Association of Paroling Authorities International

80 Percent Of Male State Inmates Released In 2005 Arrested Again By 2010

2012-02-15T10:57:00.003-06:00

Of the 14,400 men released from Connecticut prisons in 2005, nearly 80 percent were rearrested by 2010, and just under half returned to prison with new sentences, according to a just-completed report that contains the most detailed data ever compiled on the state's recidivism rate.

The report, by Office of Policy and Management statistical guru Ivan Kuzyk, is scheduled to be released Wednesday. It also separately tracked sex offenders within the group and found that only a small number committed new sex crimes. Read more...

Eligibility and Capacity Impact Use of Flexibilities to Reduce Inmates' Time in Prison

2012-02-15T10:56:00.001-06:00

BOP’s use of authorities to reduce a federal prisoner’s period of incarceration varies. BOP primarily utilizes three authorities—the Residential Drug Abuse Treatment Program (RDAP), community corrections, and good conduct time.

(1) Eligible inmates can participate in RDAP before release from prison, but those eligible for a sentence reduction are generally unable to complete RDAP in time to earn the maximum reduction (generally 12 months). During fiscal years 2009 through 2011, of the 15,302 inmates who completed RDAP and were eligible for a sentence reduction, 2,846 (19 percent) received the maximum reduction and the average reduction was 8.0 months. BOP officials said that participants generally do not receive the maximum reduction because they have less than 12 months to serve when they complete RDAP. Read more...

Safety Net Catches those Freed by New Guidelines

2012-02-15T10:53:00.000-06:00

Mark Geralds was a pretty good running back at Sikeston High School in the late '80s, and he dreamed of going to college on a football scholarship. But he got no offers, and things slipped away. He dropped out of school the second semester of his senior year.

He was a smart kid, but not above trouble. He had two juvenile convictions — first-degree tampering for stealing a motorcycle and forgery involving two checks for a total of $225. He was given probation for each offense. Read more...

New APAI Facebook Page

2012-01-26T16:22:00.002-06:00

The Executive Committee of the APAI voted last week to make our APAI facebook page public! You can now find our page at www.facebook.com/apaintl.

Check it out and let APAI know you are there!

National Parole Resource Center Announces Training Opportunity

2012-01-20T14:48:00.005-06:00

The National Parole Resource Center (NPRC) announces a new training opportunity to be offered immediately prior to the APAI Annual Training Conference. To learn more visit the APAI website at http://www.apaintl.org/conference/ or NPRC webite at http://nationalparoleresourcecenter.org/

Sheriff slams prison overhaul

2012-01-19T16:41:00.000-06:00

Gov. Deval Patrick wants to build two to three assisted-living centers with bars for golden-ager inmates to serve their time in comfort, as part of an ambitious overhaul of the state’s prison system due to be released today, the Herald has learned.

The 400-page Corrections Master Plan obtained by the Herald, though years in the making, was only shown to sheriffs for the first time yesterday by the Division of Capital Asset Management and the Executive Office of Public Safety. It drew immediate criticism. Read more...

Mo. Supreme Court chief calls for sentencing fixes

2012-01-19T16:38:00.000-06:00

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri's chief justice urged lawmakers Wednesday to make changes to the state's probation and parole systems to potentially save the state millions of dollars.

Chief Justice Richard Teitelman urged lawmakers in his annual State of the Judiciary address to pass measures to reduce the number of people in prison for probation and parole violations.

"I support your efforts to help make sentencing practices more cost-effective, helping Missouri to become ... both tough and smart on crime," Teitelman said, addressing a joint session of the state House and Senate. Read more...

Lawmakers consider site for elderly offenders

2012-01-19T16:35:00.002-06:00

Iowa may have to establish a special nursing home for elderly sex offenders and other criminals, according to a handful of local lawmakers.

''These individuals should not be turned loose,'' state Rep. Helen Miller, D-Fort Dodge, said Saturday morning. ''We will have to have a facility where these individuals will be contained.''

Miller and other legislators addressed the issue during an Eggs and Issues forum in Fort Dodge held months after a registered sex offender living at the Pomeroy Care Center in Pomeroy reportedly sexually assaulted another resident of the facility. Read more...

Pardon restrictions mulled - Ex-governor: Proposals take away incentive for inmates to change

2012-01-19T11:31:00.000-06:00

Leslie Carlton Smith wants to coach his 6-year-old son's soccer team, chaperone him at Boy Scouts events and take him hunting.

But until former Gov. Haley Barbour pardoned Smith, 46, last week, the Biloxi man could not be the dad he wanted to be because of a felony conviction from his teens.

"It's hard to tell a 6-year-old why I can't do some of things his friend's dads can," Smith said Monday. "It's a little embarrassing for me." Read more...

Brown case highlights reluctance to parole longtime offenders

2012-01-19T11:01:00.000-06:00

Eroy Brown, whose acquittal on murder charges involving the deaths of a prison warden and a farm manager in the 1980s shook the Lone Star corrections system to its roots, is coming up for parole again.

Brown is serving 90 years as a habitual criminal for robbing a Waco convenience store of $12 and some candy bars. The graying, almost 60-year-old is serving time in a South Carolina prison because a federal judge thought his safety could not be guaranteed in a Texas lockup. If he's granted parole, he would be sent to a pre-release program in California. Read more...

Jails don’t keep people out of jail

2012-01-19T10:33:00.000-06:00

Collectively, we have nearly 10 decades of experience in the area of corrections and conditional release. There are many issues we have disagreed over, but we are united in our concerns with the direction of the Harper government’s “tough on crime” agenda.

In a country that prides itself on fairness, compassion and the pursuit of equality, why do we accept the idea that community safety will be enhanced through increased incarceration? Read more...

Victim Search Procedures - Promising Practices from Florida - by Daphne Asbell, Victim Services Supervisor

2012-01-10T13:26:00.002-06:00

Victims Search Procedures- Promising Practices
by Daphne Asbell, Victim Services Supervisor
Florida Parole Commission

We are constantly trying to locate victims on old cases in which complete information was not captured originally. We also have quite a few murder cases where the next of kin are now deceased. Our agency has implemented a promising practice by using resources such as obtaining death certificates, obituaries, and news articles to identify survivors and search for them using Florida drivers license information, court records, the internet, Accurint (a commercial database) and various public search engines. This practice has been very successful in locating victims who were unaware of the offenders’ status, but very interested in being informed and having input

In some cases, we have been contacted by family members of victims, particularly murder victims who have called to find out what ever happened to the offender who changed their life so dramatically many years before by taking the life of their loved one. It’s so very upsetting to have to tell them that the offender was paroled and to realize that they were never contacted to allow them to have a voice in the process or to know what was going on, because we didn’t know they existed. Because of this we try to exhaust every avenue to ensure that victims are located and allowed to participate in the process.

In Florida, state attorneys offices are required by law to supply victim contact information to the Florida Department of Corrections. In some cases the information was not transmitted. In these cases, we can go back to the state attorneys office to see if they are able to retrieve the information from the court file.

Many of our murder cases in Florida are serving a Life sentence with a 25 year minimum mandatory. The persons listed as next of kin may not be around when the offender becomes eligible for a parole hearing 25 years later. In many cases, the person to be notified is the adult victim’s elderly parent(s), who are often deceased. If you go back to the court file, this may be the only person listed.

At this point, we start with the media. Using the Florida State Library or local libraries, we search for an obituary or articles that list family members. Obituaries are full of helpful information about the family including names and cities where they resided. Sometimes all you can find is a funeral notice. Funeral homes are sometimes helpful, but lately it seems that many of the older funeral homes have been bought out by big corporations who have purged the older records. Another good source of information is news articles about the crime itself. News articles may include reactions of family members and give their names. Sometimes it’s just a tiny bit of information that could cause you to dig further and be successful.

In one case, for example, the next of kin from the court file was the victim’s widow who is now deceased 25 years later. There was no obituary to be found, but there was a news article that told that the victim, a service station attendant slain in a robbery, had two young daughters and a son at the time of his death. Their names were not listed, but knowing that they existed caused us to find the date of death of the widow and we were able to go back to the library to locate her obituary listing the children’s names.

Another good resource is a death certificate which we obtain for five dollars from Vital Statistics. The death certificate lists the parent information of the victim (if known). If the parent information is not known, it’s a good indication that next of kin may not have been located as in the case of a transient or a drug trafficker who came from South America and became a casualty. Another important item on the death certificate may be the informant. On the vast majority of death certificates I’ve seen, this person is a family member and you should always try to locate them. In some rare instances where kin were not located, the informant was a member of the medical examiners office staff.

I also pay special attention to place of birth on the death certificate and to the information at the bottom regarding where the victim was buried. If the body was transported out of state for burial, you may be able to contact a local library in that municipality to get an obituary. Frequently, the cemetery is listed on the death certificate. You may also be able to contact the cemetery to see who the family contact is for the plot or to see who is also buried in the family plot. A few cemeteries are charted by historical societies and have lists online of the inscriptions from all of their headstones.

In Florida, sadly many murder victims are elderly persons who retired to reside in warmer climes. In a fairly typical case you can’t find an obituary, and you get a death certificate only to see that the victim, George Heinz was born in 1917 and the informant was his brother, Gerald. A similar search for Gerald determined that he was born in 1914 and died the year after the murder. The only other significant information on George’s death certificate was the names of the parents, who are undoubtedly deceased, and the fact that the victim was born in the state of Pennsylvania. In this case, I asked the Florida State Library to check the 1920 and 1930 census data. They can search by name and state and having the names of four members of the family is a real plus in narrowing down the result to the right folks. The search might reveal that Gerald Heinz Sr. and his wife Susie lived in Reading in 1920 with their sons Gerald Jr. who was 6 and George who was 3. The 1930 census might reveal that they now have another son named Samuel now 9 and two daughters named Sharon and Ruth who were 8 and 6 respectively in addition to George and Gerald.

