Chairs Meeting/Training Tentative Agenda Posted

You can now find the Tentative Agenda for the 2010 APAI Chairs Meeting/Training on the APAI site or HERE!

2011 ATC Conference Theme Announced

The APAI Exeutive Committee is happy to announce the theme for the 2011 Annual Training Conference - COLLABORATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS: THE KEYS TO SUCCESS! Please join us in San Antonio for the ATC!

State's plans to send prisoners to county jails worry officials

Low-risk inmates would , police groups hopes to save money by shipping low-risk inmates

SACRAMENTO — The state’s plans to ship low-risk prisoners to local jails could cost counties revenue and are raising fears that inmates may be released early.

Transferring non-sex offender prisoners to county jails are centerpieces of dueling plans put forward by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Senate Democrats as they scramble to close a $19 billion budget gap.

The foundation of both proposals is to save the state money by offering counties incentives — including cash and greater alternative sentencing authority — to accept more prisoners.

The initiatives are drawing resistance from San Diego County supervisors, statewide law enforcement groups and Republican lawmakers.  Read More...

Inmates' treatment bottleneck means delays in release

CONCORD – State prison inmates trying to earn parole, many of them with alcohol and drug abuse backgrounds, face a shortage of treatment programs they need to attend as a condition of being set free.

Alan Coburn, a member of the Adult Parole Board, told a committee studying parole issues yesterday that because treatment options are few, many inmates ready for release remain behind bars for up to a year while they wait their turn.  Read More...

Michigan has lower rates of felons that go to prison than other Great Lakes states, prosecutors say

KALAMAZOO — There is a perception that Michigan prisons are full of low-level criminals whose release would reduce both overcrowding and state budget constraints, but the reality is, “it takes a lot to get sent to prison,” a local prosecutor said.

Nationally, 40 percent of felony convictions result in a prison term, said Jeff Fink, Kalamazoo County’s prosecuting attorney, citing research released last year by the Council of State Governments Justice Center. In Michigan the rate was 23 percent.  Read More...

Agencies: New sex laws will help abuse prevention

OCEAN CITY -- Uncle John has been taking his nephew Steve on camping trips every weekend. The family knows John has a history of being a sexual predator, and they suspect he may be grooming the child for abuse.

In the recent past, Social Services could only help that child once it suspected he had been mistreated.

Not anymore. New laws passed this year in the wake of the horrific abuse and murder of a Salisbury girl address loopholes in the system that deals with sexual predators.  Read More...

Dallas County's alternative sentencing program lets low-level offenders do time at home

What's the difference between a stark jail cell and the comforts of home? For a few lucky Dallas County criminals, the answer is nothing.

Under the county's alternative sentencing plan, certain low-level offenders discharge their sentences under ankle-monitored house arrest, giving them the opportunity to keep their jobs, eat home-cooked meals and enjoy the interaction of family and friends.

"I think the program is better than jail," said Arletha Baker, who was released from the program's restrictions recently. "You get to touch your family. ... I have a very helpful family."

Alternative sentencing is also helping Dallas County's bottom line. Since its inception Sept. 1, it has saved the county $366,016. And officials expect that figure to reach $400,000 by the initiative's first anniversary in two weeks.  Read More...

Crime Victims To Probation-Parole Officials: Pay More Attention To Us

Crime victims urged probation and parole officials today to pay more attention to their cases and issues. The unusual appeal came near the conclusion of the 35th annual American Probation and Parole Association training institute, held this year in Washington, D.C. Andrea Conte, wife of Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, said that crime victims sometimes have viewed probation and parole agents as enemies, more sympathetic to offenders than to victims; she urged more attention to issues like restitution by offenders to their victims. Conte founded an anticrime group called You Have the Power--Know How to Use It. She was the victim of a pistol-whipping by a would-be kidnapper 20 years ago. Susan Russell, a vicim services consultant in Vermont who was kidnapped, raped, and nearly killed 18 years ago, complained that the state had given her misleading and inaccurate information about the offender.

Pat Tuthill, whose daughter Peyton was raped, tortured, and murdered by a probationer who transferred from another state to Denver in 1999, made a plea for victims and their families to get more information about convicts' whereabouts and status. "Offenders have many rights, victims have few," she told the meeting. Victims advocates acknowledge that most offenders eventually will be released from custody or supervision; the victims ask that they be notified every important step along the way, including about the conduct and treatment of offenders who are in prison. The general theme of the program was that victims are getting more respect in the criminal justice system, but there is a long way to go. Other victim advocates who spoke included Mary Dodd of Nevada, Rick Fiori of Maryland, Elizabeth Page of Texas, and Carroll Ann Ellis of Virginia. Listening were senior officials of the Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs. Moderator was Anne Seymour of Justice Solutions in Washington, D.C.

