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Saturday, September 05, 2009

Ind. Gov't. - "Lights Out at the Penitentiary: Strapped States are Shutting Prisons"

Today's Wall Street Journal has this lengthy front-page story by Gary Fields on how many states are now "closing penitentiaries and releasing inmates early." A few quotes:

For three decades, state and local governments built and filled jails to make good on promises to get tough on crime. Now, the recession and collapsing budgets are forcing an about face.

Prisons are one of the biggest single line items in many state budgets, in part because nearly five times as many people are now behind bars as in the 1970s. From California to New York, officials are now closing penitentiaries and releasing inmates early. At least 26 states have cut corrections spending in fiscal year 2010, and at least 17 are closing prisons or reducing their inmate populations, according to the Vera Institute on Justice, a criminal-justice reform organization in New York.

The problem is especially acute in Michigan. Inmates here on average serve 127% of their court-ordered minimum sentences, well beyond the sentences of inmates in other states that offer parole, according to the Council of State Governments Justice Center. The state last year spent $2 billion on prisons, and one third of all state employees work for the department of corrections, which is among the highest percentage in the nation. With the collapse of the auto industry, the pressure to pare these costs is high.

Earlier this year, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm expanded the parole and clemency board from 10 members to 15 and announced the state's prison population of 48,000 would be cut by 4,000 inmates. Seven correctional facilities have closed so far this year, including Hiawatha; the state has announced it will shutter another four. At least one of those four might remain open as Michigan considers accepting detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and prisoners from other states. Officials from the federal government recently toured a maximum-security state prison in Standish, Mich., as a possible new home for prisoners held at Guantanamo.

But Hiawatha didn't get such a reprieve. That is why on the morning of July 28, Warden Woods was in his office at 7 a.m. poring over closure plans. Hiawatha, a so-called secure level-one prison, held everyone from burglars to second-degree murderers. Outside Mr. Woods's office, 40 inmates, each wearing arm and leg restraints, boarded a bus with dark-tinted windows headed 200 miles away to another prison where they would serve out the rest of their sentences. More buses and vans would be rolling later in the day, some carrying inmates as far away as Marquette Branch Prison, more than four hours west of here.

[More] Nicholas Riccardi reports today in the LA Times under the headline "Cash-strapped states revise laws to get inmates out: Mandatory sentencing laws are relaxed, parole is accelerated, and time off for good behavior is increased as states scramble to save money." It begins:
Reporting from Denver - After decades of pursuing lock-'em-up policies, states are scrambling to reduce their prison populations in the face of tight budgets, making fundamental changes to their criminal justice systems as they try to save money.

Some states are revising mandatory-sentencing laws that locked up nonviolent offenders; others are recalculating the way prison time is counted.

California, with the nation's second-largest prison system, is considering perhaps the most dramatic proposal -- releasing 40,000 inmates to save money and comply with a court ruling that found the state's prisons overcrowded.

Colorado will accelerate parole for nearly one-sixth of its prison population. Kentucky has already granted early release to more than 3,000 inmates. Oregon has temporarily nullified a voter initiative calling for stiffer sentences for some crimes, and has increased by 10% the time inmates get off their sentences for good behavior.

The flurry of activity has led to an unusual phenomenon -- bureaucrats and politicians expressing relief at the tight times. "The budget has actually helped us," said Russ Marlan, a spokesman for the Corrections Department in Michigan, which increased its parole board by 50% this year to speed up releases.

"When you're not having budget troubles, that's when we implemented many of these lengthy drug sentences and zero-tolerance policies [that] really didn't work," he said.

Though prison budgets grew steadily over the last 20 years, a recent survey found that 26 states cut their corrections budgets this year. The reductions range from the small-scale -- such as putting in energy-efficient lightbulbs -- to sweeping changes like the early releases.

"States are saying, 'We can't build our way to public safety, especially when budgets are tight,' " said Adam Gelb, head of the Pew Center on the States' Public Safety Performance Project. "For the most part, state leaders are not holding their noses and making these changes just to balance their budgets. They're beginning to realize that research-based strategies can lead to less crime at far less cost than prison."

Many states have expanded credit for good behavior. Others have made legal tweaks, such as raising the minimum amount of damage required for a property crime to be a felony. Some, like New York, have overhauled long-criticized mandatory sentencing laws that sent nonviolent, first-time drug offenders to state prison.

These efforts, however, have already run into resistance.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 5, 2009 09:23 AM
Posted to Indiana Government