Once you have names of family members and approximate ages, you can use a search engine like Accurint (which is available through LexisNexis) to locate potential family members. A search engine like this has the capability to show possible relatives or associates and this is a very valuable tool.

One of our capital felony crimes in Florida that carries a Life sentence with a 25 year minimum mandatory is sex battery on a child. Since the age of the child victim is an important factor in the crime, their dates of birth are often well documented. What’s difficult is when the name of the victim is changed by the mother, often because the father was the perpetrator of the crime. A search engine like Accurint has the capability to search by first name and date of birth and possibly find a hit on the victim you are searching for.

In some of these cases, we see that the victim was very traumatized and I would rather contact the parent initially, even though the victim is now grown. Even if the parent has a common name like Smith, you can cross reference this person as a relative of the person you suspect to be the victim.

For example, I might find three Cheryl Smiths in Florida with a date of birth of April 5, 1978, but on examination of possible relatives, only one of those had a relative named Jennifer Smith who was born in the mid-1950’s and who lived at the same address with Cheryl when this possible victim was 18-19 years of age.

Accurint also allows you to track folks by former addresses. You might have information from the court file from 1985 that has the victim’s mother, Jennifer Smith listed at 4350 Sandhill Street, Fort Myers. If you search Jennifer Smith, 4350 Sandhill Street, Fort Myers, Florida, Accurint should give you a hit for the victim showing her current address and listing all of her addresses back to that time. This tracking goes back to the early 80’s generally.

I have had cases where the information in the file is incorrect and I searched for Jennifer Smith, 4350 Sandhill Street, Fort Myers, Florida and did not get a match. In that case I expanded my search to Jennifer Smith, Fort Myers, Florida. I might retrieve more than 50 hits for a name that common in a city that size, but see a hit for a Jennifer Smith who actually resided at 4352 Sandhill Street. In many cases, it seems that whoever recorded the data got it wrong, but this person is likely the mother of the victim you are seeking.

Another resource available to searchers in law enforcement is a social security number. There is a quick online lookup that anyone can access called State Of Issue By Social Security Number Calculator. The state of issuance can be determined by the first three digits of the number. I was searching for a sexual battery victim who had been going to college in Gainesville, Florida. The file indicated that the victim had returned to her home state of Massachusetts after the trial because she was so traumatized. This young woman had a very common name but I searched for her in Massachusetts with no result. I was able to find her age in the file and produced a list of 30 possibles using an age range. I then began to check the first three digits of the social security numbers for my hits and finally found a person with the same maiden name as my victim who now lived in California, but had a Massachusetts social security number. I wrote to her and she was the victim. She said she thought if she didn’t know anything about him she would feel better, but she realized that she felt more comforted knowing the offender, a serial rapist was locked up and unlikely to be released anytime soon.

I have used the social security number in a different way to locate victims in a murder case. The victim in a 1970’s murder case was a young man named Mark who was living with a girlfriend named Susie in Florida and working as a fisherman in the Fort Myers area. He went with an acquaintance to buy some marijuana and this person killed Mark for his money and boots and dumped his body. When the death certificate was filled out, the information was supplied by the young woman who the victim had lived with for a few months and she was listed as the informant. I do not believe his family was contacted initially after his death. I got the death certificate and it said that the parents were named Donald and Rose and that the victim was born in South Dakota. I searched for a Rose with the same last name since Donald is a more common name. I found few possibilities but the folks I wrote to were not family of this victim. A year or more after this initial effort, the case was coming back for consideration so I picked up the file again and looked the death certificate over. I checked the social security number and determined that it was issued in Michigan. Once again I searched Michigan for Donald and Rose with no success. I knew the social security number had to be the key, but how?

Then I had an idea. Using Accurint I searched the contiguous social security numbers to this one and then I expanded that search to more numbers. Most of the folks I hit on were living in a relatively small town on the shores of Lake Michigan. I remembered that my own social security number was issued to me in high school and I was close to the age of the victim Mark. I went on the internet and queried the town. It was small enough that it had but one high school. I called the school and was connected to the guidance counselor who maintained the school records. I explained the story of Mark’s demise and that I was trying to locate his family. The guidance counselor told me that per their school policy they could only release Mark’s records if he authorized it. I begged her and offered to fax the death certificate to her. She took it to her Principal and he authorized her to release the information to me due to the extreme circumstances. It turned out that Mark had a brother and two sisters who were also attending that high school at the same time he was. His social security number was the same as the one on the death certificate, and his date of birth was also the same, but his parents were not named Donald and Rose. I guess that Susie had not been able to correctly remember the names of Mark’s parents or he gave her incorrect information.

Using the dates of birth and correct names I was able to locate Mark’s brother and sisters. They told me that Mark had dropped out of school before graduating and got into trouble for possession of marijuana and left the area shortly thereafter. The family moved from Michigan to another state a short time afterwards. The family eventually got word of his death but never knew the details. Both parents were now deceased but his siblings were glad to finally know what happened to Mark.

For more information contact Daphne Asbell at DaphneAsbell@fpc.state.fl.us

Lifers are growing part of prison population

2011-11-28T10:13:00.001-06:00

What's behind the increase of older inmates in the state prison system?

Experts point to everything from aging baby boomers and longer life spans to overall prison population growth and a trend toward stiffer sentences.

"Lifers" make up a sizable portion of the elderly state prison population, said Dr. Larry Rosenberg, a Millersville University assistant professor of sociology who teaches a course on modern corrections.

The elderly prison population also includes repeat offenders incarcerated after their "third strike" and inmates serving long sentences for crimes committed in their 40s and 50s, he said. Read more...

Panel recommends reforms to stem prison spending

2011-11-28T10:05:00.001-06:00

Shortening sentences for some nonviolent offenses and creating a statewide network of accountability courts could help prevent Georgia taxpayers from spending more than $250 million to accommodate an expanding prison population, a state panel said Friday.

The Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform said changes are needed to control the unimpeded growth in state prison spending, which has doubled over the past two decades to $1.05 billion a year. The panel noted the growth is being fueled by drug and property offenders who account for about 60 percent of all prison admissions.

The council noted more than 3,200 offenders enter prison on a drug possession conviction each year and two-thirds of these inmates have been found to be low risks to offend again. Read more...

Shifting prisoners to counties could strain local services

2011-11-28T10:03:00.001-06:00

California needs to pay attention to potential strains on county services as it implements Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to shift nonviolent criminals and parolees to counties, a RAND Corp. study says.

The study [PDF], “Understanding the Public Health Implications of Prisoner Reentry in California,” released last week, said the plan to shift low-level offenders to county custody could strain local health care and social services programs that already have been ravaged by budget cuts.

California began sending low-level felony offenders and parole violators to county jails on Oct. 1.

“There’s no turning back,” Brown said at a Sept. 29 press conference. “The only way is forward in a collaborative way.” Read more...

Probation Numbers Down, Parolees Up Slightly in 2010: BJS Survey

2011-11-28T09:56:00.001-06:00

The number of adult offenders on probation or parole declined by 1.3 percent last year, dropping to 4.9 million, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics said today. It was the second consecutive year of decline in the number of adults under community supervision. At year's end, about 1 in every 48 adults in the U.S. was on probation or parole. The number of adult probationers declined for the second consecutive year to nearly 4.1 million but the number of parolees increased to 840,700.

The failure rate of parolees-the percentage 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 in 2000. About 5.7 percent of probationers were incarcerated at some point during 2010, nearly unchanged since 2000 (5.5 percent). Read more...

Harlem reentry court: One parolee's experience

2011-11-17T17:18:00.001-06:00

The Harlem Community Justice Center helps parolees make the transition from life in prison to responsible citizenship

By The Center for Court Innovation

A number of challenges exist for a parolee just leaving prison, and the newfound freedom of a parolee can be overwhelming. The Harlem Community Justice Center helps parolees make the transition from life in prison to responsible citizenship.

About a week before Debra left prison, she learned that she would be part of a new reentry program involving frequent court appearances and participation in a drug treatment program, among other activities. Debra had never heard of parole reentry before. "At first I was really mad," she says. "I had never done parole in my life, but I knew you weren't supposed to go to court or in front of a judge. I was really angry that I had to go every week."

Six months later, she completed the program and had an entirely new perspective: "Putting me in the parole reentry program was the best thing they ever could have done for me and my life," she says. "I think they should put more people in it. If you're coming home to do the right thing, it's the place to be." Read more...

Parole Supervision Helps Cut Recidivism: Montana Study

2011-11-16T09:40:00.001-06:00

In a study of Montana ex-inmates, researchers found that offenders released early from prison without parole supervision are more likely to recidivate than those freed with parole supervision. Kevin A. Wright of Arizona State University and Jeffrey W. Rosky of the University of Central Florida believe that offenders who are released early are more likely to recidivate because they are not adequately prepared for reentry into the community. The study was published in Criminology & Public Policy, which is available only by subscription or to members of the American Society of Criminology.

Montana offenders released from prison on traditional parole supervision are required to have a detailed parole plan that includes housing and employment. The authors argue that given current pressures on correctional systems to reduce their budgets, it is unwise to do away with early release procedures. They say attention should be paid to the transition between prison and community reentry. In the same issue, Faye Taxman of George Mason University and Susan Turner of the University of California, Irvine, argue that correctional practitioners should look beyond the basic risk-assessment model of release and focus more on a client-centered approach, like the healthcare field. Journalists who want access to the papers should send a message to tgest@sas.upenn.edu. Read more...

APAI Business Plan Updated and Available Online

2011-11-07T10:10:00.000-06:00

Over the last several months, the Executive Committee has been working on updating the APAI Business Plan. After many hours of discussion, it has now been updated and can be found on our website HERE!

