Pubdate: Sun, 18 Apr 2010
Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ)
Copyright: 2010 The Arizona Republic
Contact: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/sendaletter.html
Website: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24
Pubdate: 18 Apr 10
Author: Jj Hensley, The Arizona Republic
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

ARIZ. AIMS TO CUT PRISON COSTS; IN TEXAS, A NEW APPROACH

While the U.S. prison population is declining for the first time in 
nearly 40 years, Arizona is headed in the opposite direction.

Unlike in some other states, mandatory-sentencing laws keep Arizona 
inmates in prison for nearly all of their sentenced time. And state 
lawmakers say rewriting sentencing guidelines to grant shorter prison 
terms is politically unlikely.

Amid a historic budget shortfall, some lawmakers are intent on 
finding ways to reduce the $880 million bill taxpayers foot each year 
for locking up convicts, nearly 10 percent of the state's $8.9 
billion budget. A look at other states with similar challenges shows 
some ways prison populations - and costs - can be cut.

With changes made over the past five years, Texas has reduced its 
prison population and halted plans for a huge prison expansion. New 
approaches to incarceration have saved money without taking the teeth 
out of the criminal-justice system, says a Republican Texas lawmaker 
who had a hand in the changes.

Texas has addressed several key areas.

. In prison: Many prison sentences and repeat offenses result from 
drug crimes. Texas offered substance-abuse treatment in jail and put 
some prisoners in treatment after being released.

. During parole and probation: Many inmates who commit minor 
infractions while on parole end up back in prison. Texas created 
detention centers to provide supervised housing to punish those 
offenders without sending them to prison.

. After prison: Many former inmates fail to reacclimate to life 
outside and end up committing more crimes. The state built 
residential treatment centers and halfway houses to help former 
prisoners with the transition.

Such measures don't necessarily mean abandoning a "tough on crime" 
approach. Texas has long had a reputation as a law-and-order state. 
Like Arizona, it has a long border with Mexico and the associated 
problems with drug- and human-smuggling.

But state Rep. Jerry Madden, a Republican who became the chairman of 
Texas' Corrections Committee in 2005, said he realized expanding 
those prisoner-treatment programs could save taxpayers millions by 
avoiding the costs of building more prisons.

"Once I became convinced of that, it became the job of convincing 
others," Madden said. "There are two to three things I talked about: 
The public's going to be safer - if people don't recidivate (relapse 
into criminal behavior), we're probably going to have less crime - 
and it's going to cost less money."

Texas spent several hundred million dollars to expand the programs 
but did not build any new prison capacity.

By contrast, the Arizona Department of Corrections plans to add 
15,000 beds in state and privately owned prisons to its system in the 
next four years. The official estimate calls for the prison 
population to grow by 114 each month for the next 10 years.

Rep. Cecil Ash, R-Mesa, is chairman of a House committee examining 
crime and punishment in Arizona. Ash said he believes there are ways 
to reduce spending without weakening the criminal-justice system. "We 
have enough prisons here in Arizona," Ash said.

Rising Numbers

The prison population nationwide, for the first time since 1971, 
declined from 2008 to 2009. But Arizona joined 22 other states in 
adding prisoners last year and ranked among the top 10 states in the 
percentage increase in its prison population.

There is hope that prison numbers will decline on their own over the 
long term. Inmate populations in the state's largest county jails 
have dropped during the past two years, matching a decline in crime 
rates. Jails house low-level offenders and the many people who have 
been arrested but are awaiting trial. In time, the downward trend 
could spill over to prisons as fewer people are sentenced for felonies.

But prison officials say it will take years for those declines to be 
reflected in prison populations. For now, the number of people 
serving felony sentences continues to outpace population growth in 
part because some crimes that formerly were misdemeanors, such as 
driving under the influence and certain domestic-violence incidents, 
have been turned into felonies, said Mike Dolny of the Arizona 
Department of Corrections.

An increase of nearly 30 percent in the state's population from 2000 
to 2009 also could account for much of the prison-population spike, 
said Phil Schroeder, who generates DOC population projections. But 
prison rolls grew by nearly 50 percent during the same time.

Texas' resident population grew about 20 percent in that same span, 
while the head count in prisons increased by less than 4 percent.

Madden, the legislator charged with overhauling the Texas prison 
system, said the price of incarceration forced lawmakers' hands.