Bill would let juvenile criminals seek leniency

When Democratic state Sen. Leland Yee talks about SB399, he inevitably points to the case of Sara Kruzan.

In 1994, at age 16, Kruzan killed her alleged pimp three years after she was forced into prostitution. The Riverside girl was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison with no possibility of parole.

Under SB399, juvenile offenders such as Kruzan, now a 32-year-old prison inmate, would be allowed to ask a court to review their case after 10 years in prison, and could potentially get their sentence reduced to 25 years to life. The bill - a watered-down version of Yee's original proposal, which would have barred life imprisonment for all juveniles - has been approved by the state Senate and is set to be taken up by the Assembly as soon as Thursday.  Read More...

Prison Without Walls

Incarceration in America is a failure by almost any measure. But what if the prisons could be turned inside out, with convicts released into society under constant electronic surveillance? Radical though it may seem, early experiments suggest that such a science-fiction scenario might cut crime, reduce costs, and even prove more just.

One snowy night last winter, I walked into a pizzeria in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, with my right pant leg hiked up my shin. A pager-size black box was strapped to my sockless ankle, and another, somewhat larger unit dangled in a holster on my belt. Together, the two items make up a tracking device called the BI ExacuTrack AT: the former is designed to be tamper-resistant, and the latter broadcasts the wearer’s location to a monitoring company via GPS. The device is commonly associated with paroled sex offenders, who wear it so authorities can keep an eye on their movements. Thus my experiment: an online guide had specified that the restaurant I was visiting was a “family” joint. Would the moms and dads, confronted with my anklet, identify me as a possible predator and hustle their kids back out into the cold?  Read More...

Serious Flaws in IL Prisoner Release Program

Criminal justice expert David Erickson released his review of the Illinois Department of Corrections’ Meritorious Good Time Push program Friday, reporting a number of serious flaws in the program, which was terminated in December 2009, and offering detailed recommendations to reform the prison system’s parole procedures.

After an accelerated prisoner release plan last year was found to include some prisoners who had committed violent crimes, Governor Pat Quinn suspended, then terminated the program. He named Erickson, a retired criminal trial judge and Appellate Court Justice, to head a three-person panel to review all Department of Corrections’ Meritorious Good Time (MGT) programs and make recommendations on how the programs should be overhauled.  Read More...

Parole program shifts resources to serious offenders

Police are closely monitoring a new group of parolees on Morgan Hill's streets who can't be carted off to jail as easily as traditional parolees.

The new state parole program that allows certain criminals to be unsupervised when they get out of prison - known as non-revocable parole - is supposed to let authorities keep a closer eye on violent felons, but local police say the policy will result in more violence, drug trafficking and theft.

"It's completely predictable," Morgan Hill police chief Bruce Cumming said. "These people, when they get out of prison they go back to doing exactly what they went to prison for. They go back to their same neighborhood, same crowd, back to drugs, back to robbing people and breaking into houses and stealing cars."  Read More...

Family uses killer's letters to keep him behind bars

Billy Ray White vowed 20 years ago that when he got out of prison, he would track down the relatives of the man he'd murdered and subject them to gruesome deaths.

In a handwritten letter to J.D. Hall's daughter, the convicted killer promised to carve her up like a turkey and make her head into a flower pot. In another letter to Hall's son, he said he would put him through a meat grinder and force his relatives to eat him.

"You can run but you can't hide. You can go to the police, but they can't protect you. You can change your name, address, or even move, but I will always find you," he wrote in a letter postmarked May 15, 1989, to Hall's widow. "They can't keep me in here for the rest of my life."  Read More...

Software Predicts Criminal Behavior

New crime prediction software being rolled out in the nation's capital should reduce not only the murder rate, but the rate of many other crimes as well.

Developed by Richard Berk, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the software is already used in Baltimore and Philadelphia to predict which individuals on probation or parole are most likely to murder and to be murdered.

In his latest version, the one being implemented in D.C., Berk goes even further, identifying the individuals most likely to commit crimes other than murder.  Read More...

Probation-Parole Agents Say They Are Starved For Resources

As pressures build to reduce the “mass incarceration” in the United States, more attention should be paid to “starved probation and parole resources,” contends William Burrell, former New Jersey probation and parole official. Speaking yesterday to an American Probation and Parole Association conference in Washington, D.C., Burrell said that about 70 percent of government spending on corrections and only about 12 percent to probation and parole even though probation and parole agents handle high caseloads. The probation staff in Sacramento County, Ca., is facing a 50 percent cutback.  Read More...

Electronic bracelets to track gun-toting Memphis juveniles

Memphis police want to stop gun-toting teens in their tracks -- literally.