Effecting Change Through Outreach and Partnership

2011-07-12T10:07:00.003-05:00

Effecting Change through Outreach and Partnership
by Mark Prieur and Jane McDonald, Parole Board of Canada

The criminal justice system is a field that is often misunderstood and that is generally ripe with misconceptions. The area of conditional release is a good example of this. Just ask the Parole Board of Canada (PBC), the government agency in that country mandated to make conditional release and pardons decisions.

The PBC makes approximately 25,000 conditional release decisions, and a similar number of pardons decisions, every year. And although its track record is excellent for both conditional release decisions – over the past 10 years 93% of offenders on day and full parole have not committed a new offence, and 99% have not committed a new violent offence, while on parole – and for pardon decisions – 96% of the more than 400,000 granted since 1970 remain in force today – public confidence in both systems remains low in Canada.

“These statistics tell a very positive story and clearly show that the Board is effectively meeting its mandate of contributing to public safety,” says PBC Chairperson Harvey Cenaiko. He attributes the disconnect between the public’s perception of the system and its reality to a combination of factors. Chief among these are the general public’s limited awareness of the conditional release and pardons systems, and the media’s tendency to focus on high-profile, violent offenders. “These misconceptions present a picture of the system that is not always accurate or based on factual information,” he says.

To address this situation, the PBC invests time into public education and outreach. Canada’s Corrections and Conditional Release Act mandates the PBC to establish and maintain a program of communications and public education to enhance its effectiveness and openness, and this is something the Board takes very seriously.

“Outreach gives us a chance to speak directly to our various stakeholders and to inform them about the conditional release and pardons systems – how each one works, their measurable benefits and outcomes,” says Caroline Douglas, Director of Communications at the PBC. “It also gives us an opportunity to interact and engage with these audiences – which includes victims of crime, women, and Aboriginal people – about the Board and the services available to them.”

In 2009, the PBC undertook a review of its outreach program with a view to enhancing its effectiveness and reach. As a result of the review, the PBC updated its national outreach strategy, emphasizing two key objectives: to establish a planned, targeted, and measurable outreach program; and to identify and pursue opportunities for collaboration in the delivery of outreach activities, to maximize their impact and the Board’s limited resources.

To view the power point presentation from a workshop given at the APAI Annual Training Conference concerning PBC’s outreach program visit
.http://www.apaintl.org/resources/documents/ParoleBoardofCanadaOutreachProgram.pdf

“One group that I felt the Board needed to increase its outreach efforts to was our criminal justice partners, such as the police,” says Mr. Cenaiko. “They play a crucial part in the Board’s ability to make high-quality decisions through the quality of information they provide to us, and this is a message I was eager to share with them.”

The focus on partnerships is a key aspect of the Board’s approach to outreach given the large geographical area the PBC must cover – its five regional offices together cover a span of some 3.8 million square miles – and the limited resources at its disposal.

On example of a key partnership is the PBC’s joint work with the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) in the area of victim services. Under Canadian law, victims of crime are entitled to certain information about the offender who harmed them while that offender is under the jurisdiction of the PBC and the CSC. As Regional Manager of Community Relations for the Atlantic Region Sylvie Blanchet explains, “Given our joint responsibility in the area of victim services, it makes perfect sense for us to do joint outreach to this group, and this has allowed us to increase the amount of outreach we do with them.” And the efforts are paying off. Ms. Blanchet says that once the decision-making process is explained to victims, they usually come out with a better understanding of how and why decisions are made. “They may still not agree with the decision,” she says, “but they understand the reasons behind it.”

Another example of a key partnership is the highly successful pilot project that the PBC recently concluded in Nova Scotia with CSC and the Halifax Regional Police.

Mr. Cenaiko maintains the information that Board members pull from Crown briefs, psychological assessments, police reports and other sources is essential. In fact, the work of law enforcement is absolutely critical to the Board’s success as decision-makers.

“Decisions are available to the public and explain how the Board assesses risk,” he says. “Our goal, then, is to get timely and detailed intelligence information in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Our challenge as an organization has always been ‘how do we achieve a clear picture of the offender that leads to the highest quality decisions and greater public safety?’”

Atlantic Regional Director General Brian Chase has devoted considerable time and energy to that very question.

“Because the Board’s mandate intersects with law enforcement, it is important to better understand one another’s roles, how they fit together, and how we can work even better together,” he says.

In 2008, following training sessions between the Board in Atlantic Canada and the Halifax police, officials in both organizations acknowledged that a coordinated effort should be made to produce a model police report that would be simpler to use, yet still comprehensive.

At the time, average police occurrence reports were filled with extraneous information, which took hours to vet, read, analyze and extract information, and then even more time to review by Parole Board staff and Board members.

“Halifax police developed a model that supports both the Board and the Correctional Service in classifying an offender’s security level, assessing risk and/or treatment needs, and making better decisions,” Mr. Chase says. “The model includes not only suggested content but also relevant intelligence that can be safely shared.”

What used to run hundreds of pages can now be reduced to tailored intelligence summaries from a variety of sources—officer observations, street checks, motor-vehicle stops and safety bulletins—that best reflect the offence and include recommendations where content could be better stated or refined.

“We wanted to see this type of approach adopted elsewhere, so we sent Halifax Detective Constable Bob Lomond (now retired) out on the road to five outlying Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachments in Nova Scotia to present the new model,” Mr. Chase says.

“All five RCMP detachments responded very favourably to the new model, and their response convinced us that it could be useful not just throughout Atlantic Canada but right across the country,” he adds.

While Halifax police have realized tangible benefits, the creation of the much reduced, summarized report has also saved tens of thousands of dollars in person hours at the Parole Board and Correctional Service of Canada.

Mr. Cenaiko says, “Information is key and it will really help the Board when assessing offenders many years, even decades, after police reports have been compiled on them.”
Good information exchange between criminal justice partners, he insists, is an important way to keep the system running well.

It is a success story the PBC plans to build on through continued outreach and public education with its key stakeholders and the public.

To view the power point presentation from a workshop given on this topic at the 2011 APAI Annual Training Conference visit: http://www.apaintl.org/resources/documents/PoliceInformationRelatedtoCorrectionsandParole-Canada.pdf

Signed bills to free some inmates faster

2011-07-08T12:20:00.000-05:00

Gov. Bobby Jindal signed bills into law Tuesday that he said will make the criminal justice system run more efficiently.

One of the bills could result in first-time offenders serving less time in prison while another seeks to clarify the amount of time toward release that inmates are credited for good behavior.

The legislation stemmed from recommendations by judges, attorneys and law enforcement officials who serve on the Louisiana Sentencing Commission. Read more...

Senate vote spares Parole Board

2011-07-05T09:59:00.000-05:00

DOVER -- The Delaware Senate pardoned the Board of Parole from an immediate death sentence late Tuesday, even though the operating budget senators will consider today does not include direct funding for the panel.

House Bill 35 failed to get the minimum of eleven votes needed for passage, going down in defeat on a 9-10 vote. Sens. Harris McDowell and Liane Sorenson did not vote. Read more...

Cuts in juvenile parole left teen in 'Tuba Man' case unsupervised

2011-07-05T09:57:00.000-05:00

One of the three teens convicted of killing a popular Seattle street musician in 2008 continues to make headlines for his tangles with the law. Billy Chambers – who's now an adult – was most recently locked up for hit-and-run. It turns out he did not qualify for supervision by a juvenile parole officer because of state budget cuts.

Ed McMichael – aka "Tuba Man" – was a fixture outside Seattle's sports venues. He died in 2008 following a brutal attack by a group of teens.

Ultimately Chambers and two others pleaded guilty in the case. Chambers served one year behind bars.

Since then court records show he's racked up two theft convictions and faces multiple traffic offenses. Now he's accused of ramming his car into a woman who'd reported him to the police. Read more...

Panel votes today on breaks in crack cases

2011-07-05T09:55:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON — One in every 20 federal prisoners could be eligible for early release under a potential sentencing change for inmates convicted of crack cocaine offenses that will be voted on Thursday.

Congress passed a law last year substantially lowering recommended sentences for people convicted of crack cocaine crimes, ranging from possession to trafficking. The idea was to fix a longstanding disparity in punishments for crack and powder cocaine crimes, but the new, lower recommended sentences for crack offenders didn’t automatically apply to people already in prison. Now it is up to the six-member U.S. Sentencing Commission to decide whether offenders locked up for crack offenses before the new law took effect should also benefit and get out earlier. Read more...

New sentencing laws add costs for Hamilton County

2011-07-05T09:53:00.000-05:00

Gov. John Kasich signed into law Wednesday criminal sentencing reforms that could release thousands of non-violent prisoners from the expensive prison system - and keep them out with drug rehabilitation and other programs.

But it may also bring a lot of headaches - and some resentment - to Hamilton County officials who believe the law means more mandated bureaucracy they will now have to pay for at a time when county government is struggling with a reduced budget and the possibility of additional layoffs among county workers.

"Today has been kind of a double whammy," Hamilton County Court Administrator Mike Walton said Wednesday. Read more...

Audit adds to criticism of Michigan's parolee program

2011-06-28T11:09:00.000-05:00

Lansing — Michigan's Prisoner Re-entry Initiative has won national acclaim for helping ex-convicts stay out of trouble, but critics say the state is undercounting lapsed parolees to make the program appear more successful than it is.

The criticism comes amid an audit of the 6-year-old Department of Corrections program that found other shortcomings, including overcharging vendors for services and allowing conflicts of interest between contractors and subcontractors.

Jim Chihak, a former parole and probation officer who was part of a panel that evaluated the program this spring, said the program's intent — to keep prisoners from returning to prison — is admirable, but "the way it's being handled is a disaster." Read more...

Gov. Brownback starts faith-based program for parolees

2011-06-28T11:05:00.000-05:00

Kansas needs 5,000 volunteer mentors a year for paroled criminals, Gov. Sam Brownback said this week.

He spoke Monday in Wichita at the launch of an effort to merge government resources, social services, churches, businesses and mentors to keep parolees from returning to prison.

