The cost of sleeping in a state prison: how much is too much?
Mon, 2007-07-02 14:17 - Kerry
Jail crowding solution sought
State warns Warren County. Within two years, changes needed, N.J. says, or waiver is history.
Monday, July 02, 2007
BY SARA K. SATULLO
WHITE TWP. | When Warren County opened its 76-bed jail in August 1986, it wasn't equipped to handle the county's growing population and crime rate.
Within two months, the jail had 79 inmates. By the end of that year, jail officials sought permission to double- bunk inmates in single cells. Putting two inmates in a cell placed the county in violation of the state's inmates-to-shower ratio and required a waiver. Then the jail had to convert a gym into a 40-bed cellblock, which required more waivers.
As of Friday, the jail housed 141 inmates.
Warren County recently reapplied for waivers, as it does every two years, from the state Department of Corrections. The agency granted them but put the county on notice: To get the approval again in two years there better be results.
"Warren County will need to plan an expansion or renovation to help ease the overcrowding," corrections department spokeswoman Deirdre Fedkenheuer said.
County officials are aware action needs to be taken but no major steps have occurred.
Freeholder Richard Gardner went so far as to say he's not in favor of expanding the jail.
"I'm going to challenge the state of New Jersey. I've been to the Camden facility, they virtually have inmate stacking," Gardner said. "If they don't mandate Camden, they can't mandate Warren County."
Freeholder Director Everett Chamberlain said he wants to explore possibilities such as shipping juvenile offenders out of county to free up space at the Warren Acres Juvenile Detention Center.
"We have to look at our facilities and try to utilize them to the maximum effectiveness before we create a new building because the taxpayers of Warren County can't afford to implement all of the things the state tells us we need to have," he said. "If they want to mandate it, they should pay for it."
If the county becomes noncompliant, the Department of Corrections would not issue fines.
"However we can cease having state-sentenced inmates sent to the county," Fedkenheuer said, a move that would eliminate revenue for the jail.
Northampton County is facing major problems with its prison because six years ago county council cut down on a four-phase jail expansion to save money. Currently the prison is operating at capacity and inmates are being farmed out to other prisons.
In June 2006, a 243-bed phase of the Northampton expansion opened that cost $22.8 million. To complete half of the old expansion plans, officials estimate it could cost $53 million.
Warren County's first step to avoid a similar quagmire was a 2005 freeholder board-commissioned criminal justice study by the National Institute of Corrections. The study gave a good rating but did raise the jail's size as an issue. The report also recommended options within the court system for future changes to ease the pressure.
Gardner and Steve Marvin, the Warren County administrator, said there are steps the courts can take to reduce the inmate population such as community service for minor offenses. Another alternative is the Correction Labor Assistance Program, known as CLAP, for nonviolent offenders. Many of those do work service instead of spending the weekend in jail.
"We are on the receiving end, we don't have control of the population end besides creating new programs," Marvin said.
Reporter Sara K. Satullo can be reached at 908-475-2174 or by e-mail at ssatullo@express-times.com.
- Add new comment
- 198 reads
Comments
America's One-Million Nonviolent Prisoners
I. Introduction
II. Major Findings
Contrary to the public perception that the incarceration of violent offenders has driven America's prison growth, the Institute found that 77% of the growth in intake to America's state and federal prisons between 1978 and 1996 was accounted for by nonviolent offenders. According to data collected by the United States Justice Department, from 1978 to 1996, the number of violent offenders entering our nation's prisons doubled (from 43,733 to 98,672 inmates); the number of nonviolent offenders tripled (from 83,721 to 261,796 inmates) and the number of drug offenders increased seven-fold (from 14,241 to 114,071 inmates). Justice Department surveys show that 52.7% of state prison inmates, 73.7% of jail inmates, and 87.6% of federal inmates were imprisoned for offenses which involved neither harm, nor the threat of harm, to a victim. Based on this data, we estimate that by the end of 1998, there were 440,088 nonviolent jail inmates, 639,280 nonviolent state prison inmates, and 106,090 nonviolent federal prisoners locked up in America, for a total 1,185,458 nonviolent prisoners.
B. Cost of Incarceration
Institute researchers found, in total, it cost America $24 billion to incarcerate its 1 .2 million nonviolent offenders last year. The $24 billion figure is almost 50% larger than the entire $16.6 billion the federal government currently spends on a welfare program that serves 8.5 million people. The costs of incarcerating 1.2 million non-violent offenders is 6 times more than the federal government spent on child care for 1.25 million children. Previous JPI reports have found a nearly a dollar-for-dollar state and federal funding tradeoff between corrections and higher education.
C. Crime control benefits of incarceration
It has been argued that this growth in imprisonment has reduced crime across the nation. Yet jurisdictions which have zealously increased their incarceration rates have not experienced higher crime drops than jurisdictions that have had made more modest use of incarceration.
