a public defender

Say two thirds of those polled in this latest Quinnipiac University poll. There you go legislators.

Only 35 percent of voters support a so-called “third strike” law where a person convicted of three violent felonies automatically is sentenced to life in prison, while 63 percent say sentences should be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Oh thank God.

There are some other interesting results in this poll. For example, only 27 percent say they feel less safe at home since Cheshire. On prison overcrowding:

48 percent of voters say build more prisons, while 39 percent say release inmates earlier. But only 47 percent of voters want to pay higher taxes for new prisons, while 50 percent are opposed.

Meanwhile, by a 62 – 32 percent margin, Connecticut voters are willing to pay higher taxes for more community supervision of offenders.

Interestingly, the Cheshire murders have not sparked a huge increase in support for the death penalty. Connecticut is in favor of the death penalty by a margin of 63-27, which is a slight increase from 60%, which was prior to Cheshire. However, when given the alternative of life in prison without parole, the state splits 47-44 in favor of the death penalty.

The Courant has this article today, seeking to make much of the under-utilized persistent felony statutes in Connecticut. All it does, instead, is underline the need for more rehabilitation programs.

Meet Richard D. Halapin Jr., a small-time career burglar and thief who earlier this year broke into his sister’s home and stole the family’s jewelry – including a wedding ring and her three children’s golden baptism crucifixes. The cherished items were sold to get money for a drug fix.

The perfect lead in, you’d think, to an article examining the rehabilitation programs in prison that help inmates like Halapin kick their habit and go on to lead productive lives upon release. Of course, the Courant, which is going the politician’s course and trying to look “tough on crime”, doesn’t walk through the open door. Instead they give us this: “[H]e may be the best living proof that an entire category of Connecticut laws – designed to increase punishment for “persistent offenders” – is under-used, at best, and at worst, useless.”

What a novel idea for a story! I’d imagine the pitch went something like this:

Journalist: “Boss, I found this woman in Naugatuck whose brother stole from her.”

Editor: “HOME INVASION! OMG! HEADLINES FOR ANOTHER MONTH!”

Journalist: “He’s a druggie and spent most of his life in jail.”

Editor: “OMFG! VIOLENT CRIMINAL! STATE LAW IS TEH SUCK!”

Okay, so not quite like that. But I’ve always wanted to use “teh suck” in a post.

Halapin’s sister and the state’s victim advocate say that he’s a symbol of failings in the state justice system.

Yeah, the failing being that the root of the problem is almost never addressed. Drug dependent inmates plead to non-drug dependent crimes, drug rehab programs in prisons are scarce and spaces are limited and it is left to the inmates to seek treatment upon release. Not to mention that they get jacksquat upon release.

It’s sad that the Courant missed this opportunity to examine the real problem leading to re-offending and instead chose to focus on the worn drum.

Previous posts on the topic of rehabilitation while incarcerated:

• What should the State’s responsibility be?
• Solving the revolving door of parole
• There are other reforms too
• Re-entry problems
• Gate pay for inmates a reality

In light of yesterday’s prison tour, Judiciary Committee co-chair Mike Lawlor has issued a statement asking Gov. Rell to provide more resources to the DOC. He renews his disbelief over Comm’r Lantz’s assertions before the judiciary committee that they have the prison population under control.

Yesterday I toured the Willard-Cybulski Correctional Institution in Enfield at the request of the corrections officers who work there. After seeing the institution myself and having one-on-one conversations with many officers, there is no question that the situation there and elsewhere in the Department of Corrections is nearing a crisis stage due to the recent surge in inmate population.

Two weeks ago, Commissioner Lantz appeared before the Judiciary Committee in your place and told us that her department needs no additional resources in order to safely manage the population surge. I simply cannot see how that is true.

These conditions cannot be ignored. For the protection of the public and corrections staff, you must allow the front-line professionals in corrections and parole to tell state officials what they need to safely manage the inmate population and the offenders who are or who will be released into the community in the near and long term. We, in turn, must provide them with those resources.

Meanwhile (and there’s no link to this – surprise, surprise!), there are reports that there was a violent fight at Brooklyn Correctional last night that resulted in an inmate’s head being busted open. Inmates and COs have been warning that this overcrowding is creating a very volatile situation. Let’s hope someone takes heed before it turns ugly.

Or perhaps they should just look to this 2000 report prepared by our very own Legislative Program Review and Investigations Committee, which concludes:

Prison overcrowding has a cyclical pattern in Connecticut — reaching a crisis point about every 10 years. The committee report showed most of the causes of prison overcrowding occurred outside the administration and jurisdiction of the Department of Correction and these complex issues and problems cannot be addressed by a single state agency. Specifically, the program review committee identified five main causes of prison overcrowding. They are:

• Despite the decrease in arrest and crime rates, the number of offenders in prison or jail continued to increase due to the “war on drugs”, increased funding for police, increased role of victims and victim advocacy groups in the court process, added bed capacity in the correctional system, recidivism and technical violations of probation and parole, harsher penalties for certain types of crimes, and narrowed eligibility for community release and alternative sanction options.
• Convicted inmates were remaining incarcerated for a greater portion of their court-imposed prison sentences as a result of the shift from an indeterminate to a determinate sentencing structure, elimination of “good time”, creation of time-served standards for parole eligibility, and the enactment of several “truth in sentencing” initiatives.
• The aggressive “tough on crime” approach supported by the legislature and adopted by the executive and judicial branches allows the criminal justice system to narrow its use of discretion and take a more conservative and less controversial approach to punishment.
• A lack of prison beds, especially high security and pre-trial beds, forced DOC to operate at capacity.
• Poor planning and a lack of an accurate population projection and offender needs analysis contributed to the cycle of overcrowding and hampered DOC’s efforts to adequately plan for new or expanded facilities.

In reviewing options available to manage and control growth of the inmate population, the committee found Connecticut cannot build its way out of a prison overcrowding crisis. However, prison expansion is one model to address prison overcrowding. This strategy has been Connecticut’s primary response to prison overcrowding over the past 20 years. It is the simplest but least effective and most expensive approach. Services in this model are concentrated primarily on the small percent (25 percent) of the offender population in prison.

If legislators are truly interested in the “best solution”, then they should perhaps look to the current overcrowding problems in Texas, wonderfully covered by Grits for Breakfast [latest post here].

The full press release is after the jump, if you’re interested.

Ted Koppel’s Breaking Point on California’s prison overcrowding is on right now. Turn on your TV and tune to Discovery if you can. Must watch.

This Sunday, Ted Koppel presents Breaking Point, a documentary on California’s prison overcrowding problem. It will air on the Discovery Channel at 9pm. From the highlights:

What does the California prison system have in common with Harvard University? It costs precisely as much to house, feed and guard one prisoner for one year in a California state prison as tuition, meals and housing cost for a student enrolled for one academic year at Harvard. As far as California taxpayers are concerned, it gets even worse. Their prison system is so overcrowded that it’s reached a breaking point. Either the state finds a long-term solution or the federal courts have warned they’ll begin ordering the release of inmates, just to ease the crush.

In this two-hour broadcast, Ted Koppel examines how California got to this point and presents an inside view of the crisis through in-depth interviews with inmates, guards and prison officials at California State Prison Solano in Vacaville.

Designed to accommodate no more than 100,000 inmates, California’s prisons now hold 173,000, each at an annual cost of $43,000. How did things get so out of control? Mandatory sentencing is a big part of the answer. When California voters threw their support behind a get-tough-on-crime bill that came to be known as “Three Strikes and You’re Out,” the state prison system filled up and is now overflowing.

You can get the quick facts,  view prison portraits, explore CSP – Solano or watch a video from inside the prison.