Texas' Savings

Legislators there began exploring ways to house fewer criminals in 
state custody and put more in community-based treatment centers where 
they would be provided with more of the tools to successfully re-enter society.

There were no changes to sentencing guidelines because, Madden said, 
changing punishment for crimes would do nothing to help the immediate 
population problem.

"Sentencing guidelines won't help you next year," Madden said. 
"Without retroactivity on it, you're just looking in a forward 
manner. That bought me nothing in the short term."

Instead, the efforts in Texas focused on providing more programs for 
convicts while they are still in custody to help them stay off drugs 
and train them for jobs when they are released.

The state spent more than $26 million to offer more substance-abuse 
treatment in jails for low-level drug users and property criminals. 
It also began to offer intensive substance-abuse treatment to 
prisoners, which includes a requirement to spend time in a treatment 
center after release.

The state also spent more than $110 million to build residential 
treatment centers and halfway houses to help former prisoners.

For those who did violate their release conditions by using alcohol 
or drugs or failing to pay fines, the state set up a system of 
progressive sanctions that provided quick, short-term responses, 
Madden said, such as putting offenders in county jail for the weekend 
instead of shipping them back to prison. The state also spent $30 
million to create more short-term detention centers.

The changes cost the state $241 million but saved much more.

"The alternative we had out there was we were going to spend about 
$550 million to build new prisons," Madden said.

Texas spent about $3 billion in 2009 on its criminal-justice system, 
which included about $42 per day to house the 172,000 prisoners in 
state custody.

Arizona taxpayers spent $886 million last year on the state prison 
system, including an average of about $56 a day for the 40,000 
convicts in state prisons.

Arizona legislators have appropriated more than $200 million to the 
prison system since 2008 to keep pace with convicts coming into the system.

Lessons to Glean

What worked in Texas will not necessarily succeed in Arizona, 
particularly when it comes to expanding programs for ex-convicts 
after they are released.

Arizona's system is largely a function of its truth-in-sentencing 
laws, which require state prisoners to serve at least 85 percent of 
their sentences. That requirement adds up to more time behind bars 
but less time after release when the prisoner is supervised and 
mandated to participate in such programs. In most cases, the 
opportunity for the state to monitor a prisoner ends with the prison 
sentence because there is so little time left for parole.

It also means prison officials cannot offer inmates much in the way 
of time off for good behavior or other incentives for participating 
in treatment and re-education programs during incarceration - the 
very programs that could help ensure they don't return to prison later.

But some of Texas' lessons can be applied in Arizona without gutting 
the state's sentencing guidelines, particularly if prisons can offer 
programs to help rehabilitate inmates and reward their participation 
by shaving time off the sentence.

"We need to work more on incentivizing our inmates to get out earlier 
and to not recidivate," Ash said. "If they have this incentive to go 
through programs, of course, we're going to have to provide the 
programs to them. Right now, the inmates have very little motivation 
to take those."

Ash is not alone in his efforts to address prison-population growth.

A bill passed by the Arizona Legislature in 2008 offered incentives 
to probation departments that can reduce the number of probationers 
sent back to prison. In the first year, probation revocations were 
down more than 12 percent, keeping 987 people out of prison.

Ash said the committee has discussed ideas that include reinstating 
the earned-release credit program that would provide incentives for 
inmates to participate in education and rehabilitation programs while 
in prison.

The program was eliminated in the mid-1990s, and Ash said the Arizona 
Legislature could reinstate it without changing sentencing statutes 
or bringing extra pressure to county prosecutors who want to maintain 
a "tough on crime" reputation.

"If they have a statute that says you can earn one day release for 
every two days served, that's off the prosecutor," Ash said. "It's 
really up to the inmate. That wouldn't require any significant 
changes of sentences that are imposed by statutes themselves."

Prosecutors have reservations about anything that would be perceived 
as going easy on criminals.

But in Texas, once the "pieces of the puzzle" came together to show 
the benefits that changes could have on prison populations and the 
state's bottom line, Madden said selling the plan became easier.

Texas shed more than 1,200 prisoners last year and saved more than 
$200 million in anticipated costs to build and house criminals.

"When I became chairman of Corrections in 2005 and you told me we 
would have done all those things, I would have said something is 
wrong with you," Madden said. "But we had the facts that said if we 
do these things, there's a high probability we will make the 
communities safer and spend less money, and third, we would in fact 
change some people's lives." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake