Daily Independent (Ashland, KY) - Jails: A Crisis In The Counties

Budget committee addresses prisons, passes budget and cigarette tax

Some of them were “squirming in their seats,” but 20 members of the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee chose higher cigarette taxes and sales taxes on some services over “devastating” cuts to education and health and human services Tuesday.
The committee voted for a revenue package that raises $400 million in new revenue in each of the next two years to avoid cuts to universities and human services and provides school teacher raises of 1 percent in the first year and 3 percent in the second of the next biennium.
The final vote on the revenue package was 20-9. The budget, based on the revenue package, passed unanimously afterward.
“What we’ve endeavored to do is restore some of the most devastating cuts” in Gov. Steve Beshear’s original budget proposal, said committee chairman Harry Moberly, D-Richmond. “It won’t be a great budget. It won’t even be a good budget, but it will allow us to restore cuts so we have a budget we can live with for the next two years.”
The revenue package is essentially the same one Moberly revealed Friday after a meeting of the House Democratic caucus with Beshear who wanted lawmakers to raise the cigarette tax by 70 cents. Instead, the package passed out of committee Tuesday raises it 25 cents, extends the sales tax to some luxury services, and refinances existing state debt. The only difference is $20 million more from lapsed state debt and operating efficiencies.
The money will restore a number of funding cuts for the state’s universities’ base funding, for non-Medicaid health services, provide teacher salary increases, provide extra SEEK money for schools to cover additional costs of teacher raises for those with longer tenure and higher rank, and provide an additional $55 million for the Bucks for Brains.
The budget also includes $500 million in bonding of road projects. That will be financed by freezing 1.4 cents of a 1.5-cent, automatic increase in the gasoline tax which goes into effect July 1. Theoretically, that tax could decrease if wholesale gas prices fell substantially – but that’s almost certain not to happen.
By codifying the 1.4 cents, said Rep. Don Pasley, D-Winchester, who chairs the Transportation Committee, the state can use it to sell bonds. And those bonds will allow moving already approved road projects up which are now not scheduled before January 2010.
But it wasn’t easy for some committee members to vote for tax increases, and nine didn’t: Republicans Dwight Butler, Harned; Jamie Comer, Tompkinsville; Bob DeWeese, Louisville; Danny Ford, Mt. Vernon; Marie Rader, McKee; and John Vincent, Ashland; and Democrats Royce Adams, Dry Ridge, and Rick Nelson, Middlesboro.
“None of us up here likes taxes,” said Jimmie Lee, D-Elizabethtown. “There’s a great deal of squirming going on up here when we make this vote.”
But some Republicans voted for the Democratic House plan, including Charlie Siler of Williamsburg.
“I’m one of those people who’s squirming in my seat,” Siler said, explaining his yes vote. “I told people I’d only make the right vote.” Siler said he could not vote to cut funding for the Meals on Wheels program for seniors and other programs.
“So I’m going to quit squirming and do what’s right,” Siler concluded. Moberly called Siler “one of the true statesmen of the House.”
Republicans Lonnie Napier of Lancaster and Scott Brinkman of Louisville joined Siler. Napier said he saw the need to do “everything we can to restore the cuts to higher education.”
But DeWeese and Ford complained they hadn’t seen either the revenue package or the budget before being asked to cast votes on both Tuesday. The package is entirely the work of the Democrats. Both voted for the budget, however.
Jim Wayne, D-Louisville, said advocates for social services and education need to lobby other lawmakers to pass the budget because “there is going to be political fallout from this for people who support it,” referring to lawmakers who face opponents in the primary or general elections. Some of those opponents are sure to cast those who voted for the budget as supporting higher taxes. But, Wayne said, the alternative of steep budget cuts is worse.
“We are being dead beat parents if we don’t fix this situation,” Wayne said.
Moberly, who jousted with Beshear last week over their competing revenue plans, went out of his way to commend Beshear and his staff for putting together the best budget they could with available revenues.
He said a vote for the revenue proposal was a vote for better teacher salaries, to restore cuts to universities to a “continuation level” of current funding, and for health and human services programs.

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.

