What does it take to keep a convicted sex offender from re-offending?

The biggest obstacle in reducing sex crimes is the lack of communication. At least 60 percent of sexual assaults against children, women and men go unreported. Most cases are reported long after the incident. Many offenders are victims themselves. Report by FerderalWayMirror.com.

Since 1990, Washington has required public registration and notification of convicted sex offenders. Along with supervision as required by law, sex offenders need a supportive environment that steers them away from bad behavior. Churches are often behind-the-scenes heroes in this process.

“Faith communities have always played a key role in helping offenders reintegrate,” said Alisa Klein, public policy consultant for the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. She said faith communities offer a place for offenders to get their spiritual needs met. They also foster a sense of community, and sometimes assist offenders in finding jobs or housing. Offenders who lack stability in these areas are more likely to regress into criminal behavior.

King County Sexual Assault Resource Center (KCSARC) sponsored an interfaith symposium on Jan. 25 in Federal Way. Representatives from local faith communities, prison ministries, the Department of Corrections and victim advocacy organizations examined the keys to public safety in regards to sex offenders.

KCSARC emphasizes the need to raise awareness and “end the silence” that accompanies this often taboo topic.

In the past 20 years of sex offender registration, Washington has seen a significant reduction (60 percent) in such crimes, said Dana Hufford, community corrections risk specialist.

“It’s a real cultural shift,” said Hufford, who works with the Department of Corrections. She credits the increased accountability of offenders, coupled with community partnerships, for this reduction. Overall, she said 13 percent of sex offenders who have gone through the judicial process will re-offend, treated or not.

“A sex offender needs social structure in the community in order to not re-offend,” Hufford said. “He needs positive relationships that hold him accountable.”

The U.S. Justice Department cites a study that says registration laws have made little difference as to whether a perpetrator re-offends. Other studies suggests that offenders are more likely to relapse because of a pre-existing relationship with the victim, regardless of the offender’s residence. The majority of sex crimes are committed by someone the victim knows — either a family member or acquaintance.

The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) advocates for specialized treatment and correct assessments of an offender’s level of risk for re-offending.

In Washington, convicted sex offenders have access to treatment and counseling during incarceration as well as one year after their release. Counselors like Mark Hudson specialize in treating high-risk offenders, some of whom are homeless upon re-entering society. If the offender wants to attend church, for example, Hudson talks with the pastors and church leadership to work on a safety plan. He would also be present to ensure proper disclosure of the offender’s crimes.

“My role is to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said Hudson, who works for the state Department of Corrections.

Proposed cuts to the state Department of Corrections budget of $1.6 billion will mean less supervision of convicted felons and sex offenders. With that in mind, the symposium stressed the need for stronger community partnerships to pick up the slack.

Controversial state and federal laws

The Community Protection Act of 1990 was created on the heels of two violent sex crimes in the Puget Sound region.

The controversial program allows for indefinite incarceration of the most dangerous sex offenders who still pose a risk at the end of their sentences. More than 300 “sexually violent predators” have been committed under this law, according to the King County Prosecutor’s Office. A 2010 State Supreme Court decision made it easier for offenders to challenge their confinement once a year. In December 2011, a proposal called for transferring responsibility of these particular cases in order to reduce the state’s related legal costs.

The Seattle Times recently published a comprehensive special report titled “Price of protection: State wastes millions helping sex predators avoid lockup.” The report notes that Washington spends nearly $12 million a year in legal bills related to the program, which is “plagued by runaway legal costs, a lack of financial oversight and layers of secrecy.”

Passed in 2006, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act is considered the most significant federal legislation. The law calls for more comprehensive registration and monitoring of sex offenders. It was named after Adam Walsh, a 6-year-old boy who as kidnapped in 1981 from a Florida mall and later found murdered.

However, only seven states have met the law’s requirements. Washington has yet to comply. According to a June 2011 report in the Washington (D.C.) Examiner, the cost of implementing the unfunded mandate has slowed states’ progress.

Federal Way connection

In Federal Way, there are 217 registered sex offenders. According to Federal Way police, 21 active registered sex offenders are homeless, 19 have inactive registration (no longer required to report or register), and nine have died.

Every year, Federal Way police check that all of the city’s registered sex offenders are in the right place.

Since 2008, the additional money needed for this operation has come from a King County grant. The funding for the 2011 sex offender check-in was secured with a grant for $34,956.88.

There are three classification levels for sex offenders. Level one indicates the least likely to reoffend, and therefore the least dangerous of these individuals. Level three is considered the most likely to reoffend and the most dangerous to the community. The city checks on level one offenders once a year, level two offenders twice a year and level three offenders every three months.

Tammy Re-offending, Sex Offenders, Washington

The Coyote Ridge Corrections Center in Connell seemed like a safe haven to some state prison workers who were displaced with recent prison closures and budget cuts.

But those same workers may be the ones to lose their jobs as the state Department of Corrections cuts staff at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Report by The News Tribune.

The penitentiary’s Old Main facility is shifting from medium-security to minimum-security beds, which means the loss of about 140 jobs, said Dan Pacholke, the state’s director of prisons.

