminal investigations and soaring overtime bills.

He initially was greeted with support by corrections officers, but during his tenure became the subject of dozens of labor complaints filed by the Snohomish County Corrections Guild. A majority of those complaints were dismissed by arbitrators.

Thompson opposed transferring his department to Lovick’s care.

At the time, Thompson said the County Council made the change to take a jab at Reardon and predicted Lovick would face the same labor headaches.

So far, that hasn’t been the case.

“Overall, we’re very happy with the sheriff’s office management,” guild president Andy Pierce said. “It’s just a new attitude. The difference is they value their people, they value their employees. It’s just a more respectful and honest attitude.”

Under the new administration, employee concerns have been handled at the “lowest possible level,” Pierce said. Two employees who filed wrongful termination grievances related to the previous administration received $50,000 each last year, he said.

The jail also is the subject of two pending lawsuits in which female employees allege being sexually harassed by male supervisors before the sheriff’s office took over.

Corrections Bureau Chief Mark Baird said lowering overtime by a third has boosted morale and improved finances. A key component was lowering mandatory overtime shifts by 93 percent. There were 30 mandatory shifts in 2009 compared to 411 the year before.

The number of worker grievances fell more than 76 percent, he said. There were 27 in 2009 compared to 114 in 2008. Sick leave dropped about 6 percent during the same period.

The drop in overtime saved taxpayers $1.35 million, Administrative Bureau Chief Rob Beidler said. In 2009, the jail also brought in an extra $2 million in revenue — about $12.8 million in 2009 compared to $10.8 million in 2008.

That happened through signing outside contracts with places such as Skagit County and the city of Kirkland to keep the beds full, as well as supplying services such as work crews, he said.

“Keeping the beds full is the best thing for Snohomish County’s general fund,” Beidler said. “Not just for the sheriff’s office, but for the general fund.”

Councilman Brian Sullivan said having the sheriff run the jail is saving the county millions of dollars.

“I would say that the transition has been 100 percent positive,” he said. “I can attribute that to the sheriff and his staff.”

janchavarie Personnel Issues, WA Snohomish County

Phillip Damon Arnold drunkenly hit three Lakewood police cars during a chase that ended with two bullets in his shoulder and another in his cheek. It also ended with the taxpayers of Lakewood becoming the financial caretakers of Arnold’s medical treatment. The city’s reward for capturing him without injuring bystanders: a hospital bill of $138,000. News reported in The News Tribune.

On Sept. 26, 2008, Arnold drove his Chevy Blazer toward a police officer, who responded with gunfire, according to police reports obtained by The News Tribune.

The bullets hit the Lakewood resident but didn’t stop him. Police eventually pinned his vehicle on Gravelly Lake Drive Southwest and wrestled a bloody Arnold out of the front seat. He was arrested and taken to Tacoma General Hospital for treatment of his wounds.

Arnold was convicted 11 months later of felony harassment, attempting to elude a police vehicle and three counts of first-degree malicious mischief. He was sentenced to almost three years at McNeil Island Corrections Center. A review board deemed the shots fired by police to be justifiable.

Even so, the city was on the hook for Arnold’s hospital stay, which included surgery and other care. Lakewood leaders say his care actually cost more than $138,000, but the hospital offered a negotiated rate.

The city paid the bill last fall, and City Manager Andrew Neiditz notified the City Council in an Oct. 6 e-mail that was obtained by The News Tribune. Similar incidents have played out across Washington since the state Attorney General’s Office issued a controversial opinion on jail costs in 2005.

The attorney general placed the burden of inmates who need medical care before they are booked into jail on the agencies that arrest them, as long as the inmates have no insurance or otherwise cannot afford medical treatment.

The U.S. Supreme Court had previously ruled that people behind bars have a right to health care. It also ruled that whoever has custody of a convicted inmate – a county government or the state – must pay for that care.

But up until 2005, it was unclear who was responsible for the medical bills of people who are wounded or injured during the arrest or before being booked into jail. Since then, cities including Lakewood have had to shell out thousands of dollars.

“It’s been a big pain and cost to the cities,” said Jim Doherty, legal consultant for Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington. “It’s the hot potato. None of the agencies want to be responsible.”

COSTLY CARE
The hot potato has landed in the hands of various jurisdictions across Washington.

• In Tacoma, the city paid about $115,000 for health care for people arrested in 2008, almost all of which involved a man who had been shot, according to deputy city attorney Michael Smith, legal advisor to the police department.
• In Orting, Police Chief Bill Drake said the department had a nearly $72,000 medical bill for someone it arrested in 2008. The city negotiated a reduced price, but for a department with an annual jail budget of about $30,000, it still took a hit, he said.
• In Sequim, a man who eventually pleaded guilty to killing his girlfriend in a motel room was diagnosed with cancer shortly after his arrest. The city had budgeted $75,000 for all inmate medical costs for the entire year. But his chemotherapy treatments had cost the city about $37,000 by 2005, according to News Tribune files. The man later died.

“It does become an issue when these bills become substantial,” said Drake, the Orting chief. “It can be substantial for smaller cities.”

WHO’S RESPONSIBLE DEPENDS ON THE CRIME
Pierce County charges a daily fee of $80 per inmate to the agencies that use its jail – a fee that includes medical, dental and mental health services for felons.

But before an arrested person is allowed into jail in the first place, a nurse determines whether he or she is “stable enough to be cared for in a stabilized environment,” said deputy prosecutor Craig Adams, legal advisor to the Sheriff’s Department.