March 12, 2008 12:23 am

More entries >>>

Senate Judiciary wants lawmakers to review penal code

A subcommittee of the General Assembly’s Interim Joint Committee on Judiciary would review Kentucky’s penal code with an eye to lowering prison and jail populations – but it wouldn’t have to report its findings until July 1, 2011.
The amended resolution reflects calls by Gov. Steve Beshear and key lawmakers, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, and House Judiciary Chair Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, for an overhaul of the code which was last revised in the mid-1970s. Thursday’s action was in the form of a committee substitute by Stivers to a resolution sponsored by Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, and Sen. Tom Jensen, R-London.
Instead of a task force with members representing numerous interested parties, Stivers’ amendment calls for a subcommittee of lawmakers who can still consult with those representatives which Neal's bill would have put on the task force.
“Ultimately, we’re the ones who’ll have to make the changes,” Stivers said. “I’m not too big on Blue Ribbon commissions,” because they often bog down as the many and diverse constituents argue about issues special to them.
Neal agreed with Stivers’ changes. He said during the more than 30 years since the state’s penal code was last revised, the crime rate has increased by only 3 percent but the state’s incarceration rate has gone up 600 percent. During that time, Kentucky’s prison population skyrocketed from about 2,800 to 22,442 today. About 8,000 of those are lodged in often over crowded county jails where prisoners sleep on the floors. And county jails are ravaging county governments’ budgets.
CNHI News Service in January published a 10-story series highlighting the problem and its impact on county budgets. It found that a major cause of prison and jail population growth was the growing number of crimes classified as felonies and enhancement and enlargement of penalties for many crimes, especially drug offenses. Soon thereafter, Gov. Steve Beshear called for creation of a task force to study ways the penal code might be revised to reduce the strain on jails and prisons.
The state’s top Public Advocate, Ernie Lewis, said the revision is “long overdue,” but he expressed concern about the 2012 deadline for making recommendations and said the penal code was reviewed in the late 1990s but nothing had come of that review. He said that information should be reviewed by the proposed subcommittee and changes should be enacted sooner.
If the report does take until July 2011, the soonest the legislature could act on them would be the 2012 session, and prison populations are projected to continue to grow faster than the state can find space for them.
But Stivers said the 2011 deadline was just that – a deadline.
“They could report sooner than that,” Stivers said. “But I guarantee you it will take over a year because it’s quite a complex problem.”
Stivers, a practicing attorney, has been deeply involved in the issue since promising a meeting of county officials he’d address their concerns and has said the problem of rising jail costs and prison populations can’t be alleviated without “systemic change up and down the line.” And he has the confidence of county judge/executives like Lawrence Kuhl of Laurel County who said Stivers listens to their problems, understands the criminal system, and is serious about helping.
The Judiciary Committee passed another bill Thursday which could help alleviate some of the jail over crowding got unanimous endorsement of the committee. Senate Bill 92, sponsored by Ray Jones, D-Pikeville, would allow those charged with non-violent, non-sexual Class D felonies – the mildest felony charges usually involving minor thefts – to post bond without waiting for a pre-trial evaluation or arraignment. That could save the counties from a day to several days incarceration costs for the inmate.
The bill would allow the state Supreme Court to establish a uniform schedule of bail amounts for such crimes and those could be posted without the present requirements.

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.

February 21, 2008 07:59 pm

More entries >>>

Graham will file bill to help counties with jails

Vince Lang shakes his head, smiling wryly about his timing. At the very time state lawmakers have shown understanding of counties’ financial difficulties in operating county jails, the state faces a major financial crunch.
“Our timing, it seems, couldn’t be much worse,” said Lang, the executive director of the County Judge/Executives Association. “I think there is a budget dilemma, but there’s also more education on this issue thanks to your series and others’ of the General Assembly than ever before.”
“This issue” is the growing costs of jails. (CNHI News Service and CNHI papers in Kentucky just concluded a 10-story examination of the issue of jails which have exploding populations and are placing heavy burdens on county budgets.)
The tight budget won’t keep Rep. Derrick Graham, D-Frankfort, from introducing a bill to ease the strain on counties – and other lawmakers are looking for ways to lessen the load.
Graham said Friday he intends to introduce a bill Monday that reflects the recommendations of a working group of legislators, county and state officials who spent the summer looking at the problem.
The bill would increase the state “bed allotment,” which hasn’t been increased since it was approved in 1983. Presently, the state gives counties about $14 million to pay for county inmates and Graham’s bill would increase that by about $12 million. It would also change the time when the state assumes financial costs for convicted felons from the time of sentencing to the time of a guilty plea or conviction. The estimated cost tag for that is between $6.4 million and $8 million. It would also slightly increase the per diem rate the state pays counties to house Class D and some Class C felons in county jails.
It would gradually make the state responsible for the costs of time served in county jails by those charged with felony crimes before conviction but for which they are credited on their sentences. That provision would kick in over four years, costing the state budget about $9.9 million in 2011, increasing to $43 million in 2014.
The bill calls for the eventual closing of “life safety jails” in the 10 counties where they remain. Life safety jails do not meet jail standards and are used only for temporary custody until the county can arrange to house the prisoner in another county’s jail, usually within 24 hours.
“A few counties probably won’t be happy,” Lang said, “but this gives them four years either to meet jail standards or get out of the jail business.”
The bill would require new jail construction first be approved through a certificate of need process, something recommended by outgoing Corrections Commissioner John Rees and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Stivers, R-Manchester, who served on the working group which produced the recommendations resulting in Graham’s bill.
And finally, the legislation would attach a consumer price index adjustment to state funding, including the per diem rate the state pays for housing state prisoners in county jails.
“The problem is the financial crunch,” said Graham about the bill’s prospects. “That’s throwing a wrench into some of the things we intended to do.”
Gov. Steve Beshear has said the state must tighten its belt and doesn’t have enough projected revenue to meet its current spending levels, much less increase spending. But he said he will include a call for helping counties in his budget speech Tuesday night before a joint session of the General Assembly. It isn’t likely to include funding, however.
As shown in the CNHI series on jails, part of the problem is the exploding inmate population, many of them incarcerated for non-violent crimes and crimes involving drug abuse. As the public has called for a “get-tough-on-crime approach,” lawmakers increased penalties and criminalized more behavior.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, thinks lawmakers need to review its penal code to bring penalties more in line with the risk to society without placing additional strain on jails.
“My hope is we will be able to establish a legislative task force during this session to revisit the penal code,” Stein said last week.
Stein said lawmakers must also be careful not to casually add penalties or crimes in the 2008 session – “It’s important that we not add to the strain on the counties.”
Stein said her committee will closely scrutinize any bills it receives which would add felony offenses or increases jail penalties.
Over in the Senate, Majority Leader Dan Kelly, R-Springfield, is again sponsoring a bill which would allow those charged with non-violent offenses and who test positive for drug use to avoid jail time if they complete a pre-trial, secure substance abuse treatment program.
In addition to rehabilitating the offender, Kelly has said, it will relieve some strain on prisons and jails which are already at the breaking point and save the state and counties money.

