Recently in Corrections Category

Source: American City and County, March 13, 2009

Of the $787 billion in federal aid included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) will distribute $2.76 billion through several grant programs. The largest program, OJP's Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG), will receive $2 billion from ARRA that will go to help local governments prevent crime and improve the criminal justice system. JAG funding is distributed according to a formula of population and crime statistics. Read the entire article here.

Source: Jenifer Warren, Pew Center on the States, March 2009

From the press release:
In the past two decades, state general fund spending on corrections increased by more than 300 percent, outpacing other essential government services from education, to transportation and public assistance. Only Medicaid spending has grown faster. Today, corrections imposes a national taxpayer burden of $68 billion a year. Despite this increased spending, recidivism rates have remained largely unchanged.

Research shows that strong community supervision programs for lower-risk, non-violent offenders not only cost significantly less than incarceration but, when appropriately resourced and managed, can cut recidivism by as much as 30 percent. Diverting these offenders to community supervision programs also frees up prison beds needed to house violent offenders, and can offer budget makers additional resources for other pressing public priorities.

One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections provides a detailed look at who is in the corrections system and which states have the highest populations of offenders behind bars and in the community. Key findings include:

• One in 31 adults in America is in prison or jail, or on probation or parole. Twenty-five years ago, the rate was 1 in 77.
• Overall, two-thirds of offenders are in the community, not behind bars. 1 in 45 adults is on probation or parole and 1 in 100 is in prison or jail. The proportion of offenders behind bars versus in the community has changed very little over the past 25 years, despite the addition of 1.1 million prison beds.
• Correctional control rates are highly concentrated by race and geography: 1 in 11 black adults (9.2 percent) versus 1 in 27 Hispanic adults (3.7 percent) and 1 in 45 white adults (2.2 percent); 1 in 18 men (5.5 percent) versus 1 in 89 women (1.1 percent). The rates can be extremely high in certain neighborhoods. In one block-group of Detroit's East Side, for example, 1 in 7 adult men (14.3 percent) is under correctional control.
• Georgia, where 1 in 13 adults is behind bars or under community supervision, leads the top five states that also include Idaho, Texas, Massachusetts, Ohio and the District of Columbia.
See also:
50 state fact sheets

Source: Laura Eckert Thompson, Nurse.com, February 23, 2009

For every day there's not a gang-related incident in the emergency department, they can thank New Jersey State Parole Board and New Jersey Hospital Association officials for helping them prevent it.

Source: Progressive States Network, Stateside Dispatch, February 19, 2009

Recognizing the severity of the economic crisis our nation faces, President Obama this week signed the landmark American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a plan aimed at "restoring or saving" 3.5 million jobs and investing in the long-term future of the American economy.

Built into the plan is a recognition that while the federal government can assist in funding the work, most of the implementation of the plan will happen in the states. This Dispatch provides facts, guidance and a collection of resources to state leaders and advocates on how to implement the recovery plan in a strategic manner that strengthens our states and honors our progressive values.

Contents include:
Overview - Summaries and Key Resources

Transparency Requirements for States

Education

Health Care:

* Medicaid Support | Health Care for the Unemployed | SCHIP expansion and inclusion of immigrant children and pregnant women | Health Information Technology

Clean Energy and Transportation Investments

* State Energy Conservation Programs | Upgrading the Electrical Grid | Transportation and Infrastructure Investments

Broadband Provisions

Unemployment and Training Programs:

* Extended and Expanded Benefits | Modernizing Unemployment Insurance Systems | Training Funds | Expanded Safety Net Support | TANF Funding | Nutrition Programs | Child Care and Support | Affordable and Emergency Housing

Criminal Justice Funding

Source: Camille Graham Camp, Patricia L. Hardyman, Robert May, George E. Camp, National Institute of Corrections, December 2008

This manual adapts the Staffing Analysis Workbook for Jails to the prison environment, adding value by drawing from the following additional sources:
■ Materials from NIC's prison staffing analysis seminar.
■ Nationwide inventories of security staffing analysis practices in facilities and/or units that house the general population of male offenders and those that house female, mentally ill, and chronically ill offenders.
■ Focus group input from staffing analysis and special populations experts.
■ Numerous publications, departmental policies and procedures, and other materials pertaining to staffing and populations.

Source: Eric Shultz, On the Line, Vol. 32, No. 1, January 2009

As many economists have already stated, the economy is as weak as it has been in decades, and it does not appear as though it will get better any time soon. The financial and auto industries are not the only ones suffering. The effects are being felt all over the country, in almost every industry and seemingly within every organization. The public, private and nonprofit sectors all seem to be tightening their belts, cutting costs and looking for new ways to generate revenue.

States, counties and local governments are being forced to make difficult budget cuts for the new year. The American Correctional Association has attempted to quantify and summarize the effects these cuts will have on corrections by surveying the state departments of correction and juvenile justice. In December 2008, we asked each if they have to make cuts to their current fiscal year budget and, if so, by how much. If they had not, we asked if they expect to have to make future budget cuts. We also asked them to identify the specific areas of operations these cuts would affect, including new construction and/or renovations, staff positions, wages and benefits, travel, staff training, correctional industries, offender education, offender programs such as substance abuse treatment and reentry, and any other cuts. Click here to view the results of this survey.

Source: Andrew P. Wilper, Steffie Woolhandler, J. Wesley Boyd, Karen E. Lasser, Danny McCormick, David H. Bor, and David U. Himmelstein, American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 99 no. 1, January 2009
(subscription required)

The prison population of the United States has quadrupled in the past 25 years, and the country now incarcerates more people per capita than any other nation. Worldwide, imprisonment per 100000 ranges from 30 in India to 75 in Norway, 119 in China, 148 in the United Kingdom, 628 in Russia, and 750 in the United States.

Currently, nearly 2.3 million US inmates (about 1% of US adults) must rely on their jailers for health care. Although prisoners have a constitutional right to health care through the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of ''cruel and unusual'' punishment, periodic scandals, as well as previous studies, indicate that prisoners' access to health care and the quality of that care are often deficient.Indeed, citing deplorable conditions in California's prison system, a federal judge recently removed prison health care from the state's control. However, there is little nationally representative data on the health and health care of America's prisoners.

Source: Annie Salsich, Paragini Amin, Ben Estep, Vera Institute of Justice, December 2008

In February 2007, the Vera Institute of Justice and the New York State Task Force on Juvenile Justice Indicators, a committee of key juvenile justice stakeholders chaired by the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS), published the state's first-ever set of statewide juvenile justice statistical indicators--data that offer insight into an organization's work or the environment in which it operates. Using 2004 data collected from four state agencies, Widening the Lens: A Panoramic View of Juvenile Justice in New York State, summarized indicators within five key areas of the system: arrest, referral to court, detention, court processing, and disposition (sentencing). The report allowed practitioners, policymakers, and officials to view the juvenile justice system in its entirety for the first time, making it possible to begin pinpointing system needs and designing and implementing data-driven reforms.

This new publication, which relies on data from 2004 to 2006, is the first sequel to the 2007 report. It sets forth analytical observations from the most recent juvenile justice figures and identifies state and local trends, an important development since the first report. With a snapshot of how county and state juvenile justice systems have been operating from 2004 to 2006, stakeholders will be able to begin to identify promising trends and isolate areas that are ripe for reform. The observations and trends provided in the report are intended as examples only; local stakeholders are encouraged to examine the full set of indicators with an eye toward their own particular needs and concerns.

Source: Association of State Correctional Administrators, December 2008

In November, 2008 the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) profiled state actions for managing corrections costs in light of the current fiscal crisis. This document provides a categorical listing of these savings measures as reported by the states. Although neither the ASCA nor the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices has yet analyzed these measures to assess their full impact, we are making this information available to inform your discussions of cost savings measures during this very difficult fiscal climate.

Source: National Governors Association, December 16, 2008

The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices held the first in a series of webcasts on strategies aimed at maintaining public safety while reducing corrections expenditures. This webcast was made possible through a partnership with the Pew Charitable Trust Public Safety Performance Project.

The current economic crisis is forcing governors to take dramatic steps to balance state budgets in nearly all categories by laying off employees, cutting services, reducing overtime, and eliminating capital expenditures. However, the storm waters of the budget crisis will not crest until 2009. Tax revenues are forecasted to significantly drop and credit and bond markets will continue to tighten. Given such dire forecasts, governors need to be prepared to make even deeper cuts to core services including healthcare, education, transportation, and corrections. While making across-the-board budget cuts presents many difficult decisions, the challenges associated with making deep cuts to corrections is particularly daunting considering the potential for disastrous public safety outcomes.