If he’s not, then the arresting agency must pay for the care that will make the alleged criminal healthy enough for jail.

Later, if an inmate is convicted of a felony, the county continues to cover health care costs – or the state does, if the person is sent to a state prison. If the person is arrested or convicted of a misdemeanor, medical care is the city’s responsibility.

Meanwhile, the cost of medical services at the jail continues to climb – even as county leaders have lowered the overall corrections budget.

Pierce County budgeted $3.6 million for medical services related to the jail in 2003. This year, it budgeted $6.2 million.

The jail provided 73,932 sick calls to inmates in 2009, 1,000 more than the previous year. It budgeted almost $441,000 to cover drug supplies for inmates this year, more than $25,000 above 2009.

Corrections Chief Martha Karr cited a number of factors for the rising costs.

“We’re getting older, less healthy inmates,” she said. “We have to treat them.”

“We are seeing offenders with significant medical issues,” she added. “When individuals are arrested, they may not have seen a doctor or dentist in years. Unlike in our community, while they are incarcerated, they have a constitutional right to health care.”

LACK OF INSURANCE
Hospitals first try to charge the medical insurance provider of the person arrested. The problem, city officials say, is that many of these people don’t carry insurance.

There have been efforts to implement reforms to help cities. The Association of Washington Cities has discussed everything from jurisdictions pooling money to lobbying the state to help with extraordinary bills. But no law has been passed to provide assistance to local governments.

The state Department of Corrections can release low-risk inmates who have costly medical conditions under electronic monitoring if their release is expected to save the state money.

In Arnold’s case, he didn’t have insurance coverage for the wounds he sustained during the chase.

According to police reports, officers initially stopped him because of improper lane travel in the 5400 block of 100th Street Southwest. Arnold wouldn’t follow the officer’s directions and sped off.

Eventually police cornered him in a parking lot at the 9100 block of Bridgeport Way Southwest, where he rammed two of their patrol cars, sped away again and got stuck on a fence, police records state.

Three officers got out of their cars to confront him, according to the records; that’s when he put his car in reverse, got unstuck from the fence and headed toward the officers. One officer fired three shots.

Arnold’s SUV was eventually pinned again and he was pulled, wounded, from the vehicle on Gravelly Lake Drive.

He already had a criminal history of burglary, theft and possession of stolen property.

EXTENSIVE CARE
Lakewood wouldn’t disclose what treatment the $138,000 paid for, but police reports indicate Arnold was in bad shape and needed extensive medical care.

“The suspect was covered in blood and was bleeding from the jaw,” one officer wrote in his report.

“When I told Arnold to get out of the car he replied, ‘No! You guys already shot my teeth out!’” wrote another officer. “At this point I noticed Arnold’s mouth had been injured and his shirt was covered in small white chunks of material that could have been teeth.”

Officer Ronald Owens guarded him on Sept. 26, 2008, hours after the chase. (Owens was one of the four Lakewood officers fatally shot by Maurice Clemmons in a Parkland coffee shop two months ago.)

“I could smell an overwhelming odor of intoxicants emitting from the room,” Owens wrote in his report. “I observed Arnold lying on a backboard. He was covered up with blankets. Arnold’s right side of his face was extremely swollen. He had on a clear plastic mask that covered his mouth and nose. He was in a ‘C collar’ and there was blood on him.”

The officer who shot Arnold was placed on paid administrative leave, which is standard procedure in officer-involved shootings.

In November 2008, the department’s review board unanimously ruled the shooting was “lawful and within LPD policy,” and the matter was closed, according to documents.

Today, Arnold is 31 years old and is serving a 33-month sentence at McNeil Island. He is scheduled for release in 2011.

SOLUTION DIFFICULT TO SEE
The $138,000 was the most Lakewood has paid for an inmate’s care. It has paid for other inmates’ treatments, but they amounted to a few hundred dollars each.

City Manager Andrew Neiditz said the money for Arnold’s care did not come out of the police budget; it was taken from the city’s operating budget, which in 2009 was $38 million.

Lakewood City Councilman Don Anderson said it’s unfortunate that inmates’ medical bills are an extra financial burden on local governments.

But Anderson said he doesn’t foresee reform soon, because any option will require the use of public dollars. Where the cost falls legally – city, county or state – is almost accidental, he said.

“I honestly don’t know a way around it,” he said.

janchavarie Inmate Health Care, Washington

Two state leaders say they’ll ask that the U.S. Supreme Court review a federal court decision clearing the way for inmate voting in Washington. News reported in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Following Tuesday’s decision by a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel revoking the state prohibition on felon voting, Attorney General Rob McKenna and Secretary of State Sam Reed now say they’ll ask the nation’s highest court to review the decision.

The decision, hailed as a landmark win for prisoner-rights advocates, effectively removed the state’s restrictions on felon voting on civil-rights grounds.

Under the Washington law at issue, citizens convicted of a felony lose the right to vote until they are released from custody and off of Department of Corrections supervision. The 2-1 ruling by a Circuit Court of Appeals panel put those restrictions in doubt, with the majority finding that the state restrictions unfairly penalize minorities.

In an announcement Wednesday afternoon, McKenna and Reed said they believe the issue is ripe for review by the Supreme Court, and that their agencies — defendants in the lawsuit alongside the governor’s office — will ask for such a hearing. Objecting to the appeals court decision, both noted circuit courts elsewhere in the nation have come to the opposite conclusion while reviewing similar cases.