He announced the Out4Life faith-based program at the start of three days of workshops in which service providers and others discussed re-entry approaches.

The Kansas Department of Corrections will work with Prison Fellowship, a Christian group that created Out4Life about two years ago.

Brownback said he wants a mentor for each released criminal. Read more...

2011 Annual Training Conference Presentations

2011-06-27T11:53:00.000-05:00

The presentations APAI received from the 2011 Annual Training Conference held May 15-18, 2011, in San Antonio, Texas have now been posted on the website. You can find those HERE!

NC probation, prison changes backed at Legislature

2011-06-20T11:13:00.000-05:00

Significant changes to North Carolina's sentencing and probation laws designed to keep better track of offenders and discourage recidivism while scaling back prison construction are heading to Gov. Beverly Perdue's desk.

The General Assembly gave its final approval Wednesday night to the so-called "Justice Reinvestment Act" developed with the help of outside researchers and interest groups. The House agreed to changes approved by the Senate earlier in the day. Read more...

Paroled lifers pose high risk of new crimes

2011-06-20T11:11:00.000-05:00

More than a third of the most serious criminal offenders paroled in Massachusetts over the past five years were returned to prison for committing new crimes or violating the conditions of their release, a Globe review has found, raising questions about the public risk posed by granting early release to scores of convicted murderers, as well as the state’s ability to supervise violent criminals on parole.

The Globe analysis, undertaken after last December’s fatal shooting of a Woburn police officer by a career criminal on parole from a life sentence, found that the Parole Board freed 201 prisoners serving 15 years to life from January 2006 through December 2010. Read more...

California Paroling Medically Incapacitated Inmate

2011-06-17T09:05:00.000-05:00

COALINGA, Calif. -- A California convict in prison for a violent robbery is the first in the state granted parole under a new law allowing release of medically incapacitated inmates.

A state Board of Parole Hearings panel ruled Wednesday that 48-year-old Craig Lemke, who has served less than four years of a 68-year sentence, poses no threat to public safety because he's a quadriplegic. Read more...

Political paralysis' in Calif. over prison reform

2011-06-17T09:02:00.000-05:00

As California deeply cut spending for public schools, social services and health programs in recent years, state leaders also found themselves grappling with a court order to reduce the prison population by tens of thousands of inmates.

Some civil rights groups and criminal justice experts are now seizing on this perfect storm of chronic deficits and crowded prisons to push for wide-ranging changes to the state's sentencing laws that would transform California's handling of crime and punishment. The California chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups want the state to reduce drug possession and low-level, nonviolent property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, and they want more community-based alternatives to incarceration. Read more...

Field Poll: California Voters Favor Re-Vamping "Three-Strikes Law"

2011-06-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

Most California voters see a court order to reduce the state's prison population by 30,000 inmates as a serious problem, and nearly three out of four say it is time to revamp the state's "three-strikes" law, a Field Poll out today finds.

The poll comes on the heels of last month's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court ordering California to address its prison overcrowding problem, and 79 percent of those surveyed said the matter is serious. Read more...

High Court: Judges Can't Lengthen Prison Terms to Promote Rehab

2011-06-17T08:53:00.000-05:00

Federal law bars judges from imposing or lengthening prison terms to promote a criminal defendant's rehabilitation, the Supreme Court ruled today. In a unanimous opinion by Justice Elena Kagan, the high court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco. The case involved defendant Alejandra Tapia, who was convicted of smuggling unauthorized aliens into the country.

A judge imposed a 51-month prison term, referring to Tapia's need for drug treatment in the U.S. Bureau of Prisons' Residential Drug Abuse Program. Kagan said a lower court judge "did nothing wrong-and probably something very right-intrying to get Tapia into an effective drug treatment program. But the record indicates that the court may have done more-that it may have selected the length of the sentence to ensure that Tapia could complete the 500 Hour Drug Program." Read more of the ruling...

APAI Election Results

2011-05-25T11:44:00.000-05:00

APAI would like to congratulate Jeffrey Peterson of Minnesota, who will take office as Vice President of APAI beginning July 1, and Jeralia "Jeri" Costa from Washington who will continue in her role as Secretary of APAI.

Thank you to everyone who voted in the election.

The Role of Parole in Texas: Achieving Public Safety & Efficiency

2011-05-25T11:35:00.000-05:00

Introduction

Texas recently earned national acclaim for avoiding what was expected to be a catastrophic prison overcrowding crisis. In 2005, in anticipation of overcrowding, the Legislative Budget Board recommended building more than 17,000 new prison beds. Texas did not build the beds, however, and it still managed to reduce crime throughout the state. Part of the credit for this impressive accomplishment must go to the state’s parole system. In 2009, out of 76,607 parole-eligible cases considered, 23,182 Texas inmates were placed on some kind of parole supervision. More importantly, the number of parolees revoked to prison has sharply declined from 11,311 in 2004 to 6,678 in 2010, reflecting a drop in both new crimes and technical violations serious enough to warrant revocation. Read more...

In 1st CA medical parole case, inmate rejected

2011-05-25T11:27:00.000-05:00

A state board on Tuesday denied medical parole to a convicted rapist who has been a quadriplegic since he was attacked in prison 10 years ago, arguing that the inmate's verbal threats in prison to female staffers proves he would still pose a threat to public safety if he were to be released.

Steven Martinez, 42, was the first California inmate to be considered for medical parole under a law that took effect this year and is aimed at saving taxpayers the expense of providing medical care and security to incapacitated inmates. Under the law, inmates who are "permanently medically incapacitated with a medical condition" that makes them "unable to perform activities of basic daily living" may be released if they do not pose a threat to public safety. Read more...

No easy fix for California's prison crisis

2011-05-25T11:23:00.000-05:00

By Jack Dolan and Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Sacramento and Los Angeles -- California's effort to shift tens of thousands of inmates out of its chronically overcrowded prisons to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court order could be undone by the state's tough sentencing laws, persistent recidivism and recurring budget crises, analysts say.

More than 33,000 offenders must be moved out of the prisons under the high court's Monday decision, which upheld an earlier ruling that conditions in the teeming facilities cause preventable deaths and amount to cruel and unusual punishment. Read more...

How a ‘Tough-on-Crime’ State Became Smart on Crime

2011-04-18T14:44:00.000-05:00

Kentucky’s overhaul of its criminal justice system this spring is a textbook example of genuine bipartisanship.

For three decades, Kentucky politicians proved they were tough on crime. At every opportunity, they stiffened sentences and added offenses to the state’s penal code.

They nearly bankrupted the state. Read more...

Michigan's parole policy costs taxpayers $280 million a year

2011-04-07T15:04:00.000-05:00

Michigan often keeps inmates long after other states would have released them for similar crimes, driving up prison costs by millions of dollars a year and eating up a quarter of the state's general fund.

In the two years before she left office in December, former Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm encouraged the parole board to be more lenient when it came to releasing prisoners who'd served their minimum sentences. Read more...

Gov. Christie working to abolish N.J. early release parole program

2011-04-06T10:05:00.000-05:00

Declaring he is attempting to protect the public safety of New Jerseyans, Gov. Chris Christie Wednesday vetoed legislation related to the state’s early parole program and restored the state Parole Board’s discretion in deciding who is paroled.

The governor, who wants to abolish mandatory early parole, vetoed legislation that would have made a convict wait 10 years rather than three for a mandatory parole review. He said the legislation does not address the fundamental problems that have stem from statutorily-mandated parole review, including the impact on crime victims and their families and the failure to consider inmates’ rehabilitative progress in granting a parole review. Read more...

Despite medical parole law, hospitalized prisoners are costing California taxpayers millions

2011-03-02T13:35:00.000-06:00

With California mired in a budget crisis, guarding incapacitated prisoners at outside hospitals continues to cost taxpayers millions as the state figures out how to implement a new medical parole law.

Reporting from Vacaville, Calif. — A degenerative nerve disease has left 57-year-old California inmate Edward Ortiz semi-paralyzed in a private Bay Area hospital for the last year. The breathing tube in his throat tethers him to a ventilator at one end of the bed; steel bracelets shackle his ankles to safety rails at the other.

Still, California taxpayers are shelling out roughly $800,000 a year to prevent his escape. The guards watching Ortiz one day last week said department policy requires one corrections officer at the foot of his bed around the clock and another guard at the door. A sergeant also has to be there, to supervise. Read more...

Report: Prison cuts could cause bed shortage in 2 years

2011-03-02T13:26:00.000-06:00

In the latest sign that Texas' budget woes could prove even tougher than expected, a new study warned Tuesday that the state could face a shortage of as many as 12,000 prison beds within two years if it whacks corrections programs as planned.

Cuts of up to $600 million over the next two years would hobble rehabilitation, probation and treatment programs that have saved taxpayers almost that much in the past four years, the report said, and the resulting flood of Texans that would be sent to prison would quickly overwhelm the current capacity of state-run lockups. Read more...

What realignment means for California corrections

2011-03-01T13:20:00.000-06:00

Gov. Jerry Brown's ambitious plan for balancing his state's budget includes moving parole services to county control and dismantling the DJJ

The current buzzword in California government fiscal circles is “Realignment.” This is what Governor Brown wants to do to many state services. Chief among these, at least for CorrectionsOne readers, is the idea of turning parole services over the county governments, along with a theoretically adequate funding level for these services. An important secondary consideration is the complete dismantling of DJJ (Division of Juvenile Justice) and turning it over to local control also. Read more...

NH bill would let parole board decide on release

2011-03-01T13:17:00.000-06:00

State parole board officials should have the power to keep inmates behind bars longer, reversing part of last year's prison reform law that said violators could be recommitted for a maximum of 90 days, witnesses told a Senate committee Thursday.

While there was some agreement on changing the recommitment limit, witnesses did not agree whether to change the mandatory release of all inmates nine months before they complete their sentences to they can be placed under intense supervision. Read more...