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.

Copyright © 1999-2007 cnhi, inc.

###

January 26, 2008 10:58 pm

More entries >>>

Drug court viewed as incarceration alternative

With county jails across the state bursting at the seams, alternatives to incarceration are getting some attention. Drug court, an intensive rehabilitative program, is one such alternative.
“There is certainly a place for jails and prisons. But there is also a middle ground defendant who may not need prison. We fill in in that continuum,” says Connie Payne, general manager of Kentucky Drug Court.
Payne, who served as a prosecutor for 10 years, calls drug court “a holistic approach” to treating addiction.
Drug courts originated in south Florida during the 1980s as an alternative to traditional case processing of nonviolent drug offenders. With no end in sight to the drug epidemic sweeping the nation, today, more than two decades after its inception there are more than 1,000 drug courts across the U.S.
“It’s not a get out of jail free card,” or “hug a thug program,” said Phil Patton, circuit judge for Barren and Metcalfe counties.
After witnessing first-hand the devastation of drug addiction in his own community, he says he recognized the need to explore other options.
“I had seen as a prosecutor and a judge we couldn’t incarcerate our way out of the problem,” said Patton. “The more I looked into it the more excited I became,” he added, saying most of the clients enrolled in the program are good people who have simply made bad choices.
Like other jails across the state, a high percentage of the population at the Barren County Correctional Center are inmates serving sentences for drug and alcohol-related crimes. Barren County Jailer Leland Cox estimates around 85 percent of the inmate population at the jail have substance abuse problems. With not enough beds available, about 40 of the inmates sleep on mats on the jail floor.
Drug court not only frees up space in jails and prisons for society’s more dangerous or violent criminals, it gives addicts a second chance at life, say advocates.
To be eligible, participants must be nonviolent, first-time felony offenders arrested for simple possession of small amounts for personal use. Drug traffickers are not eligible for the program.
Drug court clients must remain drug and alcohol free, commit no crimes and be randomly drug tested three to six times per week. In addition, they are required to attend substance abuse counseling, be employed or perform community service and attend four Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings per week.
Participants who have pleaded guilty to the drug charges are subject to random home checks, required to remain current on child support obligations and must appear before the judge weekly to review progress.
Each person must complete residential treatment if required, submit to a curfew and is expected to work toward obtaining a GED if he or she has not already completed high school.
Graduated sanctions ranging from community service to jail time are imposed on participants who violate one or more of the criteria. Any new drug charges or failing a drug test results in automatic dismissal, and the original prison sentence is imposed on participants who wash out.
But for those who successfully complete the one- to two-year program, the guilty plea is set aside.
“I have been amazed at the success of the program,” Patton said. “With treatment, it works.”
Drug courts present a significant cost savings for the state. Nationally, the average annual cost per person is around $3,500 compared to the $13,000-$17,000 it takes to incarcerate someone for the same length of time in jail or prison, according to Payne.
The Administrative Office of the Courts estimates one year in drug court costs the state one-third the cost of a year in jail and one-fourth the cost of one year in prison.
Payne points to additional costs savings to the state in the form of drug-free infants that don’t require added medical attention at birth, as well as the money collected by drug courts across the commonwealth. To date, more than $2 million has been collected in the form of child support, restitution and fees, Payne said.
“It’s a team effort among all the players in the criminal justice system,” she added, saying judges in particular volunteer their time with no reduction in their caseloads or additional pay.
Studies show that without treatment a high percentage of drug offenders will relapse, creating a revolving door in jails and prisons. Recidivism rates among drug court graduates are considerably lower than those of other drug offenders. A University of Kentucky study found drug court graduates to be 70 percent less likely to commit new offenses than those jailed without treatment.
“It’s a great use of taxpayers’ money,” said Patton.
Drug courts have been established in the majority of jurisdictions throughout the state. “Slowly but surely, we’re adding them,” said Payne. Ten new programs were added recently and at least six others are expected to become operational the first part of this year, she said.
STACY L. NEITZEL writes for the Glasgow Daily Times. She can be reached at sneitzel@glasgowdailytimes.com or (270) 678-5171.

Copyright © 1999-2007 cnhi, inc.