Prison overcrowding presents several problems aside from safety and security of staff and inmates. More often than not, overcrowding leads to inmates being forced to sleep in gyms, halls, classrooms and day-rooms. This occupies space reserved for rehabilitative programs. I’m not sure these programs continue or that inmates have recreation areas where they can blow off steam or learn a trade or get an education. It truly is counterproductive.

Hopefully the legislators on Connecticut’s Judiciary Committee will watch this 2-hour program on Sunday.

The title of my post last evening was slightly off. By all accounts, Comm’r Lantz seems to believe that there is no such thing as an overcrowded prison.

With the state’s prison population at a record high after Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s recent restrictions on parole, legislators futilely pressed Monday to learn how many more inmates can be safely confined.

Correction Commissioner Theresa Lantz suggested that the ultimate capacity of the prison system is unknowable, an answer that left some legislators slack-jawed.

Lantz described a prison system that is “fluid,” expanding and contracting to accommodate a changing population, despite existing in the finite realm of steel and concrete.

Yeah, she really said that.

Thankfully, legislators weren’t buying that.

This is going to be a real problem. The prison population has already increased by almost 600 inmates in a span of two months and they’re living on mattresses and beds laid out on gym floors and in large open spaces. This is in addition to the already crowded dorms.

I guess the only thing one can do at this point is hope that the legislature takes some action (like, maybe, enforcing a statute or recognizing the inherent separation of powers problem here) or some inmate files a lawsuit challenging either the conditions at a facility or the deprivation of his liberty interest in parole and pray that no one gets hurt in the meantime.

Very little has been reported thus far on today’s emergency judiciary committee meeting on the parole ban. The only thing out there is this meager story by Channel 3.

From what I can gather, Commissioner Lantz doesn’t seem to think there’s a problem.

The state’s prisons commissioner said she doesn’t need more staff or new prisons to handle any influx of inmates from the temporary ban of parole for violent offenders.

Lantz said an additional 228 beds are being added. Also, she said the corrections officers are trained to handle fluctuating prison populations. Currently, there are about 300 portable beds set up on gym floors and in function rooms.

There are currently 19,000 inmates in Connecticut’s prisons — 2,000 more than what the system was designed for.

Nope, nothing to see. Move along.

I guess I’m still surprised that the legislature has no problem with the Governor effectively overriding a statute.

Forgotten in this Cheshire mess is the sentencing commission that started work in May, which was charged with looking at how to change the state’s sentencing laws for the better. Ah, back in May, when Komisarjevsky was still on GPS monitoring and the Petit women were alive.

Glad to hear that someone thought to ask them of their other business. Cheshire has overshadowed the fact that CT has draconian drug laws and there is a racial disparity in sentencing and even charging.

[New Haven Public Defender Tom] Ullmann and several other members suggested the task force may be missing a chance to make long-term changes in the justice system.

Others said the group will continue to discuss issues such as mandatory minimum drug sentences and racial disparity in sentencing even as it deals with parole system gaps exposed by the Cheshire case.

Some of the juicy things on their agenda:

The task force divided into four subcommittees that would discuss alternatives to incarceration, sentencing structure, the racial imbalance in prisons and how to classify some drug offenses and other crimes that carry a broad range of possible sentences.

These are all excellent areas of investigation and reform. Thankfully last year the legislature eliminated the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentencing (I think…I may be imagining it).

Prison overcrowding is an immense problem and all of these avenues will help to reduce it and hopefully, get to the source of the problem for most drug offenders: addiction.

I wish there was some way to study racial disparities in charging, but it seems too daunting a task.

Of all the groups commenting on Cheshire, this task force has been oddly silent. Not all members agree:

Some members say the task force should lend its voice to the Cheshire debate so the state does not make any rash changes.

“I think it’s incumbent upon us to respond,” said Andrew Clark, a group member and the administrator of the Institute for the Study of Crime & Justice at Central Connecticut State University. “We have to ask tough questions and come up with real solutions.”

But there has been, at least for some members, a shift in focus.