A "Golden Opportunity" For Smart Criminal Justice Reforms?

2011-02-25T13:49:00.000-06:00

The current political and fiscal climate presents a "golden opportunity" for smart criminal justice reforms, James Burch, acting director of the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Assistance, told the National Committee on Community Corrections yesterday in Washington, D.C. The committee, a coalition of interest groups and corrections professionals, met in a session hosted by the Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project.

Burch suggested that the relative lack of government dollars could be an advantage, forcing states and localities to be creative and not depend on the federal government for support. His agency supports the "Justice Reinvestment Initiative," which seeks ways to incarcerate fewer people and reinvest the cost savings on programs that do better at preventing recidivism. "This may be the most promising initiative [our agency] has going," Burch said. Pat Nolan of the Justice Fellowship spoke about the new "Right on Crime" campaign, in which conservatives are urging "most cost-effective approaches that enhance public safety." Nolan said the campaign so far has not targeted election officials for endorsements but said that some of its principles have been embraced by newly elected or incumbent governors in states like Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, and New York. Noting that new New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, backs justice reforms that save money, Nolan said the "right on crime" principles are "not captive of one party."

Bill to overhaul Ky. prison system advances

2011-02-25T13:48:00.000-06:00

FRANKFORT, Ky. — A bill to overhaul the state’s corrections system — and reduce the state’s costs — won unanimous approval Thursday from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But action by the full Senate on what supporters have called landmark legislation was postponed until Monday after Senate President David Williams, a Burkesville Republican, had to leave the state for a political event in Washington. Read more...

Fewer freed inmates returning to prison

2011-02-25T13:43:00.000-06:00

The rate of released offenders returned to prison is the lowest it has been in 11 years, the director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said yesterday.

Last year, 34 percent of inmates returned to prison for a parole or probation violation or a new felony conviction, down from 36 percent in 2009, said Director Gary Mohr.

Last year's recidivism rate is the lowest since 1997, when it was also 34 percent.

The national recidivism rate averages about 50 percent, the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics says. Read more...

Conference Promotes Improved Responses to People with Mental Illnesses in the Criminal Justice System

2011-02-15T14:47:00.000-06:00

Baltimore, MD—Criminal justice and mental health experts gather today to share strategies that improve outcomes for justice-involved people with mental illnesses. The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center, with the support of the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, has convened more than 400 practitioners, researchers, and public officials this week to address the overrepresentation of people with mental illnesses in the criminal justice system.

According to a recent study, 16.9 percent of people admitted to jail have serious mental illnesses—rates three times higher for men and six times higher for women than those found in the general population. Many have become familiar faces in local law enforcement incidents, courtrooms, and correctional facilities.

The conference connects front-line professionals with experts, peers, and mental health consumers who can provide guidance on maximizing available grant opportunities and ensuring programs have the greatest impact, including improving law enforcement encounters with people with mental illnesses; diverting individuals to treatment and services when appropriate; and providing assessments, programming, and services that can reduce reoffending and improve health outcomes.

“Recent tragic events have highlighted the critical need for justice and mental health communities to work together and share information to prevent and respond to crime,” said BJA Acting Director James H. Burch, II. “At the same time, our justice systems lack the budgetary strength and often the expertise to respond to the mental illnesses that link people to the justice system, creating a mandate for the two systems to work together to serve communities effectively.”

This conference is made possible through the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP), which is administered by BJA. In 2004, Congress authorized the JMHCP through the landmark Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act in recognition that the justice system is filled with people with serious mental illnesses and co-occurring substance use disorders. The federal funding program authorizes funds for states, units of local government, Indian tribes, and tribal organizations to more effectively use justice system resources to improve public safety and linkages to treatment. Through its technical assistance provider, the CSG Justice Center, BJA has offered training and guidance to grantees from more than 40 states.

“Lawmakers are facing great challenges in balancing their state's budgets,” said CSG Justice Center Board of Directors Vice-Chair and Kansas State Representative Pat Colloton. “By highlighting what works in reducing the number of people with mental illnesses who cycle in and out of the criminal justice system, BJA is helping state lawmakers reduce spending and focus investments on strategies that will improve the lives of these individuals and increase public health and safety.”
To view detailed information about the conference, access other criminal justice-mental health resources, and subscribe to the Consensus Project newsletter, visit www.consensusproject.org.

The Council of State Governments Justice Center is a national nonprofit organization that serves policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels from all branches of government. The Justice Center provides practical, nonpartisan advice and consensus-driven strategies—informed by available evidence—to increase public safety and strengthen communities. For more information, see www.justicecenter.csg.org.

Budget cuts slice programs for ex-inmates

2011-02-09T10:45:00.000-06:00

Cuts in probation and parole programs to reconcile state budget deficits could undermine recent successes in shrinking bloated prison populations, criminal justice officials say.

In some states, the number of people committing new felonies while on probation or parole has inched up, in part because of cuts to programs that helped former inmates stay out of prison. Other states are weighing substantial budget cuts to all parts of their criminal justice systems, including probation and parole programs. Read More...

Budget Cutting Starts at Justice Department

2011-01-27T14:07:00.000-06:00

As President Barack Obama finalizes his proposals to increase federal funding for his priority programs, the White House is searching for ways to reduce spending elsewhere in the federal government.

At the Justice Department, officials are considering whether to shorten some federal prison terms and have already shut down a program that successfully encouraged fugitive criminals to turn themselves in.

The department—which saw years of rapid growth after the 2001 terrorist attacks—is just one of the federal agencies facing significant belt-tightening at a time of rising worries about the federal budget deficit. Read more...

Patrick pushes probation takeover: Sees Parole Board merger, then cuts

2011-01-27T14:04:00.000-06:00

Governor Deval Patrick, unable to resolve a power struggle with House and Senate leaders, pressed ahead yesterday with a plan to merge the troubled state Probation Department and the embattled Parole Board, put them under his control, and slash their budgets.

In doing so, Patrick was acting on his long-stated goal of combining the agencies and seizing control, which he said would lead to better monitoring of prisoners before and after their release. Read more...

Sentence reform could save state money

2011-01-27T13:59:00.000-06:00

A Texas lawmaker came to Tallahassee to give lawmakers advice about prison reform -- help those with addictions stay out of prison.

Both Gov. Rick Scott and legislative leaders have pledged to offset the state's nearly $4 billion budget shortfall with cuts to the prison system.

With that in mind, Florida lawmakers heard testimony Monday from Texas state Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Plano, who sponsored prison reform legislation in his home state.

The overriding message: Save money by keeping people out of prison with programs that address drug addiction, alcoholism and mental illness.

Madden said prisoners can largely be divided into three categories: Those who will never return, those who are guaranteed to return, and those who won't return if they are enrolled in the right programs. It's the third category that gives you the most bang for your buck, he said, so it's worth it to invest in drug and alcohol treatment programs. Read more...

Supreme Court says state prisoners have no constitutional right to parole

2011-01-27T13:56:00.000-06:00

In reversing the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for the third time in a week, the justices say the appeals court was wrong to second-guess the California parole board and the state courts for denying parole to a man convicted of attempted murder.

Reporting from Washington — Unanimously reversing the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for the third time in a week, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that state prisoners have no constitutional right to be paroled.

The decision rebuked the San Francisco-based appeals court for ordering the parole of several inmates who had been convicted of murder or attempted murder.

All three of the opinions overturned in the past week were written by veteran liberal Judge Stephen Reinhardt from Los Angeles. Read more...

States Help Ex-Inmates Find Jobs

2011-01-27T13:51:00.000-06:00

Faced with yawning budget gaps and high unemployment, California, Michigan, New York and several other states are attacking both problems with a surprising strategy: helping ex-convicts find jobs to keep them from ending up back in prison.

The approach is backed by prisoner advocates as well as liberal and conservative government officials, who say it pays off in cold, hard numbers. Michigan, for example, spends $35,000 a year to keep someone in prison — more than the cost of educating a University of Michigan student. Through vigorous job placement programs and prudent use of parole, state officials say they have cut the prison population by 7,500, or about 15 percent, over the last four years, yielding more than $200 million in annual savings. Michigan spends $56 million a year on various re-entry programs, including substance abuse treatment and job training. Read more...

Sir David Latham questions life prisoner reoffending

2011-01-24T15:28:00.002-06:00

Reoffending rates among life sentence prisoners may be higher than figures suggest, according to the chairman of the Parole Board of England and Wales.

Internal estimates indicate that, each year, between 1% and 2% of lifers freed on parole commit further crimes.
But Sir David Latham told BBC News the current statistics were not "robust" and it was hard to be sure if the right parole decisions were being made.

He also warned of the "danger" of an "over-reaction" to high-profile cases. Read more...

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signs order to abolish state Parole Board

2011-01-24T15:26:00.000-06:00

Topeka — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback announced Friday that a veteran warden will run a state corrections system beset by overcrowding and still facing questions about the past management of its women’s prison.

Brownback appointed Ray Roberts as his corrections secretary, saying Roberts emerged as the top candidate even after a nationwide search. Roberts has been the warden at the state’s maximum-security prison for men in El Dorado since 2003, and his career in corrections spans 35 years. Read more...

Parolees rarely kill again, study says

2011-01-10T09:57:00.000-06:00

Until recently, Reginald Powell was free on parole, one of 936 convicted killers in New York state back on the street.

If he did kill Mamaroneck mom Jennifer Katz, as authorities suspect, he would be part of the distinct minority who went on to kill again.

Of 368 convicted murderers granted parole in New York between 1999 and 2003, six, or 1.6 percent,were returned to prisonwithin three years for a new felony conviction — none of them a violent offense, according to a study by the state Parole Board. Read more...

Gov-elect Rick Scott's team bucks GOP ideology, urges easing prison policy to cut costs

2011-01-06T14:20:00.000-06:00

TALLAHASSEE — Conservatives have been known to be tough on crime. Now they're saying they have to be tough on criminal justice spending as well.

