Almost Half of States Acted in 2012 to Cut Inmates or Aid Re-Entry

The State of Sentencing 2012, a new report from The Sentencing Project, highlights reforms in 24 states that demonstrate a continued trend to reform sentencing policies and scale back the use of imprisonment without compromising public safety. The report provides an overview of recent policy reforms in the areas of sentencing, probation and parole, collateral consequences, and juvenile justice.  Read more...

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

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

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...

Harlem reentry court: One parolee's experience

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...

Audit adds to criticism of Michigan's parolee program

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...

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

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...

Budget cuts slice programs for ex-inmates

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...

States Help Ex-Inmates Find Jobs

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...

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

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

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

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

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...

Michael Vick: Symbol of the second chance

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...

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

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...

Controversial parole law goes into effect in NH

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

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...

California has paid scores of criminals to care for residents

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...

GPS tracking limited by SJC - Rules in case of sex offender; Sets conditions for probation use

Judges cannot change probation conditions for convicted sex offenders by requiring them to wear GPS monitoring devices unless the former inmates have violated the terms of their release, the state’s highest court narrowly ruled yesterday.

In a 4-to-3 decision, the Supreme Judicial Court upheld a lower court judge who refused to add GPS monitoring and a ban on visits to playgrounds, schools, and libraries to the probation restrictions of a former Lowell man who spent about 20 years locked up for the abduction and rape of a 7-year-old boy.  Read More...

New Survey Says Public Favorable To Cutting Prison Populations

A new public opinion survey on crime and sentencing issues gives policymakers some breathing room on moves to reduce prison populations during this time of budget crises in states. Most registered voters believe that about one fifth of inmates could be released and not pose a threat to public safety, said the survey sponsored by the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project.

The survey found vast majorities (nearly 90%) favoring the concept of fewer low-risk and non-violent offenders behind bars to keep more violent offenders imprisoned, and to reinvest any money saved in probation and parole improvements. About 2/3 of Democrats and about half of Republicans ”strongly” favor” such changes, meaning that they have reasonably strong bipartisan backing.  Read More...

Lifers lead classes to prepare other prisoners for success beyond cell walls

CLALLAM BAY -- The idea of lifers teaching release-readiness classes may at first seem counterintuitive.

To inmate Robert Rose, who is beginning to prepare for his release in 13 months from Clallam Bay prison, it is the part of the class that makes it worth attending.

"That is the best part about the class," he said.

"These guys know where we are coming from, and they really care about what happens to us."  Read More...