“This case began back in 1996, it’s been to the 9th Circuit twice already and now it’s time for the U.S. Supreme Court to step in to resolve the split between the federal courts of appeals that the 9th Circuit has created,” McKenna said in a statement. “The felon disenfranchisement laws of Washington and 47 other states hang in the balance.”

McKenna added that, should the Supreme Court accept the case, he intends to argue it himself.

Attorneys for six Washington state prisoners, Circuit Court Judge A. Wallace Tashima wrote, “have demonstrated that police practices, searches, arrests, detention practices, and plea bargaining practices lead to a greater burden on minorities that cannot be explained in race-neutral ways.”

Joined by Judge Stephen Reinhardt in the majority opinion, Tashima found no “race neutral” explanation for the higher incarceration rates and reversed a U.S. District Court decision in favor of the felons.

“Although (the state) criticized the experts’ studies and the conclusions, the (plaintiffs’) reports, when objectively viewed, support a finding of racial discrimination in Washington’s criminal justice system,” Tashima said in the ruling.

Writing in dissent, U.S. Circuit Court Judge Margaret McKeown said that the merits of the case should be heard at trial. Instead, her colleagues on the bench granted a summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, effectively settling the case pending an appeal.

Echoing McKeown’s contention, Reed said in a statement that prohibitions like Washington’s are on the books across the nation.

“The U.S. Constitution, the Washington Constitution and the laws of 47 other states all agree that felons may lose this important civil right when they violate the rights of others by committing egregious violations of the law,” Reed said in a statement. “I’m pleased the Attorney General will be taking this case to the U.S. Supreme Court and expect a positive outcome.”

Arguing the case, attorneys for the prisoners turned to a series of studies conducted in Seattle and elsewhere in the state showing that racial minorities were charged with crimes at rates far higher than could be explained by differences in levels of criminal activity, said Lawrence A. Weiser, a Gonzaga University law professor involved with the case since the mid-1990s.

“The issue is discrimination in the criminal justice system,” said Weiser, director of Gonzaga’s clinical law program. “The fact is that the disenfranchisement law has always been used to disenfranchise minority communities.”

Recent Department of Corrections figures show that about 28 percent of the state’s prison population is African-American, according to statistics cited in the suit. In contrast, African-Americans account for about 3 percent of Washington’s population.

A review of arrest records, the plaintiffs argued, showed that increased criminal behavior could not account for the disproportionately high incarceration rates among black Washingtonians.

“The disparities aren’t reflective of the actual participation in crime,” said Ryan Haygood, co-director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which participated in the suit. “They’re reflective of the discrimination in the criminal justice system.”

Speaking on the ruling Tuesday, Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed said the court’s decision came as a surprise, in part because three circuit court panels elsewhere in the country came to opposite conclusions while reviewing similar cases.

Reed said he believes the state prohibition against prisoner voting remains appropriate.

“That’s part of the penalty,” Reed said. “A person loses their rights when they violate the rights of others by perpetrating a felony. … As long as when they get out they get a chance to rejoin society, that’s the important part.”

Reed said he supported a recent change in state law aimed at enabling felons returning to society to regain the vote. Under the new rules, felons no longer have to pay off their court-mandated fines before registering to vote.

Filed 14 years ago, the suit named Reed’s office as a defendant, as well as the Attorney General’s Office and the governor’s office.

In a July 2006 ruling in favor of the state, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Whaley agreed that “evidence of racial bias in Washington’s criminal justice system is compelling.” Still, the Spokane judge ruled, that fact alone was not sufficient to sustain a challenge under the federal Voting Rights Act.

“Taking all of the relevant factors into account, the Court finds that the totality of the circumstances does not support a finding that Washington’s felon disenfranchisement law results in discrimination in its electoral process on account of race,” Whaley said in the decision now reversed by the U.S. Circuit Court panel.

Among the evidence offered to support the plaintiffs’ claims was a recent study on drug arrests in Seattle. The 2004 study, conducted by University of Washington sociologist Katherine Beckett, found that blacks and Latinos were disproportionately arrested on drug charges in part because of a police emphasis on street dealing of crack cocaine.

According to her statements to the court, Beckett found that most drug users and drug dealers in the city are white. Still, 64 percent of those arrested dealing “serious” drugs were black; only 17 percent of those caught in police sting operations were white.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that Beckett’s findings show that police have concentrated on outdoor drug sales areas frequented by minorities in the city’s Pioneer Square and downtown neighborhoods. At the same time, the attorneys argued, city police neglected drug sales areas frequented by whites in Seattle’s University District and Capitol Hill.

The state could have asked that an 11-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals review the case, rather than the Supreme Court. Instead, attorneys for the state will be filing a petition within the next 90 days requesting the high court review the case.

In the meantime, the Attorney General’s Office plans to file a motion to stay the mandate and allow the current system to remain in place until the appeal is resolved, a spokesperson said in a statement.

janchavarie County-State Issues, Washington

Ahtanum View Corrections Center, the state’s prison for the elderly, disabled or critically ill, may be closed. Reported in the Seattle Times.

A consulting group has recommended that Washington state close its smallest prison, the Ahtanum View Corrections Center in Yakima, to cut costs.Christopher Murray and Associates made the recommendation in a final report last week, and it’s almost identical to a draft report last month. The state’s Office of Financial Management will take it under consideration as it develops the governor’s 2010 supplemental budget.