Rick Scott's "law and order" team is telling Florida's incoming governor, who considers himself a conservative's conservative, to cut costs by diverting nonviolent offenders to drug treatment and requiring inmates to get an education and vocational training.

Those actions, which the transition team said could reduce the number of criminals returning to prison and allow the state to stop building new prisons, sound more like past Democratic suggestions than traditional conservative approaches to criminal justice. Read more...

Report recommends path to ease prison overcrowding

2011-01-06T14:19:00.000-06:00

LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas can reduce its prison population by 3,200 inmates over the next decade and save $875 million by holding offenders more accountable, reducing the number of low-risk drug offenders in prison and expanding medical parole for terminally ill convicts, according to a report released today.

If nothing is done, the report said, the state’s prison population will rise by as much as 43 percent, about 6,500 inmates by 2021.

Today, the state Department of Correction held 14,215 inmates in prison units built to house 13,114. Another 1,661 state prisoners were backed up in county jails awaiting bed space in the chronically overcrowded prison system. Read more...

Attorney General Eric Holder Convenes Inaugural Cabinet-Level Reentry Council

2011-01-06T14:17:00.000-06:00

WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder today convened the inaugural meeting of the Cabinet-level "Reentry Council" in Washington to identify and to advance effective public safety and prisoner reentry strategies.

In addition to the Attorney General, the council includes Departments of Education Secretary Arne Duncan; Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack; Interior Secretary Ken Salazar; Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan; Labor Secretary Hilda Solis; and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. Members also include Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Michael Astrue; Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, R. Gil Kerlikowske; Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, Melody Barnes; Executive Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Joshua DuBois; and Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Jacqueline Berrien. Read more...

Jerry Brown pitches a shift to local governments

2011-01-06T14:15:00.000-06:00

Gov. Jerry Brown, beginning the "complex undertaking" of shifting responsibility for many state programs to local agencies, started pitching the plan Tuesday to local leaders.

Brown has said he will propose a realignment of services, possibly far-reaching, as part of a proposal to resolve a state budget deficit estimated to be at least $25 billion over 18 months. Read more...

Special court aids St. Louis veterans with drug trouble

2011-01-06T14:10:00.000-06:00

ST. LOUIS • Nick wanted to kill himself with heroin.

He was already dealing with horrible images seared into his brain as an Army infantryman who was in the Pentagon during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Then two years later, he was almost killed in a car crash.

And nearly two years ago, his 2-year-old son was killed in an all-terrain vehicle accident. Nick was sitting with him on the vehicle when the boy apparently hit the throttle. Nick fell off the back, and the ATV struck a tree with the toddler still aboard. Read more...

Clemency of juvenile killer gives Yee hope

2011-01-06T14:02:00.000-06:00

The last-minute sentence commutation of a woman serving life without parole for killing her pimp at age 16 has given a Peninsula state senator hope this is the year California abolishes the absolute term for all juvenile offenders.

As one of his final gubernatorial acts, Arnold Schwarzenegger granted clemency to convicted murderer Sara Kruzan by reducing her sentence to 25 years to life in prison. While the change doesn’t guarantee freedom to Kruzan, who fatally shot the man in 1994, it does offer the possibility.

State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco/San Mateo, has long argued that all juvenile offenders deserve the chance at rehabilitation and release rather than being incarcerated at a young age with no hope of parole. He initially proposed completely outlawing the sentence but it failed to pass. Last year, Yee successfully pushed a tweaked version known as the Fair Sentencing for Youth Act through the Senate with bipartisan support but it died in the Assembly during the final days of the session. He reintroduced the legislation, now known as Senate Bill 9, last month. Read more...

Prisoners report beatings in retaliation for December protests

2011-01-06T13:58:00.000-06:00

Inmate advocates and relatives said guards at one state institution have retaliated with violence against prisoners who staged a protest and refused to report to work details last month.

Marie Williams, whose son is at Smith State Prison in Tattnall County, said another inmate called her on her son’s behalf over the weekend to report what had happened.

“They said they [officers] were hitting inmates with hammers,” Williams told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Tuesday. “They [guards] said an inmate was trying to escape.” Read more...

Michael Vick: Symbol of the second chance

2011-01-06T13:57:00.000-06:00

President Obama's unofficial pardon of Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick was a fleeting story highlighting a durable problem.

According to team owner Jeffrey Lurie, Obama phoned to praise the Eagles for giving Vick a "second chance." According to Lurie, Obama said "it's never a level playing field for prisoners when they get out of jail.'" Read more...

Outrage, restraint on parole inquiry - Governor, speaker differ on response to officer’s slaying

2011-01-04T11:23:00.000-06:00

Governor Deval Patrick, facing widespread anger from police chiefs and victims’ advocates, pleaded for patience yesterday as his administration completes a review of the state Parole Board’s decision to free a violent career criminal who shot and killed a Woburn police officer last week.

House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, however, expressed outrage at the board’s decision and vowed to make it a “major focus’’ of legislative action in the new session. Read more...

Convicted look to the state for forgiveness

2010-12-21T11:01:00.000-06:00

Lovett, a convicted robber and drug dealer from Atlanta, said he needs a job; Adcock, a convicted drunken driver from Cartersville, wants to carry a gun.

Theirs are among the 2,067 pardon and restoration-of-rights applications pending before the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. Both men say they’ve been good for a good long time.

They have a decent chance of getting what they want. Read More...

Correctional Populations in the United States, 2009

2010-12-21T10:59:00.000-06:00

Presents summary data on the number of adults under some form of correctional supervision in the United States at yearend 2009. Correctional supervision includes adults supervised in the community on probation or parole and those incarcerated in prison or local jails. The report provides a comparison between the change in the correctional population observed since 2000 and the changes observed during the 1980s and 1990s, which illustrates the slowing of growth in the population during each decade. It also includes the number of men and women under each correctional status and trend analysis of men and women under correctional supervision since 1990. Read More...

Greetings from the Association of Paroling Authorities International

2010-12-20T11:47:00.002-06:00

Short -Term Technical Assistance Available for Parole Boards

2010-12-07T14:11:00.002-06:00

The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) is pleased to announce additional support for the activities of the National Parole Resource Center (NPRC), a project that serves as a source of information, training, and technical assistance for paroling authorities and the supervision agencies that they oversee and with whom they collaborate. The NPRC is now able, as resources allow, to provide a limited amount of short-term technical assistance to paroling authorities who are interested in enhancing their work and bringing their policies into alignment with evidence based practices. Specifically, requests will be considered to the extent that they focus on promoting at least one of the following “practice targets” for paroling authorities:
1. Use good, empirically-based, actuarial tools to assess risks and criminogenic needs of offenders;
2. Develop and use clear, evidence-based, policy-driven decisionmaking tools and practices that reflect the full range of a paroling authority’s concerns (e.g., punishment, victim issues, community safety, etc.);
3. Develop meaningful partnerships with institutional corrections and community supervision (and others) to encourage:
a. a seamless transition process;
b. the availability of sound, evidence-based programs;
4. Use their influence and leverage to target institutional and community resources to mid and high risk offenders to address their criminogenic needs;
5. Consider for release at the earliest stage possible—in light of statutes and other sentencing interests—offenders assessed as low risk;
6. Use the parole interview/hearing/review process as an opportunity to—among other goals--enhance offender motivation to change;
7. Fashion condition setting policy to minimize requirements on low-risk offenders, and target conditions to criminogenic needs of medium and high risk offenders;
8. Develop policy-driven, graduated responses to parole violations that incorporate considerations of risk, criminogenic need and severity, assure even-handed treatment of violators, and utilize resources wisely ;
9. Develop and strengthen case-level decisiomaking skills/capacities in these areas, and
10. Develop and strengthen agency level policy making, strategic management and performance measurement skills/capacities.

The Technical Assistance Application Process

Interested applicants should complete and submit the assistance application that can be found by clicking HERE. Applications may be submitted electronically via email to Peggy Burke, NPRC Project Director, at pburke@cepp.com. The NPRC welcomes inquiries about this technical assistance program, and encourages individuals who are interested in submitting applications to be in touch with NPRC to discuss their technical assistance needs and how these needs might be translated into a formal application. Please contact Peggy Burke with questions via email or by phone at 301-589-9383.

National Parole Resource Center Receives New Funding

2010-11-12T11:21:00.004-06:00

The National Parole Resource Center (NPRC), a partnership of the Association of Paroling Authorities International and the Center for Effective Public Policy, funded by the Bureau of Justice Administration (BJA), is pleased to announce that they have received additional funding from BJA to support the work of NPRC. To read more about this additional funding click HERE

NIC Core Competencies Document Now on Web

2010-11-12T10:39:00.004-06:00

The National Institute of Correction’s publication entitled Core Competencies: A Resource for Parole Board Chairs, Members and Executive Staff is now available on the NIC website. To view this excellent piece of work on an extremely important issue click HERE .

APAI Website Updated

2010-11-08T15:59:00.000-06:00

The APAI website has been updated to include an updated membership form, the October 2010 Newsletter, and updated 2011 Annual Training Conference information such as registration fees. Visit the website HERE!

A no-pardon Justice Department

2010-11-08T15:18:00.000-06:00

President Obama should rely more on his own moral judgment than the Justice Department's in making clemency and pardon decisions.

The Times' well-intentioned Oct. 30 editorial bemoaning that fact that President Obama hasn't yet granted any pardons or commutations, in which the editorial board correctly notes that the president is "aided in such decisions by the Office of the Pardon Attorney in the Justice Department," betrays a profound misunderstanding of the role the pardon office plays in the clemency advisory process. In particular, The Times writes, "Ideally, presidents would give great deference to the pardon attorney's recommendations and take a liberal view of the clemency power, exercising it often and on the basis of clear standards."