The sentencing task force changed its focus at the same time. It studied tougher burglary laws and looked at the impact a tougher “three strikes and you’re out” law would have on prison overcrowding.

“It’s almost like members are bending over backward to join the throng of punitive measures,” said Jon Schoenhorn, a task force member and president of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. “It violates the entire purpose of why this task force was created.”

“Three strikes laws” + prison overcrowding: Not gettin’ better any time soon.

With much being said of Governor Rell’s ban on parole in the last few days (and most of it favorable), it must be pointed out what the impact of such a ban shall be. Here’s a story on just that. The highlights:

The Board of Pardons and Paroles is reviewing the cases of 400 to 600 inmates who were scheduled for release on parole.

These are inmates who were already granted parole (and some, it is safe to say, in the last few months), so now they have to be housed again and perhaps there is a legal challenge here. While there is no liberty interest in parole, there is a liberty interest in parole revocation. Canceling parole after granting it would be akin to a revocation of parole.

The Department of Correction is reviewing the files of 1,200 level one inmates to identify non-violent offenders to release to halfway houses to open bed space for violent offenders.

So now you have a number of inmates who will be rushed through parole to make room for those who have been granted it, but will not be released. Good for the 1,200, but is it really good for safety?

Rell said that there are no current or expected plans to build new or expand the state’s current prisons.

Ah, of course. Because Connecticut’s prisons are underpopulated and there are plenty of empty beds.

Lawlor said if violent offenders can’t receive parole, the state’s prison population will only grow more.

There are more than 19,000 inmates in Connecticut’s prisons, originally designed to house 17,000. Lawlor said that the federal courts could order a mass release.

Oh wait, so you mean there is a prison overcrowding problem? The best way to solve that is to ban parole for all violent offenders. No, it isn’t? Hmm.

East Haven Rep. Michael Lawlor, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the state’s prison population has grown by 280 inmates since the July 23 Cheshire home invasion, in which a mother and her two daughters were killed.

This number will only continue to grow. Estimates put the projected increase at 1,500 over the next year. I guess I can safely delete these posts.

Of course, there are the “in the trenches” consequences:

Judges are setting higher bond for burglars and other criminals; defendants are receiving longer sentences; and the Board of Pardons and Paroles is more conservative about who gets parole.

In case we’ve all forgotten, here’s a reminder from a previous post, quoting the Office of Policy and Management’s “Comprehensive Plan For the Connecticut Criminal Justice System 2007 [pdf]“:

• Not shockingly, inmates released from prison with no community supervision were most likely to be reconvicted and resentenced to prison for a new offense.

The Governor, not surprisingly, has declined to appear before the judiciary committee to discuss her “ban”.

While the calls for three-strikes laws and stricter sentences were questionably wrong, this ban on parole is unquestionably knee-jerk and almost certainly illegal.

Serenity now….serenity now.

The Judiciary Committee has announced speakers for its upcoming hearing on parole and sentencing laws in Connecticut in the aftermath of the Cheshire killings. I was sent the press release earlier today, which provides the following information:

“We will hear from state officials who will update the committee on recent administrative and procedural changes in our parole system that have been implemented in the aftermath of the Cheshire tragedy,” Sen. McDonald said.  “Following that, the committee will be able to speak with a leading California prosecutor, who is also currently the head of the national prosecutors’ association, and two national corrections officials regarding corrections and parole reforms in other states.”

“It is important to stress that our committee is working in a bi-partisan manner as we proceed to evaluate and move forward with proposals,” Rep. Lawlor explained.  “This forum will give everyone an opportunity to learn a lot about plea bargaining, sentencing, corrections and parole in Connecticut and around the country.  We will seek fully-drafted legislative proposals from legislators and others after the hearing.  Following this, fiscal notes and summaries for those proposals will be made available, and we will schedule a full public hearing on them as soon as possible.”

They have also set out “goals” for this hearing:

1. Establish a new crime of “home invasion” and make it clear that it is a violent offense.
2. Re-write the current “persistent offender” and “three strikes” laws to make them more useable and require mandatory sentences.
3. Provide full funding for equipment and parole/probation officers that will allow for expanded use of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and other mandatory supervision for non-violent offenders to make room in prisons for violent, serious repeat offenders.
4. Provide full funding for equipment and parole/probation officers that will allow for GPS monitoring during probation or parole for persons convicted of a home invasion.
5. Provide full public access to conviction information, including probation and parole information, for all serious offenders, including persons convicted of home invasion.
6. Ensure interoperability of all criminal justice databases to allow police, prosecutors, probation, parole, corrections, and judicial officials to communicate with one another electronically regarding all offenders and cases.

The following speakers are confirmed:

Robert Farr, Chairman of the State Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Lisa Holden, Co-Chair of Governor Rell’s Sentencing and Parole Review Task Force and Executive Director of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Inc.
Kevin Kane, Chief State’s Attorney.
Theresa Lantz, Commissioner of the Department of Correction.

Not surprisingly, no one from the defense bar or the public defender’s office.

National criminal justice officials confirmed to testify at the hearing:

James P. Fox is the District Attorney of California’s San Mateo County.  He was first elected to this position in January 1983 and has been re-elected to every four years since.  He also currently serves as the President of the National District Attorney’s Association.  Prior to that, he was the President of the California District Attorneys Association (CDAA).   Since 1991, he has been Chairman of the CDAA Legislative Committee.

Michael P. Jacobson is the current Director of the Vera Institute of Justice.  Under former New York City Mayor Rudolf Giuliani, he served as Commissioner of New York City’s Department of Correction from 1995 to 1998, and as Commissioner of the City’s Department of Probation from 1992 to 1996.  Jacobson was appointed last year by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to serve on a panel of national experts to evaluate California’s prison overcrowding and parolee recidivism problems.

George Keiser is Chief of the Community Corrections/Prisons Division of the National Institute of Corrections, which is part of the Federal Bureau of Prisons within the United States Department of Justice.  He oversees NIC programs and services provided to 50 state departments of corrections and more than 1,400 state prisons in the U.S., commonwealths, and territories.

Rhode Island’s legislature voted to remove mandatory-minimums.

The General Assembly has approved legislation that rolls back mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, a move that proponents hope will cut costs, ease overcrowding at the state prison and give judges more discretion in meting out punishment.

The vote, in the waning hours of the legislative session that concluded early Saturday, comes as the prison grapples with a rising inmate population and adds Rhode Island to a growing list of states where lawmakers have mulled changes to their sentencing policies.

The legislation repeals minimum sentences imposed for drug crimes and also reduces the maximum punishment an offender can receive. Under the bill, for instance, a defendant convicted of possessing more than one kilogram of heroin, or more than five kilograms of marijuana, would no longer face a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.

“It would give the judges discretion,” Metts said. “Certainly in the late teens, early 20s, people do make mistakes. It shouldn’t mean that your life is over.”

It’s not clear how much impact the bill would have on the inmate population — which surged earlier this month to a record-high of 3,889 — since most drug offenders in Rhode Island already receive relatively short prison sentences. In 2006, the average sentence for a drug offense was 20 months, with only 6 inmates getting sentences of 10 years or more, according to data provided by the state Department of Corrections.

Criticisms of mandatory-minimum sentences have been voiced for a number of years now, so it is great to see a state taking this step to address head on the problems of prison overcrowding. Whether this has any actual impact remains to be seen. According to the linked article, Michigan is apparently the only other state in the country that has taken the step of eliminating min-mans for drug offenses.

HT: Think Outside The Cage 

It’s not really live, since it was last night, but State Rep and Judiciary Committee co-chair Mike Lawlor stopped by CT Local Politics to participate in a live blog and answer questions from anyone who wanted to participate. I posed some questions, the answers to which I will get to in a second, but near the end of the chat, he dropped this:

Oh, and I should point out that all conviction information, for everyone, will be on line soon at both the judicial and department of public safety websites. Everything from sex offenses to shoplifting will be there. I support full disclosure of criminal conviction information.