Ahtanum View houses elderly and infirm inmates.

The consultant also suggests either closing the old buildings at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla or downsizing a facility on McNeil Island to a minimum-security prison.

The goal is to eliminate 1,580 prison beds across the state.

janchavarie Economic Issues, Washington

Closure of Washington State Penitentiary’s main institution is among the top options identified in a draft report on ways to cut hundreds of beds in the Department of Corrections.  Reported by the Walla Walla Union Bulletin.

Released Wednesday by the state Office of Financial Management, the feasibility study recommends closing the old main institution as well as Ahtanum View Corrections Center in Yakima and half of the Larch Corrections Center in Yacolt. Three close-custody or medium-custody units at the penitentiary could also be shut down if changes are made to state sentencing policy, the study said.   This option would cut 1,653 beds, the study said. The prison’s new west complex expansion, intensive management units, minimum security unit and administration buildings would not be affected.  The main institution has 852 funded medium-security beds. It also houses the prison’s correctional industries that provide vocational training, a kitchen facility that feeds about 1,000 prisoners, the steam plant, a health-care unit, engineering department and administrative service.

An optional recommendation in the study is to downsize, but not close, the McNeil Island Corrections Center to a minimum security facility, close the Ahtanum facility and all of the Larch Corrections Center and as in the first option, shutter two close-custody or medium-custody units at the penitentiary if changes can be made to sentencing policy.  This option would cut 1,618 beds, the study said.

The closures are intended to help find $12 million in savings in the statewide Department of Corrections budget, which totals nearly $1.8 billion for the current 2009-2011 biennium. That figure is about a $130 million reduction, or 6.7 percent, from the previous two-year period, DOC spokesman Chad Lewis told the Seattle Times in October.

Although the report’s authors said closure of the main institution was their top recommendation, they said that was on the condition that $41 million in capital funding is appropriated to build a medium-security unit and a close-custody unit at the penitentiary and expand the kitchen in the new west complex to compensate for closure of the main institution’s kitchen facilities. If the capital dollars are not available to make the improvements, the consultants recommended downsizing McNeil Island accompanied by a six-year closure of half the Larch Corrections facility. The closure of the Ahtanum facility would require the 100 elderly and medically fragile inmates there to be transferred to a minimum-security unit at the Monroe Corrections Complex, the study said.

OFM Deputy Communications Director Kate Lykins Brown emphasized that what was released Wednesday is only the first draft of the study and the final recommendations will depend on data which will be included in the final report that is due out on the first of November.   “We don’t have all the data,” she said Wednesday. “When the final report is ready, we’ll have the data so we’ll be better able to see whether the data support the recommendations.”

jakking Economic Issues, Washington

Kittitas County WA officials are considering increasing what they charge local cities to put prisoners into county jail as the result of significantly rising incarceration costs.    County Sheriff Gene Dana said the Sheriff’s Office also is looking for ways to help the cities reduce the number of people they must put in jail with a possible expansion of the electronic home monitoring program.  Reported by the Daily Record.

Dana said the major increasing cost is the shipping of more and more prisoners to jails in other counties and cities as the local inmate population rises. In August 2009 alone, it cost the county around $80,000 to transport and keep prisoners in Chelan, Okanogan and Ferry counties and in the city of Sunnyside jail. “If you do the math we’re pushing up to about $1 million a year just to ship out prisoners,” Dana said. Dana on Friday said an updated projection puts year-end costs to send prisoners elsewhere in 2009 at around $800,000.

That money is coming from “banked” funds generated by a one-tenth of 1 percent local sales tax designated to be put away for improving the county’s criminal detention facilities. The tax was approved in the mid 1990s and is also used to send juvenile offenders to a facility in Yakima County. “We have been counting on those funds to help support improving and expanding our local jail,” Dana said. “That’s money we could be spending locally on a better jail.” At the rate the county is spending to ship inmates out, Dana believes the cost could reach a point where it is exceeding the revenue coming in from the sales tax.

Dana said the county bills the cities of Ellensburg, Kittitas, Cle Elum, Roslyn and South Cle Elum quarterly for jail services. The bill is based on the number of inmates the cities brought in the year before, plus about a 2 percent increase. The cost to house a prisoner in the county jail, Dana said, averages about $50 a day. He said the county’s daily inmate population runs from 120 to 130 if all prisoners are counted at the out-of-county facilities. The overcrowded and aging county jail has been modified to safely hold around 85 inmates, Dana said. “Our costs have risen and most of the entities are now bringing us more prisoners than were expected,” Dana said. “We’re seeing a real increase, especially from the state patrol.”

The challenge, Dana said, is that the Washington State Patrol and other state agencies by law don’t have to pay to put prisoners in the county jail, including Central Washington University police and the state Fish and Wildlife Department. State government officials contend the state supplies benefits that offset that cost, including free use of the state crime lab and toxicology lab, to name a few. Yet right now, the state patrol’s prisoners make up more than 50 percent of the inmate population. The long-term hope is that the state Legislature will act to change the law to give county jails more funding.