###

January 22, 2008 08:21 am

More entries >>>

‘Life is good today,’ says former drug court participant

In the grip of the drugs she was abusing, Shannon Byrd said she hit rock bottom when she lost custody of her 15-month-old son, Mason.
“Looking back at it today, I wasn’t a very good mother,” said the petite 29-year-old blonde. She lost temporary custody to her parents while strung out on methamphetamine.
Faced with losing her son permanently and serving a possible prison sentence on felony drug charges, Byrd says she clung to the only life preserver available — drug court, an intense treatment-oriented program for nonviolent offenders designed to help addicts kick the habit while undergoing mandatory drug testing, substance abuse counseling and vocational training.
After participants successfully complete the one- to two-year treatment program, drug-related charges are expunged in most cases.
Byrd knew quitting drugs would mean changing her lifestyle and turning her back on old friends. She left school her sophomore year and began abusing drugs and alcohol while still in her teens. “It started out for fun and then became a way of life,” said Byrd, who took her first drink at age 14.
A boyfriend introduced her to meth. The pair smoked and snorted the crushed white powder and then waited until the drug took effect, producing a euphoric high.
She continued to abuse meth, alcohol and marijuana until learning she was pregnant. “At that point it wasn’t about me,” Byrd explained, saying she quit drugs completely during the nine months that followed.
But when she was injured a car wreck in 2005, four months after giving birth to her son, Byrd began abusing prescription pain medication. “Pills became a problem for me,” she said.
Despite having been clean for nine months, Byrd’s addiction spiraled out of control again and former habits resurfaced. It wasn’t long before she began using meth again.
At her sickest, Byrd’s normally slight, 5-foot-4-inch frame dwindled as her weight dipped dangerously below 100 pounds. She appeared frail, her face gaunt and eyes sunken.
“She looked like a typical meth head,” said Candy Reed-Browning, program supervisor for Barren-Metcalfe Drug Court. Browning oversaw Byrd’s admission into the program, but said she had doubts about whether she had the determination it would take to complete it.
“Honestly, I didn’t think she would make it. She had no job, no education and based on her age, statistically speaking, the odds were against her,” Browning said.
Byrd said initially she was “mad at the world.” Fueled by her anger, it was easier to blame others instead of accepting personal responsibility for her situation, she said. “It was everybody’s fault but my own.”
Slowly, over time, Byrd began to turn her life around while enrolled in drug court. “It gave me structure in my life. For the first time, there were consequences for my actions,” she said. Her rebellious nature in check, she said she soon realized “it was all up to me.”
Under the watchful eyes of her program administrators, Byrd flourished, even earning her GED. She said she turned her life over to a higher power, beginning and ending each day with prayer. She also learned the benefits of meditation, taught in drug court as a way to manage and cope with daily stresses.
Clean for nearly two years now, Byrd, who graduated from the program in October, said she continues to attend self-help meetings and practice meditation. She has regained custody of her son and said she is trying to be a better parent than before.
One difference she is particularly proud of is making time to read to her now 2 1/2-year-old toddler — something she says she never did before.
“She’s done an excellent job,” said Browning, who said she watched as Byrd’s self-esteem grew over the 15 months she was in drug court.
Byrd has moved out of her parents’ home and holds a job as a waitress at a local diner. For the first time, she is supporting both herself and her son on her own.
Her optimism buoyed after obtaining her GED, Byrd said she plans to meet with a college guidance counselor and look into furthering her education.
“Life is good today,” said Byrd, something she attributes in large part to drug court and second chances. “I never thought I could be this happy and be sober,” she said.
“There’s a better way of life.”
STACY L. NEITZEL writes for the Glasgow Daily Times. She can be reached at sneitzel@glasgowdailytimes.com or (270) 678-5171.

Copyright © 1999-2007 cnhi, inc.

January 22, 2008 08:13 am

More entries >>>

Keeping jails operational from jailer’s perspective

Jim Womack knows exactly what the jailer’s office looked like when the Greenup County Detention Center opened in 1990. He walks across the same carpet and sits at the same desk today as county jailer.
“Everything in this place is 17 years old,” he said with a shake of his head. “We’ve got all we can do to keep this place running without worrying about updating it.
“When something breaks, we fix it, and that’s about all we can do. Anytime we can get ahead of the game, it’s a good day.”
Like other jails in the state, Womack’s routinely houses more prisoners than it was designed for on a budget that’s too small. The Greenup jail was originally designed to hold 88 prisoners, was changed to allow 96 and has an average population of 118.
Womack’s $1.2 million budget is stretched to the limit, and it’s customary for every meeting of the Greenup County Fiscal Court to involve some discussion of jail costs. Womack says his daily cost to keep a prisoner last year was $29, well under the state average of $34 and the national average of $54. But the county still had to kick in nearly $90,000 last year to balance the jail budget.
That burden lies on the county because of a lack of funds from the state, says Bobby Waits, Shelby County jailer and president of the Kentucky Jailers’ Association.
He points out that funding has been provided to streamline court loads and to put more police on the street, but jails haven’t benefited in the same way, and most operate in the red.
“We’re the bad stepchild,” he says. “The public doesn’t care what happens in jails. They have a ‘bread and water’ mentality, and it affects the way legislators think.
“Why can they find $70 million for an arena or millions for roads, but no money for jails? Because jails don’t get them votes, while arenas and road improvements do.”
Among the problems county jails face, Waits says, is the length of time for which the county is responsible for a prisoner. Inmates with misdemeanors are county prisoners; those committing felonies are state prisoners. However, the state doesn’t start to pay the cost of incarceration until final sentencing, which means the county might pay to keep that prisoner for weeks or months.
That includes not only housing and feeding prisoners to state standards, but the cost of medical care. In Greenup County, the detention center has contracted with a local physician to make weekly visits and come at other times when necessary. If inmates have money in the commissary fund, Womack said, they pay $20 for the visit and the cost of any medicine. If not, the county foots the bill.
Complicating things are less obvious costs, Womack says.
“Utilities have really skyrocketed, and the rise in fuel has increased our cost on things like food that have to be brought in,” he said.
What’s the solution?
Although some suggest turning jails over to the state, that’s not the solution, Waits said.
“Where are they going to get the money?” he asked. “More has to be done than just change who pays or raising taxes.”
Among those alternative measures, Waits suggests, is creating uniformity. An example is jailing those who can’t pay court fines and giving them credit for days served.
“The credit for fines varies county by county, from as low as $2 a day to $25, which is less than it costs to keep a prisoner,” he says.
Waits says another place where uniformity standards are needed is in bonds.
“An offense that brings a low bond in one county may be a high bond in another,” he said, adding that high bonds will keep those people in jails and increase the problem.
The war on drugs is one of the reasons Waits gives for the pinch county jails are in, citing statistics: The number of prisoners in Kentucky jails has jumped from an average of 2,000 to an average of 9,000 over 20 years.
“Sixty to 80 percent of jail inmates are there on drug charges or drug-related charges like bad checks and theft,” he says.
In Greenup County, Womack says, the percentage is closer to 85 percent.
“Drug court is a great thing,” he says, “but it’s going to take time to make a difference. We’re real lucky here, though, because we’ve got a good relationship with our judges.
“If I get in a serious overcrowding situation, I can call the judge and we can usually lower it a little by putting some people on home incarceration or letting them out a day or two early. But that’s not a solution; it’s just a Band-Aid fix.
“All we can do, really, is hold on and hope we find a way out.”
CATHIE SHAFFER is editor of the Greenup County News-Times. She can be reached at cshaffer@dailyindependent.com or (606) 473-9851.

Copyright © 1999-2007 cnhi, inc.

January 22, 2008 08:23 am

More entries >>>

Task for lawmakers: Finding right solutions

Everyone agrees county jails are a major and growing problem, depleting county budgets and straining to house the exploding number of inmates.
“We need help now,” Boyd County Judge-Executive William “Bud” Stevens said, desperation in his voice. “There are a lot of counties that will be bankrupt before long if something isn’t done.”
Legislators want to help, although they’ve helped create the problem by adding more and more crimes and requiring stiffer and stiffer penalties for those newly created felony crimes.
“We have to do something because the counties are bleeding to death,” said Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee.
Her counterpart in the Senate, Bob Stivers, R-Manchester, thinks the 2008 General Assembly should focus on two major issues — pensions and jails. House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, and Senate Majority Leader Dan Kelly, R-Springfield, who have both sponsored legislation in previous sessions to help the situation, both agree lawmakers will address the issue in this session.
But how – and how much?
Newly elected Gov. Steve Beshear said counties need help, but the budget is tight and he’s not sure what the state can do.
“We’ve got to come up with solutions to help counties out. I don’t know what they are yet,” Beshear said. “Obviously, our budgetary situation will have an impact upon what the solutions can be.”
“It’s a huge problem and it’s very complex,” said John Rees, commissioner of the state’s Department of Corrections who has spent 40 years in corrections, both in the public and private sectors and who is retiring Jan. 31.
“But the jail problem is not just a state problem,” Rees contends. He points to the wide disparity between judicial circuits in the time it takes for those charged to be tried — and if found guilty, sentenced — the point at which the state begins picking up the cost.
Rees, Stein, Vince Lang, the executive director of the Kentucky Judge-Executives Association, even Kelly and Stivers, agree with University of Kentucky law professor Robert Lawson that the root problem is sending too many people to prison. And they all agree drug crimes are an underlying cause.
“We’re putting too many people in jail,” said Stein, who has called for revisions in the penal code. “We’re putting people in jail who need to be in treatment for addiction. We’ll save a lot of money if we treat them instead of jailing them.”
That’s why Kelly wants to create a pre-trial, drug treatment program and facilities to house them. Stivers supports Kelly’s approach, and said some control over medical expenses must be developed. He agrees with Rees that the courts have to move cases more quickly and both think some judges require unfairly high bail for those awaiting trial.
But Stivers said addressing one aspect of the complex web of law enforcement, courts and jails without looking at the whole system is futile.
“Until you make some systemic change up and down the line, we’re just delaying the reality of dealing with the real problem,” said Stivers.
But it won’t be easy. The public demands lawmakers do something about crime; they just don’t want to pay for it.
“Surely, surely you don’t want us to get soft on crime,” said Richards. “I guarantee you the people don’t want us to do that.”
Jailers strongly object to state Auditor Crit Luallen’s and Lang’s calls for the state to gradually take over the jails. Rees and Marshall Long, executive director and lobbyist for the Jailers’ Association, say that will cost taxpayers far more money because of higher pension costs for DOC employees, all of whom receive hazardous duty retirement benefits — costing up to 40 percent of their salaries, according to Rees.
And jailers don’t want to lose control — or their jobs. Lang’s group, the judge-executives association, dropped from its 2008 legislative agenda the idea of a state takeover by 2014 so they could get jailers’ support for the remaining proposals.
They are asking lawmakers for about $22 million more in each of the next two years. Part of it would incrementally double the $14 million bed allotment the state pays jails to pay for housing county prisoners. Others would increase the medical allotment to county jails; tie the state per diem payment to house state prisoners to the Consumer Price Index; and gradually pick up the costs for credit for time served. (Convicted felons are often given credit against total sentence for the time they’ve served in jail prior to sentencing. But the state does not pay counties for that time.)
Rees said the best option is a series of 40 to 50 regional jails housing both state and county prisoners while closing about 20 existing jails. He and Stivers say the state should develop a Certificate of Need process for any new jails and develop standardized, “cookie-cutter” designs for jails to eliminate costly architectural fees. Predictably, architects oppose the idea.
Rees suggests any new jails must be of a minimum size, somewhere between 300 and 500 beds and he thinks lawmakers should consider incentive payments for better managed jails.
Lang and the judge-executives eventually want a state takeover; jailers vary between support for regional jails and maintaining the current system; and the public demands lawmakers get tough on crime without spending any more money on jails.
Meanwhile, counties devote more of their budgets to jails and less to quality of life services.
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. He can be reached by e-mail at rellis@cnhi.com.

