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And you were on it like white on rice.
boutons went there
And you were on it like white on rice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/us...sons.html?_r=1The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than 30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.
Somewhat related, CA prison guards make $61K (unionized), while TX prison guards make $31K.
Hidden cost is that CA prison guard churn is 10%, while TX is 50%.
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"Texas prison guards earned the second-lowest guard salaries in the nation, according to the union that represents many state correctional officers, AFSCME-CEC7."
http://realcostofprisons.org/blog/ar...sons_go_b.html
http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-poli...n-1286727.htmlConservative states across the South have altered their approach to criminal sentencing in recent years by replacing the tough-on-crime mantra with a “smart on crime” philosophy that supporters say saves money and could even cut repeat offenses.
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/02...#storylink=cpyNinety-nine times over the last six years, Kansas legislators have changed the law to make sure that crime doesn’t pay.But as tougher penalties pack more criminals into prisons that are already overcrowded, the state is struggling to balance the new costs of justice against needs such as education and social services.
"fryin n!gg@s" and browns with planted evidence is just one tactic police use to arrest/jail, to make their quota.
Jailing, executions, railroading the poor in court are definitely racially/ethnically biased activities.
(NYPD has been accused recently of suppressing criminal reports so it would look like they were succeeding in reducing crime rates.)
please catch up. topic is corrections reform.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/in...ver_corre.htmlOur view is that a state that has seen its Department of Corrections grow by 97 percent since 1995, becoming a $1.4 billion enterprise, the third largest state agency, ought to at least be interested in taking a long and thoughtful look at whether mandatory sentencing and ever-increasing prison costs amount to the best or only way to fight crime.
Corrections reform would mean less $Bs for CCA and all the other PIC bloodsuckers. A great way to fill/maintain prisons is load them up with poor, poorly defended/railroaded blacks and browns. Corrupt police and prosecutors play along. Can't really separate correction reform from prison contents.
prisons are an objective expense which at some point may conflict with other public priorities. many states have already reached that point, more will reach it soon. the question is not whether or not there will be prison reform, but how much and what kind.
LE and prosecutors figure in, for sure, but the lege sets the numbers of beds it'll pay for, as well as policies for parole, probation, good time and alternatives to incarceration like drug diversion programs.
http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.co....html?spref=fbDeincarceration in California: Evaluating 'realignment' one year in
Last year federal courts ordered California to radically reduce its prison population, and though it hasn't yet met targets set by the judges, their number of prisoners declined radically, leaving Texas as the state incarcerating the most people, the Golden State's population is half-again ours. Many of those inmates were shifted to county jails while an even greater number ended up on some form of community supervision. Yesterday was the one year anniversary of California's prison "realignment" scheme, which shifted responsibility for supervising certain low-level offenders to counties. According to the group, Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB)
"The good news about realignment is that there were 30,000 fewer people who spent last night in a cell than there were when Gov. Brown was elected," said Emily Harris of Californians United for a Responsible Budget. "Because the state is spending $800 million less on Corrections than we did two years ago, we avoided another $800 million in cuts to services for poor children and the elderly."The ACLU of Northern California offered less sanguine figures on the scope of reduced incarceration, estimating that:
The state's prison population has dropped to 124,701 from a high of 173,479 in 2006 while the state's jail population has increased by 2,849 over the last year. Crime rates continue to fall statewide.
"If we can have 30,000 fewer people locked up in a time of massive unemployment and widespread foreclosures without seeing an upturn in crime, then it is clear we didn't need to have all those people locked up in the first place," said Harris.
while the state's prison population has decreased by nearly 25,000 during the past year, counties have increased their own jail capacity by more than 7,000 beds, spending tens of millions of dollars in state realignment dollars to expand jail capacity. Billions of additional dollars in the form of state lease-revenue bonds are in the pipeline for even more jail construction that would create an additional 10,000 beds. This despite the ACLU's new polling data showing that 75 percent of state voters favor investing public money in more prevention and alternatives to jail for non-violent offenders.That group issued a briefing paper (pdf) predicting that short-term incarceration reductions wouldn't last unless more resources are devoted to programming aimed at supervising offenders in the community and reducing recidivism. An appendix to that do ent included polling data focused in part on public at udes toward pretrial detention, presenting:
to voters a hypothetical match-up between two potential candidates for the State Legislature – one candidate who voted in favor of allowing more monitoring in the community instead of jail for people awaiting trial for non-violent offenses running against a candidate who voted against this proposal. The reform candidate won by a nearly 3-to-1 margin with 63 percent to only 23 percent for the candidate opposing the reform. The reform candidate drew bipartisan support and led among Democrats (74 percent to 14 percent), independents (64 percent to 22 percent) and even Republicans (46 percent to 36 percent).As is the case here in Texas, a sizable majority of inmates in county jails (nearly 70%) are incarcerated while awaiting trial.