He further clarified:

The list of all criminal conviction information is already available from the state police. This will now be online. Thats a bit different than the sex offender website, which contains a lot more information. If you want to check someone’s record, here is how to do it now…

It has now been 11 hours since that and I still don’t know how I feel about it. It is a public record, but will this fuel mass hysteria and cause people to start spying on one another? (Not in the clandestine sense, but in the “I’m going to watch you more closely and see if what you’re doing is dangerous or illegal” sense) How will this affect prospective employees? Landlords? Liquor stores? Or is this necessary and useful? Will this cause people to be more careful and aware? What do you guys think?

Anyway, on to the questions. I asked and he replied (to question #1):

Gideon asks:

Second, SB 1458, which creates a “tender years” exception to hearsay. Were you not concerned about the Constitutionality of this legislation in light of Crawford v. Washington? Thank you for your time.

The final language of the bill was agreed upon by the judges’ rules committee, the prosecutors and public defenders. It was changed substantially from the original proposal to meet the concerns expressed, especially from the defense bar. Many other states have adopted similar rules post Crawford.

My second question (and his response):

Rep. Lawlor,

You mentioned that you were on the sentencing commission and the risk assessment board. As part of the sentencing commission, what will you be looking at and what steps do you think the State should take to deal with prison overcrowding?

…

Hey, sorry for missing this one. The Commission should have its own website up by now, and I will check into why its not available. In the meantime, check out the great, and recent, OPM reports on justice trends and stats in CT.

http://www.opm.state.ct.us/

I’ll be looking for that website, but the one he provided a link for does have some interesting reports. I plan on sifting through it later.

The rest of the questions were about politics, gay marriage and the budget.

All in all, I have to say that it was an excellent example of the good that can come of the blogosphere.

The Stamford Advocate has this story today, chronicling the problem with minimum-mandatory sentences in drug cases and the growing calls for a change in the legislation.

The problem with mandatory-minimums has become apparent over the past few years and many states have or are considering abolishing them. However, they still exist in Connecticut and defense attorneys and judges have the same complaint:

Few people are convicted of mandatory minimum charges in drug cases. Instead, prosecutors use the threat of a mandatory minimum conviction as leverage to entice guilty pleas to lesser charges.

A variety of attorneys, judges and experts statewide want mandatory minimum laws scrapped or adjusted. About two dozen states have adjusted mandatory minimum rules in the last decade as critics complain they result in severe sentences and prison overcrowding.

Connecticut has a task force whose job is to review sentencing schemes and recommend changes

“I think we should just get rid of them,” said Thomas Ullmann, a public defender in New Haven and a member of the task force. “Prosecutors bully people all the time with mandatory minimums.”

Prosecutors admit they use mandatory minimum charges as a negotiating tool. But they point out that police choose the charges in most Connecticut jurisdictions, including Stamford and Norwalk. The bargaining, prosecutors say, saves defendants prison time by giving them the chance to plead guilty to lesser charges instead of risking a trial and a minimum prison term.

“The legislature put us in a straitjacket,” said David Cohen, state’s attorney for the Stamford-Norwalk judicial district, “but if we don’t feel a mandatory minimum is appropriate, we can lower the charges.”

Well, either the state is bound by these mandatory-minimums or can offer a plea on lesser charges. What usually happens, however, is that the threat of min-man sentences are used to pressure the defendant into pleading to something and not seeking acceptance into a program.

The statistics are overwhelming:

There are about 26,000 cases each year statewide involving mandatory minimum charges, according to a 2005 state study. In about 21,000 of those cases, the main charge is selling drugs or driving under the influence of alcohol.

The rest involve violent crimes such as rape, murder and kidnapping.

Six different drug charges require mandatory minimum sentences ranging from two to 10 years.