Copyright © 1999-2007 cnhi, inc.

January 21, 2008 10:18 pm

More entries >>>

Options laid out in two jail studies

There’ve been two studies of how Kentucky funds and manages its county jails in the past two years — a comprehensive audit of all of Kentucky’s jails by state Auditor Crit Luallen in 2006 and a study commissioned by the Department of Corrections which was released by the Pacific Center for Research and Evaluation, the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky in December, commonly called the “U of L study”.
Luallen’s audit makes several recommendations to get immediate control of runaway costs but recommends the state eventually take over the jails in a unified, state corrections system. The DOC study offers four options but recommends no specific solution.
LUALLEN AUDIT
Luallen’s staff interviewed every jailer and visited every jail in Kentucky, finding huge disparities in costs for everything from medical care for inmates, to salaries, to food. They determined jails had a cumulative deficit of $119 million which was devastating county budgets.
Two years later, Luallen says not much has changed — except the deficit has grown to more than $128.5 million as of June 30, 2007, according to data compiled by the Kentucky Judge-Executives Association.
“After that analysis and seeing the wide disparity in the level of operations and the lack of financial management, we reached the conclusion that (eventual state takeover) was ultimately the best solution from a management standpoint,” Luallen said recently.
That’s not going to happen — at least any time soon, said state Sen. Dan Kelly, R-Springfield, the Majority Leader in the Senate.
“A state takeover is just not a likely scenario,” Kelly said. And the reason isn’t simply money, he said, although it’s a significant factor.
“A local political presence in operating our jails is an important restraint on just locking everybody up because the state will pay for it,” Kelly said.
Luallen knows the state’s fiscal condition won’t allow an immediate takeover. So the audit recommends several actions to reduce costs in the short-term.
— The state should develop uniform jail financial management systems for all county jails;
— DOC should develop incentive payments for jails which demonstrate sound financial management;
— New jails should only be built after review of need and approval by the governor’s office, the Office of Local Development, and DOC;
— Counties with life safety jails — used for temporary custody until inmates are transferred to other full-service jails — should consider closing them;
— The Kentucky Jailers’ Association and DOC should conduct a thorough review of how to contain medical costs for inmates, and the state should reimburse 100 percent of medical costs at jails that agree to participate in a medical cost management program;
— Jails should use competitive bidding for food products;
— DOC should conduct mandatory audits of jails whose costs for housing state inmates exceed the state per diem by more than 10 percent.
U OF L STUDY
While the study makes no specific recommendations, it says “Kentucky need(s) to develop a statewide strategy for managing its jails.”
It offers four options. The first is to retain the status quo, the preference of Bobby Waits, Shelby County jailer and president of the Kentucky Jailers’ Association. A second option is state takeover.
Jailers “would never oppose state takeover if it were cheaper for taxpayers, but it will cost a lot more money — no doubt about it,” Waits said, pointing to higher salary and benefits costs for state DOC officers, all of whom receive hazardous duty pension benefits.
Instead, said Waits, the state should increase its bed allotment for county prisoners and the per diem rate it pays for state prisoners housed in county jails. And it should attach an automatic Consumer Price Index adjustment to both.
The U of L report offers two scenarios in a unified, state-run system: state management of all facilities and the creation of regional jails with 300 to 500 beds, the preference of DOC Commissioner John Rees.
The third option is a state-county partnership in which the state would employ a jail administrator, business manager, and inmate coordinator. A sub-alternative to this option would be regional jails managed by a regional jail authority. That might create political competition and turf battles between jurisdictions using the jail and comprising the jail authority, Rees said.
The final option is for the state to construct additional minimum security prisons for state inmates currently held in jails.
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.