Police Director Larry Godwin is teaming with Memphis Mayor A C Wharton to develop a pilot program that monitors the steps of troubled teens through advanced electronic tracking bracelets.

It's part of a $2 million, federally funded program to curtail crime using tracking equipment that can pinpoint a detainee's exact location.

More than 150 minors were arrested with guns last year, police said. And the arrests haven't slowed this year.  Read More...

To fight crime, Ogden tells ex-cons to move out

Ogden - Not only was Joseph Sambrano following the rules of his parole, he was doing so well he received a job as a security guard at his apartment building.

The 46-year-old Sambrano would ensure that visitors to Park Avenue Apartments had escorts, told tenants to turn down loud music and helped police when they visited the building. Along the way, Sambrano assumed custody of his 16-year-old nephew and began raising him at Park Avenue.

Despite that, Ogden City wants Sambrano out of Park Avenue. Building management will evict him to save money.  Read More...

Housing program for ex-cons not working as intended, some lawmakers say; Prison officials say program is succeeding.

As Texas prison programs go, this one was tiny. Just a few hundred ex-cons would be eligible for housing vouchers those who had been approved for parole but were stuck behind bars because they had no place to live, either because their families didn't want them or they had no place to go.

It was also supposed to save taxpayers money, since the housing would cost less than a $47-a-day prison bed.

Instead, state records show, the 8-month-old Temporary Housing Assistance Program appears to have accomplished just the opposite. In some cases, parolees have been moved into state-rented homes from less expensive halfway houses.  Read More...

Three-pronged attack on prison costs

The core function of the state courts is the adjudication of legal disputes. And of all the legal disputes we adjudicate, our courts spend more time by far presiding over criminal cases.

Each year our judges faithfully apply the law of this state to the facts of each criminal case and sentence thousands of convicted offenders to prison for the protection of the public.

The annual cost of prison is a shocking $19,000 per prisoner and growing. And this growing investment in incarceration is not paying a return in increased public safety.  Read More...

Do Michigan's prison changes put the public at risk?

Earlier paroles.

Fewer parole violators returned to prison.

More commutations and pardons.

Lower security levels for many state prisoners.

These policies of the Michigan Department of Corrections, combined with Michigan's prisoner re-entry program, are translating into lower costs for the state and a shrinking prison population -- down more than 7,000, or nearly 14 percent, in three years. An MDOC-endorsed proposal to end Michigan's "truth in sentencing" law -- which requires prisoners to serve at least their minimum sentence -- would accelerate those trends if it passes the Legislature.  Read More...

'Sarah's Law' on paedophiles rolled out

Home Secretary Theresa May hailed an "important step forward for child protection" as Sarah's Law, which allows parents to check if someone has a history of child sex offences, was rolled out nationally today.

Mrs. May said the programme, which followed the abduction and murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne by convicted sex offender Roy Whiting 10 years ago, will also help police manage known sex offenders more effectively.  Read more...

Mississippi's Corrections Reform: How America's reddest state -- and most notorious prison -- became a model of corrections reform

In January 2002, Margaret Winter, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) National Prison Project, received a letter from Willie Russell, an inmate on Mississippi's death row.

"I am on a hunger strike to the death," the letter began. In highly idiosyncratic language, the letter then described conditions at the facility where death row was housed, Unit 32.

Unit 32 was one of seven prisons located on Mississippi's fabled penal institution, Parchman Farm. As described by Russell, it was also a lot like hell. Inmates were locked in permanent solitary confinement. In the summer, the cells were ovens, with no fans or air circulation. Russell's was even worse: He was in a special "punishment" cell with a solid, unvented Plexiglas door. The cells were also sewers, thanks to a design flaw in cellblock toilets that often flushed excrement from one cell into the next. Prisoners were allowed outside -- to pace or sit alone in metal cages -- just two or three times a week. Inside was a perpetual dusk: One always-on light fixture provided inadequate light for reading but enough light to make it hard to sleep.  Read more...

GPS anklets keep paroled gang members in check

A self-described former gang member in a silver and black Bo Jackson Raiders jersey and Nike high tops strutted into an Oakland parole office Thursday morning to get a new GPS unit strapped around his ankle.

Sergio, 43, said he wasn't happy to represent one of the new frontiers of state corrections. The anklet he has worn 24 hours a day for the past two months, he said, made him feel like a dog on a leash.  Read more...

APAI Committees

The Professional Development Committee is seeking APAI members to serve on the committee (See APAI By Laws Article VI sub section 6.1f ). The Standards Committee is also seeking APAI Members to serve on the committee (See APAI By Laws Article VI sub section 6.1h). Members who are interested should send an e-mail their respective Regional/Sectional Vice Presidents, (Article IV of By Laws for the regions/section a state is a member), who will be in contact with the appropriate committee Chair to include the members as part of the committee. For more information on what Region/Section you are in and who your Regional/Section Vice President, go HERE!