Dana said some of the immediate options are to increase the quarterly bills to each of the cities, or begin charging a higher fee based on the actual number of prisoners and for each day they stay in the jail. The sheriff said his office and the corrections staff want to work with county judges to consider how to expand the number of prisoners who go home for “incarceration” with electronic monitoring, thus reducing the inmate population. A challenge, Dana said, is that more than 50 percent of the inmates have residences located outside the county. “That makes it pretty hard to monitor them electronically,” Dana said. “We’re looking at ways to, somehow, keep tabs on them in other counties.” County commissioners, Sheriff’s Office officials and representatives of local cities are set to meet Nov. 4 to discuss the situation. “We want to work with the cities and brainstorm how we can reduce all our costs,” Dana said.

jakking County-City Issues, County-State Issues, Economic Issues, Electronic Monitoring, Overcrowding, WA Kittitas County

After cutting loose more than 8,000 offenders from probation in the past two months, the state Department of Corrections is considering an even more drastic cost-reduction measure: closing at least one prison.  Article from the Seattle Times.

Faced with the need to slash millions of dollars from their respective budgets, the Department of Corrections (DOC) and the state Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration are awaiting a report from the governor’s Office of Financial Management that is expected to recommend shuttering one adult and one juvenile prison, a move that would result in massive job cuts and the shuttling of hundreds of inmates to other facilities. “It’s like a ‘Sophie’s Choice’ situation,” said DOC Secretary Eldon Vail. “Something has to be shut down.”   Vail said consultants working on the report have visited the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, the Monroe Correctional Complex, McNeil Island Corrections Center, Ahtanum View Corrections Center and Pine Lodge Corrections Center for Women in recent weeks to see where cuts can be made. The visits don’t necessarily mean those prisons are being considered for closure, he said.

The DOC budget for the 2009-2011 biennium is nearly $1.8 billion, a roughly $130 million (or 6.7 percent) reduction from the previous two-year period, said agency spokesman Chad Lewis. Dan Robertson, deputy assistant secretary of the Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration (JRA), the juvenile equivalent of DOC which is overseen by the Department of Social and Health Services, said the JRA saw its budget cut by nearly $23 million (9.7 percent) for this biennium to $213 million. He expects that the report will recommend closing one of two medium/maximum-security facilities — Green Hill School in Chehalis or Maple Lane School near Centralia — which could save the state an estimated $12 million.

Closing any facility would result in staff layoffs and the transfer of inmates to other prisons, Vail and Robertson said. However, neither knew how many jobs could potentially be lost. The DOC and its juvenile-corrections counterpart have been cutting their respective budgets for months through layoffs, by releasing offenders from probation and even by releasing some inmates from custody.   Since July 1, about 8,200 adult offenders deemed to be low risk to reoffend and nonviolent have been cut loose from community custody, this state’s version of probation. Before July, when a new law addressing probation was implemented, the state was supervising about 27,000 offenders outside of prison, Vail said.

The cost-cutting Senate Bill 5288 ordered the reduction in the number of offenders on probation by dropping most low-risk felons and misdemeanor offenders from the program. Sex offenders and violent felons will remain under DOC supervision after their release from prison.  Almost 300 prison jobs and 60 community-corrections positions were cut as a result. An additional 200 community-corrections jobs are expected to be slashed by the end of the year, Vail said.   The slashing of probation services is a complete change from Gov. Chris Gregoire’s stance three years ago when she ordered tightened supervision of convicted felons who violated the terms of their prison release. The governor’s move came after the 2006 deaths of three Seattle-area police officers were blamed on offenders under DOC supervision.

Lewis, of the DOC, said cuts resulting from the Senate bill will not impact the supervision of violent offenders on probation. At the JRA, 85 juvenile offenders have been cut from parole over the past three months, leaving about 444 still under supervision, Robertson said.  Robertson said that because of budget cuts about 34 percent of the nearly 700 youths currently incarcerated will not be placed on parole after they serve their terms. Robertson said this change will likely impact recidivism rates, which he said had been showing promise after the agency revamped its juvenile parole program to include mandatory family counseling.   “If these cuts go through they’ll further deteriorate public safety,” said Tim Welch, spokesman for Washington Federation of State Employees, the union that represents community-corrections officers and administrative staff. “It will probably take a tragedy for the governor and Legislature to realize the grave impact of these cuts.”

Tracey Thompson, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 117, which represents 5,800 DOC employees at 13 prisons, said any closures of prisons or wings inside prisons would be shortsighted.   “Our biggest concern is about closing units and facilities when we’re looking at forecasts that will say that the prison population will start increasing in the next two or three years,” Thompson said, citing figures released by the Washington State Caseload Forecast Council.  The council, which researches potential caseloads in corrections, human-services and public education, actually expects that prison populations will slightly drop between now and early 2011, then begin to slowly grow again, a committee staff member said.   The forecast is based on the average imprisonment rate divided by the projected state population, which is expected to grow.

While it’s unclear which prison could be recommended for closure, Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, has long supported a plan to close the McNeil Island Correctional Complex, a medium-security island prison in Pierce County. Hargrove, who chairs the Human Services and Corrections Committee, said he will be briefed on the closure recommendations, but he doesn’t know when.   “We have a very inefficient prison [McNeil Island] and I’m willing to take a look at the consultants’ work,” Hargrove said. “I’m not sure what the recommendations are at this point. We need to look at making our corrections system more efficient in this budget crisis.”  Thompson and other opponents of closure of the McNeil Island prison say that it would push additional costs to the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), which runs the state’s mental-health treatment program for civilly committed sex offenders on a portion of the island. DOC runs vital services for the island, including ferry and fire services. If the prison is closed, DSHS would have to pick up the tab for those services because there is no proposal to close the sex-offender treatment facility.

jakking Budgets, Economic Issues, Washington

The reality of a  state budget process for the Washington legislature that faced a $9 billion shortfall, solved in part with deep cuts to the prison system last July, have become reality this fall in Clark County.  Reported by KGW News.

Five hundred fewer former inmates will  get parole supervision, Washington Department of Corrections spokesman Chad Lewis said Thursday. Clark County judges will be told these people are no longer under the jurisdiction of the corrrections department. Statewide, the figure is about 8,500 former inmates, and that number could rise to as high 9,400, he said. There were about 27,000 parolees under supervision when the cuts began. The tradeoff, he said, is that those former inmates are considered the least dangerous of the state’s parolees. Those with sex offenses and a history of violence or mental illness will continue to receive supervision, he said. This includes a decision to halt all post-release supervision of sex offenders at 36 months after they leave prison. Some of them had been supervised for 48 months, depending on the circumstances, he said.

The layoffs of community corrections officers started last week. On it’s website this week, the Washington Federation of State Workers had words of caution for the public. “These cuts impact not only jobs but they compromise public safety. Our community orrections members said throughout the (legislative) session and continue to say this. We only hope we don’t have a tragedy that proves the error of this path the Legislature and administration has taken.

jakking Budgets, Community Corrections, County-State Issues, Economic Issues, Parole, WA Clark County, Washington

Washington state’s prison system is downsizing. Already nearly 300 positions inside the prisons have been eliminated. Another 200 community corrections jobs are about to be cut. But the budget savings don’t come easily. KPLU’s Austin Jenkins reports.

In order to close a 9-billion dollar budget hole over the next two years, Washington lawmakers cut the prison system by 134-million dollars. That means the agency must reduce the number of parolees it supervises by 9-thousand offenders. And, says Secretary of Corrections Eldon Vail, the department can’t send as many parole violators back to jail. “So one out of four people who used to go to jail because they violated their conditions of community supervision will now go to electronic home monitoring.”

But Vail says deciding who gets put on home monitoring or dropped from supervision altogether isn’t easy – especially when public safety is on the line. Now the Governor has asked the Department to study what an additional two percent budget cut might look like. It doesn’t sound like much, but Vail says it would require drastic across-the-board reductions: like knocking sixty days off every inmate’s sentence and releasing every inmate 30-days before that sentence is up.

jakking Budgets, Early Release, Economic Issues, Washington

The national recession is taking its toll on what had been one of the fastest-growing areas of state government spending: prisons. Even though state corrections budgets have ballooned in the past two decades amid a surging U.S. prison population, at least 23 states slashed funding for prisons this year, according to a new survey by the nonpartisan Vera Institute of Justice, a research organization based in New York. Thirty-three states responded to the survey, paid for by The Pew Charitable Trusts.  This story is from the Pew publication, Stateline.Org.

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.

jakking Budgets, California, Colorado, Early Release, Economic Issues, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington

About two dozen seriously ill prisoners in Washington state could soon be released from prison — as long as their freedom is expected to save the cash-strapped state money, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times.

A new state law, which takes effect Saturday, expands a current program to release chronically or terminally ill prisoners. Death row inmates, or those serving life sentences without the possibility of parole, are not eligible for early release.  Washington is among more than 30 states that have some form of early release program for seriously ill prisoners, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The move will save the Washington state Department of Corrections an estimated $800,000 over the next two years, mainly on things like prescription costs and transporting prisoners to off-prison medical treatment.   But the state Department of Social and Health Services estimates it could see significant increases in its budget if it has to place all of those released in state-paid nursing homes or provide additional mental health services — offsetting any savings and possibly adding more costs to the already hampered state budget …

The number of prisoners who would actually be released is unknown. Also unclear is how many of those released would end up relying on social safety net programs.   Even the state corrections chief admits the program expansion is a work in progress.  “We continue to think this will save the state money, but we won’t know that for sure until we’re down the road,” said Corrections Secretary Eldon Vail. “Will it in every case? That’s the goal. You can’t know until they leave the system.”

Under the law signed by Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire in May, the head of corrections can authorize early medical release only if certain conditions are met. The offender must have a serious medical condition that is expected “to require costly care or treatment.” They must pose a low risk to the community because they are physically incapacitated or expected to be at the time of release. And the release must be expected to save the state money.  The department works to see if prisoners qualify for private or veteran’s health coverage. Barring other options, they arrange for Medicaid, which is paid for partially by the state and partly with federal money …

The main change to the current early release program, which has been in place since 1999, is that it no longer requires the prisoner be incapacitated before being approved for release. Fifty-five offenders have been released since 1999 under the earlier program, and two more have been approved and are currently awaiting placement in the community … Vail said every request will be determined on a case-by-case basis.  “It’s a balancing act between trying to make sure a person receives proper care in a way that is cost effective,” he said. “It’s not a black-and-white decision. It all depends on the individual.”

jakking Early Release, Inmate Health Care, Washington

Seattle and its suburbs will be allowed to continue bringing their misdemeanor offenders to the King County Jail beyond 2012 — when the county initially predicted it would have no more room, officials announced Thursday.  Story from the Seattle P-I.

County officials said they’re preparing to negotiate new “multiyear” contracts with Seattle and 35 cities, which pay to book their misdemeanor offenders — including drunken drivers and misdemeanor domestic abusers — in the county jail … Earlier projections showed the jail running out of room and the cities were told they would be no longer allowed to use the jail after 2012. But instead of rising, the number of inmates dropped the past few years. In the meantime, Seattle and its suburbs began plans on two separate projects to build municipal jails — one in North King County and the other in South King County.