Copyright © 1999-2007 cnhi, inc.

###

January 21, 2008 10:12 pm

More entries >>>

Public wanted ‘get tough’ laws and inmate numbers soared

Elizabeth Hunter “never thought I was pretty enough, smart enough, or witty enough.” Still, the 41-year-old mother of two young children earned two college degrees, one in electrical engineering and another in computer engineering.
But she spends her days in a crowded, 10 by 15 concrete room with a metal toilet and three other women, one of whom sleeps on a mat on the concrete floor. Just outside, other women sleep in metal bunks — or on the floor.
During the day, she works as a “pooper scooper” for the local animal shelter — “I take care of the puppies and clean the place up” — and hopes she can regain custody of her children, an eight-year-old daughter living with her paternal grandparents in Atlanta and a two-year-old son living with his paternal grandparents in Glasgow.
See, Hunter is in jail — a convicted state felon serving five years for forging checks and stealing money from her church.
She’s a binge drinker, an alcoholic who stole to pay for the booze. She costs taxpayers about $11,000 a year. Still, that’s about half what it costs to incarcerate felons in state prisons.
“I know I’m a convicted felon and I know I’ve done something I deserve punishment for,” Hunter said from the Barren County Detention Center.
She’s eligible for parole this month, and if she doesn’t win parole, she’ll get out next September, counting one day’s credit against her sentence for every 40 hours she’s worked at the animal shelter.
She’s fearful she hasn’t conquered her alcoholism. She’s tried to get into substance abuse programs, but those are reserved for “serious” drug abusers, meth addicts and others. When she gets out, “I’ll have no money, no support system, no job, no transportation.”
She never committed a violent offense.
Her story isn’t unusual, according to University of Kentucky College of Law professor Robert Lawson who largely wrote the state’s penal code in the 1970s. But since then, Lawson said, lawmakers have “gotten tough on crime” and added penalties and crimes, “jacking up misdemeanors to felonies” and passing harsh persistent felony offender — or three strike — laws.
The result is an explosion of people incarcerated for more and more crimes with more and more serious penalties.
“We’re not the land of the free anymore,” Lawson said. “We lock up more people than any country on earth.”
According to Bureau of Justice statistics, since 1970 the country’s crime rate has risen 3 percent while its population has grown by 28 percent, Lawson said. But the incarceration rate has gone up 600 percent.
In 1970, Kentucky incarcerated 2,838 in its state prisons and no state inmates in county jails. By 2000, the state incarcerated 15,444 inmates and seven years later, there are 22,489 state inmates — 7,966 in county jails.
“Most of these inmates are going into the jail system and there’s a very simple reason for that,” Lawson said. “They’ve got no space — there’s nowhere else to put them.”
Legislators stiffened sentencing requirements. They allowed prosecutors to charge defendants with multiple counts for essentially the same crime and added such enhancements as trafficking within 1,000 yards of a school — even if the offender is arrested while driving by the school or simply lives within 1,000 yards of the school.
Fewer prisoners awaiting trial are granted bail and pre-trial release; fewer are paroled; and the state passed a “truth in sentencing bill” which requires many inmates convicted of violent crimes to serve 85 percent of their sentences.
“It is next to impossible to describe all of the ways in which the General Assembly has contributed to the state’s inmate population by toughening provisions of the 1974 Penal Code,” Lawson writes in one of two studies he’s published on the problem. “It has created new crimes for which it has fixed unusually high penalties, has regularly toughened penalties for existing crimes, and on more occasions than can be mentioned has taken action to convert misdemeanors into felonies.”
Most of those moves were in response to public demands to control drug problems. But it’s not working.
“We’ve been doing this for 25 years, and I believe the problem is worse than it was when they started 25 years ago,” Lawson said of the get tough on drug crimes mentality. “We need to say, tell us when it’s going to get better, and if it doesn’t, let’s try something else.”
At the same time the public told lawmakers to get tough on crime, Kentucky was under a federal court order to cap its prison populations, so legislators cut a deal with counties — house our prisoners and we’ll pay you. Before they knew it, counties were dependent on state funding for housing state prisoners and began taking in more and more, overcrowding the jails.
The state reduced jail standards from 60 square feet per prisoner in the 1980s to 50 square feet in the 1990s. When jails continued to overflow, the state reduced it to 40 square feet.
“Put your arms out to your sides and turn around,” Lawson said. “That’s about 40 square feet.”
Walk into any county jail which houses state prisoners and you’re apt to find people sleeping on mats on the floors, sometimes as many as 16 prisoners locked up together all day with nothing to do but sleep or stare at a television suspended near the ceiling. They may get 30 minutes of exercise twice a week and perhaps a visit with family through a Plexiglas wall via a telephone for 15 minutes two times a week.
Lawson estimates 20 percent of inmates suffer from mental illness and perhaps 10 percent suffer serious mental illness. Young, non-violent offenders are housed in “pods” with serious criminals and sometimes victimized.
“There is no privacy for even the most basic of human acts and no defense to the humiliation that is inherent in these conditions,” Lawson said.
Nearly all of the state inmates housed in county jails are classified for community release, working outside the jail. But most of them do little more than pick up paper or mow grass along roadways or clean county buildings. There are no skills development or education programs to prepare inmates for their eventual release.
All Elizabeth Hunter wants is to get out of jail, get a job and regain custody of her children.
“My biggest challenge will be staying sober, finding employment,” Hunter said. “If I have to flip hamburgers, well, I’m no better than anybody else. And I did this to myself.”
Being placed in a county jail didn’t help.
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.

January 20, 2008 11:28 pm

More entries >>>

Inmate: Always treated fairly but ‘It’s still jail’

Johnny L. Johnson is probably as qualified as anyone to comment on the conditions inside of Kentucky’s county-run lockups.
Or, at least where one such institution is concerned he is.
For the past two years, the 42-year-old Flatwoods man has called the Greenup County Detention Center home.
He was sent to jail for what he said was the first and only time in his life after being convicted of passing $11,000 in worthless checks to finance his addiction to prescription painkillers.
Johnson was handed a five-year sentence in Greenup Circuit Court for two counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument, along with charges of theft and fleeing or evading police.
Rather than transferring him to a state institution, Kentucky corrections officials left him the county lockup for the duration of his sentence, a not-uncommon practice for low-level, non-violent offenders like Johnson.
He was turned down for parole on his first try, which came after he had served the required 20 percent, or 12 months, of his sentence.
After serving another year behind bars, Johnson was paroled. He said he believed he was helped by the fact that a number of local residents, including several elected officials, wrote letters to the state parole board on his behalf.
In a jailhouse interview on the eve of his parole hearing, which would take place in Frankfort without him being present, Johnson — who comes off as friendly and articulate, the type of guy one might expect to meet at a neighborhood barbecue rather than in a dimly lit detention center lobby — said he was leaving jail a much different man than the one who entered the lockup 24 months earlier.
He is no longer addicted to drugs, for one thing. He said he has been tested for drugs 22 times while in custody and passed every test with flying colors.
Reflecting on his past, Johnson said he was ashamed of the person he once was and of some of the things that he did to acquire OxyContin, which he said he got hooked on after a doctor prescribed the drug for him after he was injured in a 2003 bulldozer accident.
He said he has a full-time job waiting for him when he gets out and that he plans to make the most of the chance he has been given to rebuild his life.
“I’m hoping this is my last visit here,” he said. “I just want to get out and settle down.”
Doing time in the Greenup County jail, while far from pleasant, wasn’t exactly a nightmare, either, according to Johnson.
He said he was always treated fairly by Jailer Jim Womack and his staff, and he respected them in turn.
And, he said, eating jailhouse cooking packed 50 pounds onto his frame.
“I weighed 175 when I came in,” he said. “Now, I’m up to 225.”
One of the worst aspects of being in the jail, Johnson said, was the crowding. The facility was built to hold 95 inmates. On days when the Greenup County grand jury would return indictments, the population would soar to over 130, he said.
As a Class D inmate, Johnson enjoyed greater freedom than those who are awaiting trial on, or have been convicted of, more serious offenses.
He was eligible for, and participated in, the jail’s work-release program, which earned him time off his sentence, along with wages of 63 cents a day.
He and his fellow work-release prisoners performed an array of tasks, from doing custodial work at the county courthouse to painting the county war memorial to helping out with the city of Greenup’s annual Old-Fashion Days festival.
“People don’t realize all of the things the Class D inmates do for the community,” he said. “A lot of those things would never get done if they didn’t do them.”
Johnson said he was wounded by the disdainful looks he would often see on the faces of some of the people he would encounter in the community while out on work-release details.
It was as if they couldn’t look past his striped jail uniform and see a man who had made some mistakes, he said.
Johnson said that he and his wife divorced about the time that he began serving his sentence. They were in the process of reconciling, though, when she died in November 2006.
He said his only child, a son who’s 21 and lives in Lexington, visited him frequently while he was in the lockup and that the two have a healthy relationship.
While it’s likely that there are much worse places to be incarcerated than the Greenup County jail, Johnson said he still wouldn’t recommend the experience to anyone.
“It’s still jail,” he said. “It’s not the Holiday Inn and it’s not supposed to be.”
KENNETH HART writes for The Independent in Ashland. He can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.

January 20, 2008 11:29 pm

More entries >>>

Budget committee addresses prisons, passes budget and cigarette tax

Senate Judiciary wants lawmakers to review penal code

Graham will file bill to help counties with jails

Drug court viewed as incarceration alternative

&#8216;Life is good today,&#8217; says former drug court participant

Keeping jails operational from jailer&#8217;s perspective

Task for lawmakers: Finding right solutions

Options laid out in two jail studies

Public wanted &#8216;get tough&#8217; laws and inmate numbers soared

Inmate: Always treated fairly but &#8216;It&#8217;s still jail&#8217;

Popular business directory searches

‘Life is good today,’ says former drug court participant

Keeping jails operational from jailer’s perspective

Public wanted ‘get tough’ laws and inmate numbers soared

Inmate: Always treated fairly but ‘It’s still jail’