This assertion is hopelessly confused. In fact, the problem in the vast majority of garden-variety clemency cases — those involving ordinary applicants for whom a grant of clemency would not cause any public controversy — is precisely that recent presidents have given far too much deference to the pardon attorney's office. Having spent more than 10 years as a staff attorney in that office, I can say with some authority that the prevailing view within the Justice Department is that the pardon attorney's sole institutional function is to defend the department's prosecutorial prerogatives. There is little, if any, pretense of neutrality, much less liberality. On this parochial view, the institution of a genuinely humane clemency policy would be considered an insult to the good work of line prosecutors. Read More...

Ankle monitors: a high-demand accessory for minor criminals: In Allegheny County, 925 wait for ankle bracelets

2010-11-08T15:15:00.000-06:00

Electronic monitoring devices, black anklets made of rubber and plastic, are not exactly coveted, but in Allegheny County they are certainly in high demand.

Last week, about 1,200 people were wearing the monitoring units, mostly used to enforce house arrest for those convicted in Common Pleas Court of minor criminal offenses. Another 925 people were waiting for them.

The electronic monitoring waiting list started ballooning about a year ago, about the same time the court introduced a program to expedite minor cases. Read More...

Schwarzenegger veto of killer's parole overturned

2010-11-08T15:11:00.000-06:00

The state parole board has approved Michael McDonald's release three times and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed it each time, saying the convicted murderer showed a "lack of insight" into his crime because he still insisted he was innocent.

But a state appeals court says that neither the governor nor the board can insist on a confession before paroling a prisoner who, based on the evidence, is not dangerous. Read More...

Reforming Sex Offender Laws: California's Chelsea's Law rethinks the way state manages sex offenders who will return to society

2010-11-08T15:06:00.000-06:00

After the rape and murder of Chelsea King, a San Diego County teenager, California legislators decided they had to do something. Amid the emotions of the tragedy, they passed a rational, thoughtful law.

That was an unexpected outcome, because many of the approaches that states take to prevent sex crimes are based more on fears than hard evidence. That’s as true in California as any other place. There, with the support of most of the state’s key politicians, voters approved a 2006 ballot initiative, known as Jessica’s Law, that barred sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools, day-care centers, parks or churches. Read More...

14th National Workshop on Adult and Juvenile Female Offenders

2010-11-05T13:49:00.000-05:00

The State of Utah, Division of Juvenile Justice Services is hosting the 14th National Workshop on Adult and Juvenile Female Offenders in Salt Lake City, Utah. This biennial conference is sponsored by the Association on Programs for Female Offenders and attended by individuals across the country.

You can find more information HERE!

Who's going back to prison (again and again)

2010-11-03T16:52:00.001-05:00

San Francisco has one of the highest recidivism rates in the state—some 78.3 percent go back to prison within three years of release—according to a report released today by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).

The study tracked about 108,000 inmates released from state prisons between 2005 and 2006 over the course of three years. Overall, the state recidivism rate, which has long been among the highest in the country, clocks in at 67.5 percent, which is not a significant change from previous statewide tallies.

“The recidivism rates in general, while not surprising, are disheartening, and attest to the complete failure of our prison system in achieving deterrence, rehabilitation, or both,” UC Hastings law professor Hadar Aviram writes in an email. “It is telling that the statistics haven’t changed significantly over time, despite increased punitive measures. Clearly, what we are doing under the title ‘corrections and rehabilitation’ does not correct or rehabilitate.” Read More...

Prison sentences, parks measures pass, casino and marijuana bids fail

2010-11-03T16:49:00.001-05:00

Ballot measures supporting parks and tougher prison sentences got big support from Oregon voters, but implementing these citizen initiatives comes with a price tag.

Kevin Mannix, author of Measure 73, didn't mount a wide campaign for the measure but said voter support shows they place a high value on public safety even during an economic crisis.

And Amanda Rich, executive director of Oregon Recreation and Park Association, said the strong voting for Measure 76 shows Oregonians view protecting parks and natural resources as a core value.

Measure 76, which drew 68 percent of votes, permanently dedicates 15 percent of Oregon Lottery proceeds for the maintenance of Oregon's parks and wildlife habitats. State officials estimate that those programs will receive about $170 million over the next two years. Read More...

Sentencing Project Releases Article on Mandatory Minimun Senetencing in the Federal System

2010-11-02T14:20:00.006-05:00

In "The Impact of Mandatory Minimum Penalties in Federal Sentencing," appearing in the journal Judicature, Marc Mauer, Executive Director of the Sentencing project argues that mandatory sentencing policies have not improved public safety but have exacerbated existing racial disparities in the criminal justice system. The piece is taken from his testimony earlier this year to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

To read the entire article click HERE

Sentencing Project Releases Report on Life Without Parole Sentences

2010-11-02T13:58:00.009-05:00

In "Throwing Away the Key: The Expansion of Life Without Parole Sentences in the United States," appearing in the current issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter, Ashley Nellis describes the growing use of life imprisonment in recent decades. She argues that the growing use of life without parole represents a lack of confidence that persons who commit serious crimes can mature out of their criminal behavior and that too often this results in unnecessarily lengthy incarceration.
To read the full article click HERE

APAI mourns passing of Dr. Don Andrews

2010-11-02T13:47:00.001-05:00

APAI is saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. Don Andrews of Carleton University.

Dr. Andrews was Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at Carleton. He was a founding member of the Criminology program at Carleton. The flags on campus were lowered to half-staff on Saturday, Oct. 30 as a celebration of his life was held in Ottawa that day.

The Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice will be celebrating his life and his achievements at a memorial service on Friday, November 26th from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm in Room 2017 of the Dunton Tower at the University.

Dr. Andrews was a pioneer in our understanding of criminal behavior and risk assessment. He wrote many important books, articles and delivered many key presentations and training sessions.

N.J. Parole Board teams up with U.S. marshals to bring down violators

2010-10-26T13:44:00.000-05:00

It was a sunny morning in Jersey City when the unmarked police cars pulled into the Walgreens parking lot. As shoppers shuttled back and forth, officers clad in bulletproof vests with pistols on their hips clustered together.

Bill Cannon, the ranking U.S. marshal on the scene, passed around copies of a mug shot. The target was Jamal Roach, a fugitive who walked away from a Newark halfway house in July. On this day, he was hanging out at a bodega in his hometown.

Every month in New Jersey about 145 people skip out on parole supervision, failing to show up to meetings or leaving low-security community programs. Some stay clean. Others commit new crimes, from dealing drugs to murder. Read More...

Mentally ill prisoners get a second chance

2010-10-26T13:42:00.000-05:00

Mental health courts are operating in 29 California counties, helping offenders and reducing crime in their communities.

Milton Conley's mental illness has cost him — and society — more than he cares to tally.

An abusive father recruited Conley at age 9 into a life of what he calls "doing wrong things." A psychotic break in his 30s was followed by homelessness and four imprisonments, products of schizophrenia; addiction to crack cocaine and marijuana; and what Conley dolefully labels "being lonely." Read More...

State's picking ex-cons' poison, hopes new drug Suboxone will keep inmates off heroinState's picking ex-cons' poison, hopes new drug Suboxone will keep inmates off heroin

2010-10-26T13:40:00.000-05:00

State officials plan to give some junkies an addictive drug while they're in prison and supply them with it when they're paroled, the Daily News has learned.

The experiment, designed to keep inmates off heroin when they hit the streets, is drawing fire from those who fear it will fuel a black market for the pill.

It's called Suboxone and it's the only opiate addiction treatment prescribed by doctors and available from the local pharmacy. Read More...

Dallas police 'erred badly' in turning away sex offenders who sought to register

2010-10-26T13:37:00.000-05:00

Sex offenders who must update their registration with the Dallas police have been routinely turned away after waiting outside the department door for hours.

"I've got to abide by the law or they put me back in prison," said one offender who asked not to be identified.

Department spokesman C.L. Williams said the department "erred badly" by limiting the number of registrants to about three dozen a day in recent weeks, a short-term response to a manpower shortage during the State Fair of Texas. On one recent day, a small waiting room was packed and lines snaked down to the sidewalk outside the Jack Evans Police Headquarters. Similar scenes had been reported in recent weeks.

Read More...

TYC reduces use of anti-psychotic drugs

2010-10-26T13:35:00.000-05:00

Texas: Anti-psychotic drugs meant to treat mental illness were being used instead as chemical restraints on youths incarcerated in Texas Youth Commission facilities, Commissioner Scott Fisher said.

The medications, which have a sedating effect, are intended to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder but were used on youths who did not have those diagnoses.

Fisher, a Bedford pastor, said the commission has worked over the past year to implement a system that focuses on matching drugs to need. Statistics show that since last year the commission has throttled back spending on the drugs. Read More...

Interstate Commission for Adult Offender Supervision Annual Business Meeting

2010-10-18T14:35:00.006-05:00

Along with numerous other criminal justice associations, APAI is an Ex -Officio Member of the Interstate Commission for Adult Offender Supervision (ICAOS). The Commission held its Annual Business Meeting October 12 -12 in San Antonio, Texas. I was invited to attend to represent APAI.

The Commission contains a representative, with voting authority, from each US state and a couple of US territories. This group, along with many other duties, establishes the rules to effectively and efficiently achieve the purposes of the Interstate Compact for the Supervision of Adult Offenders. The role of the Ex-Officio is to serve in an advisory capacity to the Commission.

The meeting started off with a 1/2 day Commissioner's Training where all the participants, my self included, were given information about the legal foundations for the Commission, the role of the National Office, the role of the Commissioners and the role of the Executive Committee. Those in attendance were given a review of the rule proposals that were going to be on the agenda the following day and were given the opportunity to give feedback prior to the official voting session scheduled for the next day.

In the afternoon of the first day the Commissioners gathered for their respective regional meetings where they discuss issues on the horizon and mapped strategy for the upcoming year. They also recruited nominees for the Executive Committee. Later that afternoon a period of time was set aside for public comment on the proposed rule changes that would be voted on the next day.