About 50 to 60 of those state penitentiary workers will have the right to a position at Coyote Ridge based on their seniority, he said.

“It’s the cost of being efficient,” he said. But the impact to people is harsh, he said.

An analysis that found the state had an excess of medium custody beds and a shortage of minimum custody beds prompted the shift, said Chad Lewis, Department of Corrections acting director of communications.

About 1,000 minimum custody offenders were housed in medium custody beds, which requires more staff, he said. And minimum security does not require staffing an armed perimeter.

With minimum security, inmates generally have shorter sentences and demonstrate good behavior, Pacholke said. Medium security has inmates with longer sentences and some with problematic disciplinary records.

The security change at Old Main is expected to save about $10 million per year. It’s part of the 5 percent, or $80 million, that the department is being asked to cut through the current budget cycle, which ends June 30, 2013, Pacholke said. The department’s two-year budget is about $1.6 billion.

Coyote Ridge, which houses about 2,550 inmates, is the state’s largest prison and it hit full capacity this summer. In 2008, it added a 2,048-bed medium-security section to the 600-bed minimum-security facility.

As the first prison campus to meet national standards for its green and energy-saving practices, officials say the Connell prison is more cost efficient to operate.

Coyote Ridge’s opening has been one of the smoothest Pacholke said he has seen. And it opened faster and more aggressively than past prisons. That’s a compliment to the 700 people who work there.

But Jeff Uttecht, Coyote Ridge superintendent, said the constant transition of staff makes it hard to build a cohesive team. And the movement of inmates affects the prison’s operation because inmates are hired to do work within the prison, such as laundry and kitchen duty.

Offenders also are most prone to act out within the first couple weeks of arrival, Pacholke said. That affects prison safety, which isn’t something the department takes lightly.

After 31/2 years of budget cuts and the closure of three prisons, Pacholke said the department has a tight margin of vacant beds, between 150 to 175.

And of those who are incarcerated, 70 percent are considered violent offenders and another 15 percent have violent histories, he said. That and the increase in gang members, which now represent about 22 percent of those incarcerated, makes running the prisons more challenging.

With the staffing changes, the effect to the Connell prison would have been worse if the department hadn’t instituted a hiring freeze, Pacholke said. And the department opened up a transfer window to affected employees at the state penitentiary, which allowed them to transfer all over the state and reduced the number who would end up at Coyote Ridge.

Some of the employees who may lose their jobs to former state penitentiary workers already have been moved two or three times because of seniority, Uttecht said.

Employees feel uncertain about the future with budget cuts and prison closures. Uttecht said it means many of Coyote Ridge’s employees are living in trailer parks and fifth wheels or sharing apartments while their families remain on the west side of the state.

And some have resigned recently because they aren’t sure whether their job is secure, he said.

About 30 probationary employees at Coyote Ridge have been given probation separation letters, which means they can be laid off with one-day notice, Uttecht said.

The change to minimum security will be completed Jan. 1, said Steve Sinclair, the state’s deputy director of prisons.

Some of the Connell prison’s workers will be the ones without a job. “Most certainly, Coyote Ridge is going to feel the worst of it,” he said.

Tammy Budget Cuts, Washington

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Rates of completion up for parolees and probationers since 2006

The number of adult offenders under community supervision on probation or on parole declined by 1.3 percent during 2010, dropping to about 4.9 million adults at yearend, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. This marked the second consecutive year of decline in the number of adults under community supervision. Report by Market Watch.

Probation is a court-ordered period of correctional supervision in the community, generally as an alternative to incarceration. Parole is a period of conditional supervised release in the community following a prison term. At yearend 2010, about 1 in every 48 adults in the U.S. was on probation or parole, a rate lower than the 1 in every 46 that was observed in 2000.

The number of adult probationers declined (down 1.7 percent) for the second consecutive year, dropping to nearly 4.1 million probationers at yearend 2010. The entire decline in the community supervision population was attributable to the decrease in the probation population since probationers make up 83 percent of adults under community supervision.

During 2010, the number of adults on parole or other post-prison supervision increased slightly (up 0.3 percent), reaching about 840,700 parolees at yearend. The state parole population (down 0.3 percent) declined for the second consecutive year while the number of adult offenders on supervised release following a prison term in the federal system increased by 4.9 percent during 2010.

The number of offenders who entered parole supervision (565,300) during 2010 exceeded the number discharged from parole (562,500), contributing to the increase in the parole population. Discharges from parole declined 1.8 percent and entries onto parole declined 0.5 percent during the year.

The failure rate of parolees–defined as the percentage of parolees who were returned to incarceration at some point during the year–decreased over the decade. During 2010, about 13 percent of parolees were reincarcerated at some time during the year, down from about 16 percent during 2000. About 5.7 percent of probationers were incarcerated at some point during 2010, nearly unchanged since 2000 (5.5 percent).

The completion rate for offenders on parole continued to increase since 2006. Slightly more than half of parolees (52 percent) who were discharged from parole during 2010 completed their terms of supervision or were discharged early, a rate higher than the 45 percent observed in 2006.

