Cush Jobs and Abuse Threaten Citizens

"Based on current projections, by 2011 the U.S. prison population will increase by 13% – which is triple the growth of the entire population as a whole – to more than 1.7 million . Supporting that increase in incarcerated people will cost American taxpayers and local/state budgets an estimated $27.5 billion. At that time, another 4 million people will also be on probation or parole." according to www.jailovercrowding.com.

Jail and Prison Overcrowding Statistics:

* Each year, over 600,000 people are admitted to state and federal prisons, and over 10 million are incarcerated in local jails

* Adding prison, jail, and probation populations together, the U.S. corrections population exceeds 7 million people – or 1 in every 32 U.S. adults

* Approximately 40% of offenders committing technical violations of parole conditions are sent back to jail – taking up valuable space that could be better used for those committing more serious crimes

* The average annual operating cost per state was $23,876 − or $65.41/day

* Among facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, it was $23,429 per inmate − or $64.19/day

* By 2011, the Western U.S. states will experience the greatest prison population increases (18%), while the Northeast will experience the lowest (7%)

* Jails populations are rising at a higher rate than prison populations, and the number of people in jails has doubled since 1990

Sources:
“Public Safety, Public Spending” (2008), The Pew Charitable Trusts
“Prisoners in 2007” (2008), Bureau of Justice Statistics
“Jailing Communities” (2008), Justice Policy Institute

The National Conference of State Legislatures has issued a July '09 statement regarding "Earned time polices for State Prisoners"

It cites one example of a Kansas poll which saw 80% of respondents wanted their tax money spent on re-entry education as opposed to longer incarceration time.

But former inmates find themselves returning to prison. According to The NY Times:

"The most pervasive cost-saving trend among corrections departments has been to look closely at parole systems, in which it is no longer cost-effective to monitor released inmates, largely because too many violate their terms, often on technicalities, and end up back in prison."

Pew reports:

"Vera’s report, The Fiscal Crisis in Corrections: Rethinking Policies and Practices, reviews enacted FY2010 corrections budgets and recent state legislation. It finds that 22 state departments of corrections (of 33 that had enacted state budgets at the time of printing) experienced budget reductions and details how they have absorbed the cuts."With 7.3 million Americans in prison, on parole or under probation, states spent $47 billion in 2008, the study said."

Indiana has 1 in 31 people behind bars or on probation. It took 5.3% of the general fund in 2008 and we spent nearly $700 million for offenders. Translated, that is for each $1.00 spent on prisons, there were 2 pennies spent on parole.

In July, 2006 "Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson and Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson said they decided to act after overcrowding at the county jail led to the early release last month of 477 inmates -- the second-largest total in six years." Marion County officials will spend $1.5 million to rent 200 beds at a privately run lockup to alleviate long-running overcrowding at the Marion County Jail.

"The overcrowding problem has resulted in the early release of hundreds of inmates." The jail was to spend 1.5 million for extra beds. "The Marion County Jail has repeatedly exceeded a mandatory population cap of 1,135 as inmates wait for their cases to move through the justice system.", according to AP.

Three years before that:

"Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson is meeting with a federal judge Wednesday to discuss overcrowding at the county jail. U.S. District Judge Sarah Barker will decide whether to hold Anderson in contempt for violating a court order limiting the number of inmates at the jail."

In 2003, Channel 6 reported: "Two inmates testified in court about conditions at the jail. They said prisoners get inadequate medical attention and often have to sleep on metal tables or on floors within "splashing distance" from urinals.

Officials with the Indiana Civil Liberties Union have been pushing the issue, Jenkins reported. "It's a horrific place. It's extremely dangerous and it's extremely dirty," ICLU lawyer Ken Falk said."

In October,'06, Abdul-Hakim Shabazz wrote on Indiana Barrister that prior to an election the politicization within a council meeting: "With a week to go before the election, City-County Council Democrats are asking their lawyers to see if sanctions can be filed against elected officials they say either gave false testimony this past summer regarding jail overcrowding or failed to do their jobs regarding the budget."

It has gotten so bad in California,:"

a three-judge federal panel, which this month ordered California to release 40,000 adult prisoners within the next two years, calling poor health care and overcrowded conditions a violation of inmates' constitutional rights.

The Division of Juvenile Justice, which operates under the larger adult corrections department, is laboring under a separate court-ordered reform plan prompted by a 2003 lawsuit alleging inhumane conditions. As part of the settlement agreement, an Alameda County Superior Court judge is now monitoring progress on systemic changes aimed at transforming the state's prison-like youth institutions into therapeutic centers.

The Ca.General Assembly is trying additional ways to cut costs and "is expected, by the end of the summer session in mid-September, to take up separate bills on a commission on sentencing guidelines and on "alternative custody" measures, which would allow nonviolent, elderly offenders to move out of state prisons into house arrest."

"A panel of federal judges decreed that unless the state quickly produces a credible plan to reduce inmates by one-fourth, it would be held in contempt, with a seizure, just as judges have already done on prison health care, possible. While some politicians may like a takeover to shift the onus off themselves, judges could then order wholesale releases without any plans for alternative custody or parole and/or, as they have done with health care, order the state to spend billions of dollars it doesn't have." An op-ed in The Sacramental Bee, writes:

"Democratic senators showed backbone by ignoring Republican taunts and law enforcement criticism to pass the plan. Bass — who had agreed to it during budget negotiations — stalled as her Democrats, many of whom are running for new offices next year, balked, apparently fearing being branded as soft on crime."

A random survey of states reveals the same chronic problem: no one is going to do anything until pushed by threat of lawsuit, the lawsuit itself, or the realization that the system doesn't work and lack of money to sustain it impacts the budget to force coming to grips with a problem few wish to talk about. This is the same 'throw away the key' mentality that has thrown away citizens tax dollars into makeshift jail and prison abuse with little oversight until a complaint is registered. If truth be told, many of the correctional facilities are maintained by jailhouse work programs requiring inmates as staffing the kitchens and maintenance, with most complaints never seeing the light of day. In effect, it is a closed society where workers slave for the State masters who earn plenty of overtime to pad their job, knowing that a revolving door or inmates ensures their paycheck.

It will take bold lawmakers to shift this complex problem into meaningful reform. Perhaps the problem is not the charge that they would be viewed as soft on crime, since that is a masquerade for being soft in the head. In short, the political ineptness to correct a problem gone into warp drive has cost taxpayers dearly both in practice and in resulting lawsuits. Protectionism of status quo correctional jobs and lack of political will only steepens what is now a crisis. Perhaps we the people footing the bill and ignoring the problems have put ourselves in a financial jail, and perhaps the zoo keepers and morally challenged lawmakers should have a taste of their own jailhouse food, lack of medical attention, and jailhouse maintenance jobs for a good dose of humility, if not retribution, for their sins against the people who trusted them.

--Patriot Paul