Between 1992 and 1997, California's prison population grew by 30%, or about 270 inmates per week, compared to New York State's more modest growth of 30 inmates a week. While New York's violent crime rate 38.6 % and its murder rate fell by 54.5 % over the same period, California's violent crime rate fell by a more modest 23%, and its murder rate fell by 28%. Put another way, New York experienced a percentage drop in homicides which was half again as great as the percentage drop in California's homicide rate, despite the fact that California added 9 times as many inmates per week to its prisons as New York.
Canada, a country with about as many people as the state of California, has about one fourth as many people behind bars, and provides a good contrast for judging the crime control value of mass incarceration. With 4.3 times as many prisoners, California has 4.6 times the homicide rate of Canada. Between 1992 and 1996, Canada increased its prison population by a modest 2,370 inmates (7%), while California's prison population grew by 36,069 inmates (25% ). Surprisingly, during that same period, both the Canadian and California homicide rates declined at exactly the same rate of 24%.
III. Conclusion and Recommendations
The policy implications of imprisoning more than one million nonviolent prisoners are profound, and warrant a great deal of public discussion and debate. In the short term, to take stress off the burgeoning of state and federal prison systems, the authors recommend the following:
That the states and the federal government should abolish mandatory sentencing schemes which send nonviolent offenders to prison for lengthy periods of time.
Systems such as the one in Minnesota, should be replicated nationwide. Minnesota's sentencing law change during the 1980s drastically slowed prison growth in that state and reserved prison space for violent and more serious offenders, while establishing a network of support programs for less serious offenders. New federal funds (and those now earmarked exclusively for prison construction) should be allocated to help states develop ways to substantially reduce the number of nonviolent prisoners in their systems and to carefully evaluate the impacts those reforms have on crime.
What can be done to lessen the burden?
Becoming aware of specific problems is a good way to initiate Change. I find it very sad that money and services are being wasted on cases that serve no good to the safety and well-being of children. How many criminals are ordinary people, with ordinary problems? How many inmates in our state prisons are victims of Mandatory Minimums? I cannot help but see a twisted sort of irony here... Judges are sending non-violent drug offenders to an over-crowded prison system, where more problems develop and less good results from incarceration. [Please read, Confronting Confinement, from prisoncommission.org/ ]
Meanwhile, these non-violent drug cases are breaking-up families, and in many cases, forcing children into a welfare system that is corrupt and negligent in it's own standards of operation. The concentric circles of corruption take over when Safety and Protection issues go untouched and ignored. Someone is profiting from human error. The question is, Who?
What sort of Social Service does each state provide its residents and children? Consider this perspective through the eyes of the child in Foster Care or Adoption Services: Are adoption advocates really ensuring a better, safer, healthier life for each mother's baby sold through private adoption agencies, or does environment safety not matter as much as agency profit? If a child is removed from his/her home due to health and safety concerns, isn't each State responsible and accountable for each public safety measure promised it's people? I believe the prison population reflects the social ills neglect has caused each tax-payer in each home. Where is it safe for a child to live if public safety is not improved? According to study reports found in http://www.vera.org/publication_pdf/379_727.pdf, issues related to safeguarding adults and children in any given jurisdiction are presented and discussed. Tax-payers ought to read how their money is being spent by the leaders they are voting into office.
In addition, I want to share another excellent link and resource of information. The FAMM website features cases and stories that give a whole new face to The Criminal Mind.
Just like not all adoptions are done through baby-brokers and financially greedy private agencies, not all crimes are commited by the same type of people, for the same reasons Law Makers seem to have assigned drug-related cases. I believe each story has it's own worth and merit in terms of lessons learned from mistakes made in the past.
I believe in cases of drug-use and possession, one has to ask: "How and why did this person get caught in this cycle of addiction, in the first place? What was going on in his life and home environment that led this person to the prison population? " Maybe THEN the public can help find solutions to problems that affect each generation's sense of safety and well-being.
Families Against Mandatory Minimums
The American justice system traditionally permits judges to weigh all the facts of a case when determining an offender's sentence. But in the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. Congress and many state legislatures passed laws that force judges to give fixed prison terms to those convicted of specific crimes, most often drug offenses. Lawmakers believed these harsh, inflexible sentencing laws would catch those at the top of the drug trade and deter others from entering it.
Instead, this heavy-handed response to the nation's drug problem filled prisons with low-level offenders, resulting in over-capacity prison populations and higher costs for taxpayers. Mandatory sentencing laws disproportionately affect people of color and, because of their severity, destroy families. Two decades after the enactment of mandatory sentences, these laws have failed to deter people from using or selling drugs: drugs are cheaper, purer and more easily obtainable than ever before.
In the Explore Sentencing section of the FAMM website, you'll learn about federal and state sentencing laws and the major problems that arise from these laws, as well as how FAMM is currently working to reform these laws.