For the second consecutive year, the number of offenders discharged from probation supervision (about 2.3 million) exceeded the number who entered probation (about 2.2 million) during 2010, contributing to the decrease in the probation population. About 65 percent of probationers who were discharged during the year completed their terms of supervision or were discharged early, the same percentage as in 2009. This was still higher than the 58 percent who completed probation in 2006.

Thirty-three states reported declines in their probation population during 2010. California (down 18,854) and Florida (down 11,228) accounted for almost a third of the decrease in probationers. Nineteen jurisdictions–including the District of Columbia and the federal system–reported increases in their probation population, led by Pennsylvania (up 7,968), Alabama (up 3,312), and Georgia (up 3,273).

In 2010, 19 states reported declines in their parole population. In 31 states and the District of Columbia, the parole population increase. Louisiana (up 2,595), Kentucky (up 2,027), Georgia (up 1,382), and Mississippi (up 1,008) accounted for more than half of the total increase in parolees.

The race, gender and offense characteristics among probationers and parolees remained relatively unchanged during the year. At yearend 2010–

The majority of probationers (76 percent) and parolees (88 percent) were male.

Most probationers (55 percent) and parolees (42 percent) were white, while a smaller portion of probationers (30 percent) and parolees (39 percent) were black.

Most probationers were supervised for a property (28 percent) or drug offense (26 percent).

More than a third of parolees were drug offenders (35 percent) and a quarter were property offenders (24 percent).

About 19 percent of probationers and 27 percent of parolees were supervised for a violent offense.

The report, Probation and Parole in the United States, 2010 (NCJ 236019), was written by BJS statisticians Lauren Glaze and Thomas P. Bonczar. Following publication, the report can be found at http://www.bjs.gov .

For additional information about the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ statistical reports and programs, please visit the BJS website at http://www.bjs.gov/ .

The Office of Justice Programs (OJP), headed by Assistant Attorney General Laurie O. Robinson, provides federal leadership in developing the nation’s capacity to prevent and control crime, administer justice, and assist victims. OJP has six components: the Bureau of Justice Assistance; the Bureau of Justice Statistics; the National Institute of Justice; the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; the Office for Victims of Crime; and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. More information about OJP can be found at http://www.ojp.gov .

SOURCE Bureau of Justice Statistics – US Department of Justice

Tammy Probation and Parole, Washington

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.

Inmate Health, 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.

vericatrajkova County-City Issues, Prison and Jail 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.

vericatrajkova California, County-City Issues, Overcrowding, Prison and Jail Construction, 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.

vericatrajkova Community Corrections, Early Release, Economic Issues, Probation and 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.

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

Washington State Sen. Jim Hargrove has said that the Senate is weighing the closure of the country’s last island prison that can only be accessed by boat.   McNeil Island Corrections Center, in Steilacoom, Pierce County, is one of the most expensive prisons in the state to operate because its age and location, Hargrove said. Lawmakers are searching for ways to close the $8.5 billion state budget shortfall.  Report from the Seattle Times.

The medium security prison costs about $49 million a year to operate … DOC spokesman Chad Lewis said the prison has about 1,300 inmates, making it the sixth largest of the state’s 15 prisons. He said it costs an average of $37,000 per year to house inmates at McNeil Island. Citing a 2007, statistic, Lewis said the state spends an average of about $31,000 to house inmates.

Hargrove emphasized that the possible prison closure is one of many options being weighed by the Senate. He said they are also talking about keeping inmates transferred to out-of-state prisons for overcrowding and cost savings reasons in those other states longer.

vericatrajkova Economic Issues, Washington

The Washington State Department of Corrections is taking steps to provide more efficient medical service to inmates in an effort to balance a $15 million deficit in its health care budget.  Story from the Tacoma News Tribune.

The department planned to spend $121 million in fiscal 2008-09 to meet the medical needs of about 16,000 inmates at 15 state prisons. But the $15 million deficit surfaced at the start of the fiscal year last summer, halfway through the 2007-09 budget biennium.   To erase the deficit, the department projects it needs to reduce annual per-prisoner health care costs to $7,385. As of January, the department’s per-prisoner costs were on pace to be $7,776 this year …

To reduce health care costs, the department has reduced the use of contract medical staff, pharmaceutical costs and emergency room visits.   The department also has cut back on inmate trips to specialized health care providers such as podiatrists, orthopedists and dermatologists.   In some situations, prisoners will get less service than what they previously received, and they may not be happy about that, Hilliard said.   “But it is our job to maintain their safety and their quality basic health,” she said. Some previously available services now are deemed to be above basic health needs, she said …

Pharmaceutical costs have been cut by centralizing pharmacy services at a few prisons in the system — one at Walla Walla, one at Airway Heights Corrections Center near Spokane and at four facilities on the west side of the state.   And trips to the hospital have been reduced by better use of preventative medicine and routine checkups, Hilliard said.

vericatrajkova Inmate Health, Washington