On Wednesday the meeting convened with reports from the various committees. I was impressed with the hard work of all the committees, but particularly the work done in the area of training, compliance and information technology It was impressive to see the data that is now available on the interstate transfer and supervision functions and the hard work that goes into obtaining voluntary compliance with the rules of the compact through training, much of which is done by the Commissioners themselves.

The majority of the day was dedicated to a comprehensive and thoughtful discussion of the various rule change proposals that had made their way through the respective committees. You may view the proposed changes at www.interstatecompact.org under the "Proposed Amendments" tab. Ultimately, after the debate, several rule amendments were passed and one was defeated. The Commission passed proposals to slightly modify the requirements for the contents of a transfer request and to spell out the scope of investigation that must be done before an offender is declared an absconder. The Commission also passed rules that require that the mandatory re-taking of violent offenders and offenders who commit new felony offenses be accomplished through the issuance of a warrant, not merely ordering them to return to the sending state. The Commission however defeated a proposal (2010-EXEC-5.103) to impose the same requirement on the mandatory retaking of an offender who is being returned because they committed "three or more significant violations" All changes are set to be effective March 1, 2011. For a complete report of the proceeding including the language of the proposals passed and rejected, visit the Commission website.

On a side note, the meeting was held on the beautiful San Antonio Riverwalk. Incidentally this is the site for the 2011 APAI Annual Training Conference. I was in awe of the natural beauty of this area and the many attractions available, including shopping, restaurants and historical sites. I would urge each of your to mark your calenders for May 15 -18, 2011 and plans to attend the training and perhaps spend a few extra days visiting San Antonio.

Controversial parole law goes into effect in NH

2010-10-06T10:41:00.000-05:00

CONCORD, N.H.—Robert Audette's son was convicted of setting fire to a vacant building in 2007 and is being released from prison nine months before his sentence is up as part of New Hampshire's new mandatory parole law.

Audette, of Hooksett, says he's glad his son, 20-year-old Robert Shawn Audette, is coming home this week, but he believes criminals should serve their full sentences.

"I'm kind of like being put in the middle of two places," Audette said. "Some of the sex offenders are coming out and that worries me. My son wasn't in for a sex crime. But what he did was wrong. They're put in for an amount of time and they should do that amount of time." Read More...

Prison populations shouldn't trump justice

2010-10-06T10:02:00.000-05:00

Violent offenders should not be considered for parole every year.

WEST Virginia's regional jails and prisons are overcrowded, and many state officials don't want to spend scarce money building more cells.

So the administration offered, and the Legislature passed, a bill backers said was intended to accelerate parole hearings for nonviolent offenders. Read More...

Governor OKs medical parole for incapacitated inmates

2010-10-06T09:28:00.000-05:00

Schwarzenegger signs 21 bills, including one allowing the state to parole comatose and physically incapacitated inmates and another restricting motorcycle modifications. He vetoes 14 bills.

Reporting from Sacramento — State prisons can release comatose and physically incapacitated inmates on medical parole under a measure approved Tuesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that is expected to save California at least $46 million annually.

The legislation was one of 21 bills the governor signed, including a ban on modifying motorcycles to make them more noisy, a scale-back of an early release program at county jails and a 5-year extension allowing shoemakers to import kangaroo parts to California. Read More...

APAI Chairs Meeting

2010-10-01T11:48:00.015-05:00

On September 22nd and 23rd Parole Board Chairs and Releasing Authority Directors from around the United States and Canada gathered in Louisville, Kentucky for the Association of Paroling Authority's Annual Chairs Meeting/Training. The participants were treated to a combination of facilitated discussion and educational sessions made possible by the generous support of our colleagues and partners at the National Institute of Corrections and the National Parole Resource Center.

The sessions were facilitated by Tom von Hemert, a criminal justice planner from Charlottesville Virginia. The meeting began with a rousing keynote address from APAI President Charles Traughber who used his 40 plus years of correctional experience to put today's budget crisis in context. He reminded the participants of the need to be constantly striving to tailor our practices to those that have been found to work by the evidence and research that currently exists.

The participants then spent some time in small groups discussing the specific issues that they are facing in their agencies. This discussion was meant to create an environment throughout the rest of the meeting, both in session and out, in which the participants could make use of the over 500 years of criminal justice experience that was present amongst the 22 participants.

Cathy Banks, Correctional Program Specialist, from the National Institute of Corrections discussed the current state of affairs at NIC concerning parole, including the current development and pilot testing of a curriculum for training new board chairs. The participants were treated to examples of some of the innovative and thought provoking segments NIC now uses to train new board members.

The participants then heard about a joint initiative of APAI and the Association of State Corrections Administrators (ASCA) to develop a set of principles to guide productive collaboration between state correctional agencies and paroling/releasing authorities. ASCA executive committee members AT Wall , Director of Corrections in Rhode Island and Brian Fischer, Commissioner of Corrections in New York State, discussed ASCA's interest in developing these principles. APAI Executive Committee members described the history and process of this initiative. There was a period of open discussion for the participants to air their views on the draft set of principles. The group was then guided through a series of exercises designed to "test drive" the principles; to see if they could be translated into achievable and measurable action steps.

The next morning the participants heard from noted Canadian researcher Dr. Ralph Serin of Carleton University. He shared the latest news about his criminal justice decision making lab and the promise that holds for parole practitioners. He discussed the latest research relevant to parole decision making and unveiled the research he is going to conduct in two US sites, Ohio and Connecticut.

In the afternoon Peggy Burke updated everyone on the latest activities of the National Parole Resource Center, including the selection of four learning sites; South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Connecticut. She shared with us the 10 practice targets that these site will be focusing on and which the Center as a whole will promote and encourage.

Finally the participants received an inside view of the operations of APAI and all that we have to offer member agencies and practitioners. The chairs were challenged to support APAI and assist us in ensuring the sustainability of this organization.

In addition to the wealth of knowledge that was shared, the participants experienced the warm southern hospitality of the Kentucky Parole Board made possible by Chairman Verman Winburn, Southern Regional Vice President Caroline Mudd and the staff of their Board.

Be sure and stay tuned for upcoming announcements about the 2011 Chairs meeting.

Presentations for APAI Chairs Meeting Available Now

2010-09-28T14:50:00.000-05:00

If you would like to view Dr. Ralph Serin's presentation or Peggy Burke's presentation from the 2010 APAI Chairs Meeting in Louisville, KY, you may do so HERE!

Thanks

After Court Ruling, FL Mulls New Penalties for Ex-Juvenile Lifers

2010-09-28T11:42:00.000-05:00

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling banning life sentences for a class of violent juveniles has put Florida in a legal quandary when deciding the offenders' new prison terms.

Kyan Bucknor was 15 in 1999 when he shot two patrons and unleashed a volley of bullets into Broward Sheriff's Office deputy Al Hibbert outside a Lauderdale Lakes nightclub.

The teen's sentence: life in prison.

But Bucknor, now 26, will get a reprieve thanks to a May U.S. Supreme Court decision banning life-without-parole sentences for juveniles who did not kill anyone. The ruling left Florida in a quandary: For undeniably violent crimes, what is an appropriate alternative sentence in a state that has no parole system? Read More...

California has paid scores of criminals to care for residents

2010-09-28T11:34:00.001-05:00

The rules of the state's home healthcare program, as interpreted by a judge this year, permit such felons to work as aides. Among their crimes are rape, assault and theft.

Reporting from Sacramento — Scores of people convicted of crimes such as rape, elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon are permitted to care for some of California's most vulnerable residents as part of the government's home health aide program.

Data provided by state officials show that at least 210 workers and applicants flagged by investigators as unsuitable to work in the program are nonetheless scheduled to resume or begin employment. Read More...

BJS Promises Better, More Timely Data On Repeat Criminality

2010-09-28T10:39:00.000-05:00

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics is improving its research capabilities on offenders' recidivism nationwide so that the problem can be measured more accurately and more quickly, BJS official Howard Snyder told the National Committee on Community Corrections yesterday in Washington, D.C. A frequently quoted BJS report concluded that about two-thirds of released state prisoners were rearrested for serious new crimes within three years. That report is based in 1994 prison releases in 15 states and was not issued until 2002 because of difficulties in collecting and analyzing the data. Snyder said that in the future, BJS will be able to measure recidivism based on data from 32 states. It is not clear yet exactly when the new data will be publicly available.

The committee also heard from Marc Mauer of the Washingon, D.C.-based Sentencing Project on a survey of more than 99 studies from various states on recidivism. Mauer described the results as "all over the map," in part because studies used differing definitions of recidivism. Some, for example, measure it in terms of re-arrests, while others focus on convictions or re-imprisonment. Some studies report reductions of 5 percent or 10 percent in recidivism after improved rehabilitation, results Mauer termed "not trivial." Recidivism reduction gains should not be exaggerated, "or we risk setting ourselves up to fail,' he said. The Sentencing Project survey can be found HERE.

Mental health group finds unaddressed issues among D.C.'s young offenders

2010-09-28T10:35:00.000-05:00

Many of the young people who are arrested in the District have mental health issues that to go unaddressed by the juvenile justice system, according to a report to be presented Thursday by a group representing local mental health providers.

The study by the D.C. Behavioral Health Association found that despite increased attention to the mental health of children and adolescents in the city, access to social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists appears to lag far behind the need. Read More...

Special courts divert veterans from jail

2010-09-28T08:41:00.000-05:00

SPOKANE — After surviving 15 months in one of the most dangerous places on Earth, Iraq war veteran Carl Jacobson thought he could cope with just about anything civilian life had to throw at him.

Jacobson realized he was wrong the day he learned that his beloved former platoon leader had been gravely wounded by an enemy sniper.

“It broke me down,” Jacobson said. “No matter what comes your way, it’s crucial to any soldier to avoid losing control. You can’t lash out.” Read More...