“This drop in jail use gives us an opportunity to take a more collaborative and regional approach in examining options for future jail space needs,” King County Executive Kurt Triplett said. “Jails are very expensive and it is important that we make the most cost-effective decision for the region.”   County officials said Thursday that details would be hammered out in negotiations. They were unable to say how many more years the jail would be available for the city’s misdemeanor offenders … The county is apparently able to offer 300 beds up until 2015, only three years beyond the original deadline, according to the city …

The jail population’s decline is mostly due to fewer bookings by Seattle police for felony drug crimes. Seattle’s bookings have dropped 25 percent, according to King County. Seattle’s use of alternative programs, such as day reporting and electronic home monitoring, also has reduced the number of inmates in custody.

jakking County-City Issues, Overcrowding, WA King County, Washington

Washington state is preparing to stop supervising nearly 10,000 ex-cons on probation. That’s because of budget cuts – and a policy decision to focus on the highest-risk probationers. But some community corrections officers are raising red flags. Report from OPB.

Before the Washington Department of Corrections decides who will be released from supervision, it needs to assess the risk level of the people it monitors. In August of last year, the department switched to a new risk assessment system or tool. It’s a computer program that ranks offenders as high, moderate or low risk to reoffend based on their criminal history. Low-risk, non-sex offenders will no longer be supervised.

Corrections Secretary Eldon Vail says the tool is proving to be about 70-percent accurate at predicting recidivism. Eldon Vail: “It’s as good a tool that exists anywhere in the country. There’s no tool that’s a hundred percent. We have to make a choice about who we’re going to supervise, we can’t afford to supervise everyone at the highest risk level. This is the best tool available to us.” Vail adds that this new risk assessment tool is categorizing more offenders as high-risk.

But some community corrections officers say they don’t trust this new method of measuring the risk an offender poses to the public. Ton Johnson supervises felons in Seattle’s King County. He says the tool is limited because it only looks at an offender’s criminal record. Ton Johnson: “You know I think we need to look at other factors that cause criminal behavior. Are they homeless, are there chemical dependency issues, other triggers that may exist?” Johnson believes corrections officials are putting too much faith in a single tool to decide who will continue to be supervised and who will no longer have to check in with a probation officer.

jakking Assessments and Classification, Community Corrections, Parole, Recidivism, Washington

Washington state is closing one prison unit and delaying the opening of another to save money amid budget cuts and a decline in the inmate population.  Report from the AP.

The state Department of Corrections says one unit at the Pine Lodge women’s prison near Spokane will close July 1. That prison will still have room for about 190 women. And a new medium-security unit at Coyote Ridge prison in Connell will open in September, instead of June as originally planned. That prison is expected to eventually house more than 2,000 prisoners. Officials say the prison population has dropped steadily in the past two years, and they expect that trend to continue. New laws changing sentencing and parole policies will contribute to the trend.

jakking Overcrowding, Washington

Parole is being eliminated for about one-third of juvenile offenders in Washington State custody under cost-saving measures to plug a projected $9 billion budget shortfall, according to the News-Tribune.

The move will put kids convicted of crimes such as manslaughter, robbery and assault back into the community without that transitional help. Last year, 470 kids were released onto “enhanced parole,” which will end July 1 under the state omnibus budget passed by the House and the Senate, Department of Social and Health Services spokesman Dan Robertson said Wednesday. The cut will save $5.3 million per year.

During the 20 weeks of the enhanced parole, juvenile offenders and their families meet with a parole counselor, who helps negotiate family issues as well as ensure that the kids get mental health and drug treatment, enroll in school or find housing and work, he said. “We don’t have any low-risk kids,” Robertson said. “It’s a tough thing for the agency, and it’s a tough thing for the youth we’re releasing.”

Other types of parole, such as intensive parole and sex offender parole, were not cut.

jakking Economic Issues, Juvenile Justice, Parole, Washington

Citing a downward trend in the county jail’s population, the Seattle City Council on Friday asked King County WA for a new 10-year agreement to hold its misdemeanor offenders.  Report from Seattle P-I.

If King County agrees to the proposal, it would likely end or indefinitely postpone planning for a new municipal jail, initially slated for construction by 2013.   In a letter sent Friday to King County Executive Ron Sims and King County Council Chairman Dow Constantine, Seattle officials cited public “confusion” about the need for jail space.   “One way to resolve it would be for you to offer the cities a new long-term agreement. Another would be for you to acknowledge that you cannot do so, notwithstanding any recent short-term trends. We would much prefer the former, but the latter would be an improvement over the status quo,” the letter said …

King County has warned it would no longer have room for the city’s misdemeanors due to projected increases in the felony population. After realizing that the jail would still have space after that deadline, the King County Council passed an ordinance last year declaring its mission to continue as a regional provider of jail services and directing the County Executive to extend jail contracts for one to years for misdemeanors, which include offenses such as DUI, domestic violence, or theft. The City Council’s letter said that a contract shorter than 10 years would not be enough to halt plans for a new jail …

The jail’s population has been shrinking and falling short of earlier projections. Bookings for drug offenses from Seattle police alone dropped 34 percent between 1998 and 2008, according to figures from the council’s Jail Capacity Advisory Study Group.  Some have argued that the dip in the number of inmates could be maintained through increased use of alternative programs aimed at preventing drug offenders from committing new crimes.

jakking County-City Issues, Jail and Prison Construction, WA King County, Washington

A shrinking number of inmates in the King County WA Jail is bucking prior forecasts and raising new questions about whether Seattle and its suburbs will need to build their own jail in 2013.  Report from the Seattle P-I.