Police often charge drug defendants with several of those charges in the same case; about 70 percent of mandatory minimum charges are drug-related, the 2005 study found.

Judges have some discretion, but not enough. This is the knock on rigid sentencing schemes, including guidelines like those in Federal court. Sentencing should be case-specific, based on the individual facts and circumstances of each prosecution. Mandatory-minimum sentences take away that discretion and there is no ability to shape the sentence to best suit the facts of a particular case.

Slightly over two months ago, I reported a study by the Pew Charitable Trusts regarding the prison population outlook from 2007-2011. I noted that Connecticut was one of only three states expected to maintain its prison population over that time period.

Today I happened across the Case Study of Connecticut. The Pew Trusts’ report about Connecticut can be found here [pdf]. It is a very interesting report – it starts off with “The Challenge” facing Connecticut from 1995-2002, then leads us through several changes implemented by the legislature and the Governor from 2002-2006 and then makes some predictions about the outlook.

It makes mention of the Act Concerning Prison Overcrowding (PA 04-234), which as recent observations suggest, has done nothing to alleviate prison overcrowding. It ends with the observation that unless the pretrial population is given more focus, the numbers will start to increase again.

I am going to have to look at Connecticut’s declining inmate population from 2002-2006 as a fond memory.

Under current jurisprudence, there is no right to parole; there is no liberty interest in parole and apparently, there is no parole scheme. Parole can do what they want and do not have to review any inmate at any point in their sentence, despite the statute seemingly stating the contrary. I may disagree with it, but that’s the way it stands and that is the effect.

So, in the near future, I don’t see a continuing decline in the prison population.

Technorati Tags: prison overcrowding, connecticut

According to a study released [.pdf file] by the Pew Charitable Trusts, Connecticut is one of three states in the country expected to maintain their prison levels through 2011. The national trend is expected to be an increase of 13 percent.

Connecticut, as previously reported, had hit its all-time high of prison population and this certainly is a good indicator of things to come. The obvious problem with such a high prison population is overcrowding.

The recent spike in the inmate population is exacerbated by the fact that there aren’t enough beds for inmates, who continue to sleep on mats on gym floors, with dozens sharing few toilets.

Brian Garnett, the corrections spokesman, concedes that overcrowding is an issue, but said the figures would be much higher if the department hadn’t collaborated with legislators and so aggressively worked to reduce recidivism among parolees and probationers. “The important perspective, while we are crowded, we’d still be more crowded if not for the steps we’ve taken,” Garnett said.

What is heartening about this study and the Courant article are the comments by legislators about what is being done to control the prison population. Primarily, there has been in an increase in probation staff and an emphasis on looking closely at technical violations and avoiding the trap of doing the easy thing: throw them back in jail.

The state’s $13 million parole and probation recidivism efforts focused on parolees and probationers locked up for non-criminal offenses, such as being late to a meeting with an officer or for losing a job, and thus, failing to meet a probation requirement. “It’s too easy to do it – ah, just send them to jail,” said [Co-Chair of the Judiciary Committee Mike] Lawlor. The theory was that by hiring more probation officers, and reducing caseloads, the probation officers had more time with clients to pinpoint programs that might keep them out of prison.

…

More than what the study could mean for overcrowding, though, Lawlor said the study highlights the fact that officials in Connecticut conservatives and liberals alike have agreed to a new approach dissecting the series of decisions that land a person behind bars. Some offenders deserve lengthy sentences, he said, while others only “need to be locked up for a short period of time,” he said.

According to figures cited in the article, Connecticut reduced the number of parolees and probationers sent back to jail on technical violations by 20%.

I was not aware of these changes (or even these figures), but I welcome this approach taken by the Department. It has long been evident that different rules apply in different jurisdictions and whether a parolee/probationer gets sent back to jail on a technical violation depends on what region he is from. Hopefully now, there will be a state-wide policy to take a second look at technical violations and seek out alternative remedies rather then sending them back to jail.

Technorati Tags: prison overcrowding, connecticut