The sites selected for the replication research (Canadian model) on structured parole decision making were Ohio and Connecticut

National Institute of Corrections Structured Parole Decision Making Project (Canadian model) Site Solicitation

Goals

A primary goal of this initiative is to advance evidence-based parole decision making research in the United States. The National Institute of Corrections (NIC), Carlton University and the Association of Paroling Authorities International (APAI) are seeking 2 sites who might wish to embark on a collaboration to replicate research conducted in Canada regarding structured parole decision making.

Background material (literature review, user manual) will be provided to the parole agency staff prior to the site visit. Two investigators from Carleton University will travel to the site and provide a workshop and training regarding the application of the Structured Decision Framework. The training will also address contemporary risk assessment issues and implications for establishing parole conditions. The researchers will ensure inter-rater reliability prior to commencing data collection. Procedures for sharing the data will be finalized at the time of the site visit (either worksheets without identifiers or an electronic data file). A report regarding the findings (comparing the accuracy of existing decision strategies with the Structured Decision Framework) will be completed for each agency. This research will also review parole decisions against a model reflecting evidence-based practice; hence, the parole agency will be in a position to evaluate the extent to which current decision procedures reflect contemporary practice. This research will also investigate the impact of training on grant rates, as well as provide preliminary findings regarding decision making competencies. Of note is that the issue of practice guidelines is different than current interest in risk assessment and recidivism and could potentially insulate an agency from criticism in the event of parole failures. A summary report will be provided to both the agency and NIC.

Resource Implications

Each parole site will need to assign someone to review case files and co-ordinate data collection. Depending on the comprehensiveness of file information, it is expected this individual could do 4 cases per day (more if file information is limited). If we aim for 100-120 cases, this is 6 weeks over 12 months. The university researchers will complete all the training, conduct the statistical analyses and provide a written report.

The Framework

This is a structured professional judgement model that requires a systematic review of empirically relevant factors (i.e., criminal history, institutional adjustment, correctional programming, release plan), grounded by a valid risk assessment estimate and a consideration of policy requirements. This review provides an outline for decision makers when writing a rationale for their decisions. The framework does not provide an actual decision rather it is an empirically-informed decision guide. Research has demonstrated that using the framework increases both accuracy and accountability. In one study of sensational parole failures, application of the framework would have reduced such failures by 42%. Based on such findings, and its empirical derivation, the framework is a training standard for newly appointed parole board members in Canada.

Site Requirements for NIC Structured Parole Decision Making Study

These requirements describe the scope and information necessary for this project to be successful. Not all interested sites may meet all requirements but this will not eliminate them from consideration.

1.Decision making context: Decisions should be made by the paroling authority regarding timing of release as well as conditions upon release. These decisions should be compiled in a registry.

2.Decision registry and database: There should be a registry of decisions and assigned conditions. Where possible the decision would include a rationale. There should be a database, preferably electronic, of these decisions and outcomes for at least 12 months post-release. Outcomes should include multiple indices such as technical violations and new offences.

3.Staff: Part of the project involves training regarding Evidence-Based Practice and Parole for paroling authority staff, so a level of organizational readiness is expected. As well, a staff member will need to be assigned so that they may be trained on the Structured Decision Framework for its application to 120 case files.

Deadline for Applications: Friday July 9, 2010.

Questions: see pdf or contact Ralph Serin at ralph_serin@carleton.ca

The National Parole Resource Center (NPRC) Announces and Invites Applications from Paroling Authorities and their Supervision Agency Partners To Participate as NPRC "Learning Sites"

This solicitation invites U.S. state paroling/releasing authorities to apply to become one of four states participating in the first major technical assistance effort of the newly-established, Bureau of Justice Assistance-sponsored National Parole Resource Center (NPRC). All four sites will receive technical assistance and training geared toward enhancing their capacity for effective decisionmaking policy and practice. The NPRC Learning Sites initiatives is designed to support participating sites as they strengthen their decisionmaking and supervision practices, and to generate lessons and insights that will be shared widely with other jurisdictions through the NPRC web site and continuing training and technical assistance. Available resources will allow the NPRC to provide two of the four states with expanded training and technical assistance to address the state’s parole supervision function and to move toward implementation of 13 Strategies for Effective Parole Supervision (more information about the 13 Strategies for Effective Parole Supervision).


The application deadline for this initiative is Monday, June 21, 2010. Assistance is scheduled to begin in August, 2010. The full solicitation can be downloaded from their website.

Justice Center Releases Reentry Program Databases

Justice Center Releases Reentry Program Databases