Seattle and its neighbors to the north and east have been studying where to build a 640-bed, $110 million jail based on King County’s warnings last year that it would no longer have room for misdemeanor offenders in three years. Cities in South King County also are collaborating on a new jail to be built in Des Moines.  But instead of growing, the county jail’s daily population is decreasing, by almost 6 percent during the last eight months, according to jail staff. The average daily population also declined 4 percent between 2007 and 2008, according to figures from a King County councilmember …

“We would love not to build a new jail. I think at this point, we’re really waiting for King County and whether they think the change is enough that they would have space for the cities to stay,” said Catherine Cornwall, a Seattle senior policy analyst involved with the cities’ plans.   “Until we have something in writing, in order to be responsible, we have to keep continuing forward with our planning effort,” she said.  Prior studies have shown the downtown jail, with an average inmate census of 2,324 in 2008, running out of room …

Seattle City Councilmember Nick Licata, a skeptic of the city’s need for a new jail, said he’s optimistic that the current trend could be maintained through further use of alternatives to incarceration.  Seattle and King County have invested in jail alternatives that steer inmates into treatment and reduce their chances of re-offending. Seattle’s share of misdemeanor population has declined 40 percent since 2001 through programs such as community courts, electronic home monitoring and special day-reporting options for low-level transient offenders who repeatedly wind up in jail because they miss court dates …

County Councilwoman Kathy Lambert, who chairs the committee on Law, Justice and Health and Human Services … doesn’t support ending the cities’ jail contracts yet because she thinks more more inmates with mental illness or substance abuse could be moved into programs.   Still, she thinks the cities will need their own jail, but that it could be downsized if they partner with the county in sharing alternative programs and bed space.  “If we’re able to work together, hopefully it’s the last jail we will need for many, many , many years,” Lambert said.

There is a great deal more detail and background in the full article at the P-I.

jakking California, County-City Issues, Jail and Prison Construction, Overcrowding, WA King County, Washington

Proposed cuts to the Washington State Department of Corrections budget could see hundreds of felons released into the community early, corrections officers and victim advocates argued Tuesday in response to legislative proposals.  As reported by the Seattle PI.

Contending that a Senate proposal to close the McNeil Island Corrections Center and other cuts could cause 1,400 to 1,900 convicts to be released early, prison employees union leader Tracey Thompson said too little has been done to research the impact such a move would have on public safety. “Allowing early release when you’re also reducing supervision just doesn’t make sense,” said Thompson, secretary treasurer with Teamsters Local 117 …

The Senate proposal would see about 107 Department of Corrections positions cut during the coming two years, leaving the department roughly 662 workers short of the staffing level needed to support current service levels, according to state projections.  Suggested cuts would still see spending at the department increase by $31 million from 2009 to 2011, a time period when the department is expected to spend $1.8 billion to incarcerate and monitor convicted felons. While overall spending would increase under the proposal, the Senate plan would eliminate $124 million in expected expenses, either through spending cuts or by obtaining other funding sources …

Both House and Senate proposals take into account savings from a change in law allowing the department to issue 90-day housing vouchers to inmates who are scheduled for release but cannot find a place to live. Under existing law, offenders who are due to be released on so-called “good time” — a 10 to 50 percent sentence reduction granted to inmates who behave in prison — can’t be freed until they establish a residence.

Also included the proposals are cuts to post-prison services and constraints, including one-year reductions in the amount of time offenders will be monitored by community corrections officers after they’re released. Violent felons would be monitored by the department for three years instead of four after they’re released from prison.  The Senate proposal would see a 50-percent cut to offender re-entry programs such as vocational training and mental health services, cutting spending on the program by $15.6 million. The competing proposal from the House would reduce funding for such programs by $10.6 million.

jakking Community Corrections, Early Release, Economic Issues, Parole, Washington

Which is more important to a community — buses for passengers or jail cells for prisoners? It’s an either/or question that Franklin County WA Commissioner Brad Peck has posed, and he thinks the answer is clear.  Story from the Pasco News Tribune.

“As much as we love public transit, and as much as we realize people benefit from it, it is a privilege,” Peck said. A county’s obligation to provide jail space to house a community’s criminals, on the other hand, is an essential responsibility mandated by the state constitution, he said.

Peck raised the question of priorities because he says tax revenue Ben Franklin Transit gets could be diverted to pay to renovate and expand the county jail.   The county has hired architects to design a $25 million project that would convert the existing jail back to a 112-bed maximum-security area and add a new minimum- and medium-security area with 225 beds. Administrative and court space would be added to the top floor …

County Administrator Fred Bowen has estimated that a 0.2 percent increase in the sales tax would generate enough revenue to pay for a $25 million construction project, and another 0.1 percent increase would generate enough revenue to pay for the increased expense of operating the expanded jail.  Whether to ask voters to approve the 0.3 percent increase is a decision the county commission is going to have to make, Bowen said.  Peck began eyeing the transit system’s 0.6 percent sales tax revenue as a possible funding source in recent weeks as county and city officials mulled the jail situation.

jakking Economic Issues, Jail and Prison Construction, WA Franklin County, Washington