It should be noted that the ACLU-NC figures and those from CURB aren't entirely contradictory: CURB compares the present prison population to a 2006 high. And the the ACLU-NC estimated 7,000 beds of expanded jail capacity, while CURB said the the number actually incarcerated in county jails "increased by 2,849 over the last year." While CURB says the prison population reduced "nearly 30,000" in the last year and ACLU-NC pegged the reduction at "nearly 25,000," the San Francisco Chronicle put the figure at 27,000. So the precise figure is apparently a matter of some dispute.
A couple of news stories commemorating realignment's anniversary stand out. For instance, though Alameda County (Oakland), "was already sending 30 percent fewer people to prison than the state average, the county still managed to cut new prison admissions by 39 percent during the first nine months of prison realignment" without a noticeable uptick in crime. There have been some problems, though, as "The already-thin probation department staff had to adjust to a new approach: rehabilitation of its inmates, rather than the traditional 'trail 'em and nail 'em,' or watching for violations that would land probationers back in prison."
There has been tremendous variation among counties regarding how realignment has been implemented, reported the San Francisco Chronicle: "Stanislaus County, for example, has about half the population of San Francisco but houses nearly 1,200 inmates in its county jails - nearly as many as San Francisco's 1,500. The Stanislaus County jails were at capacity even before realignment took effect, and Sheriff Adam Christianson said the influx of inmates this past year - more than the state forecast - forced the jail to release hundreds of criminals, whom he called "the best of the worst." San Francisco, by contrast, "gave probation 81 percent of its realignment funding and spent 19 percent on health and treatment services. A tiny fraction went to the Sheriff's Department, which is operating jails at below its population capacity. The only new beds in the pipeline are at a center intended to help state prisoners transition back into the community during their last two months before release."
Even critics acknowledge that reported crime statewide hasn't noticeably increased, though they're quick to point to anecdotes to support such a meme. Said the President of the tuff-on-crime Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, "We're not trying to make a statewide case yet, the numbers aren't up, but when you see fires pop up all over the forest, you don't wait a year to say the forest burned down." Given that California's crime rate last year hit a 42 year low, Grits wouldn't be surprised to see a slight uptick, even if realignment hadn't occurred, but I also consider it equally likely the state will follow national trends and see crime continue to drop. My personal view is that with incarceration levels at all time highs, the marginal benefit of extra incarceration is minimal, just as the marginal extra crime from reduced incarceration is likely to be low. Especially for violent offenses, I wouldn't expect realignment as it's played out in California - with significant extra funds shifted to counties to aid with supervision - to have a tremendous impact on crime one way or the other. But with such wide disparities in how counties are using that money, it's difficult to judge at this early stage, and of course, time will tell.
http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.co....html?spref=fbExpanded medical parole would save tens of millions
At the Austin Statesman, Mike Ward provides the latest data and arguments for expanding use of medical parole for elderly and infirm inmates ("Old, infirm inmates costly to state; officials looking at alternatives," Oct. 3):
With the Legislature certain to face a tight state budget when it convenes next January, state officials confirmed Tuesday they are exploring a plan that could parole many of the most infirm, bed-ridden offenders into secure nursing homes where the offenders could be kept track of by ankle monitoring bracelets.
State records reveal that the 10 sickest convicts alone cost taxpayers more than $1.9 million during 2011, a figure that prison doctors say is growing every year as Texas’ prison population gets older and more infirm.In all, records show that convicts over age 55 now make up 8 percent of Texas’ prison population, but account for 30 percent of its medical costs. ...An internal prison report shows health care for the 10 costliest offenders ranged from $331,651 a year for a 48-year-old Houston robber to $131,294 for a drunk driver who died in prison.At least three others are mostly bedridden with various ailments: A 40-year-old Dallas drug dealer’s health care cost $226,806 a year, a 57-year-old Corpus Christi armed burglar cost $181,779 a year, and a 34-year-old El Paso murderer cost $181,779.Some prisoners have had open heart surgery, leg and arm amputations, kidney failure, while others have terminal cancer, paralysis and other maladies that have limited their mobility, officials said.Taking into account the cost of security, [Texas Civil Rights Project attorney Brian] McGiverin estimated that if the state released on parole its terminally ill and infirm convicts, the savings could reach $76 million over two years.See related coverage from the Texas Tribune, where the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Marc Levin provided more conservative savings estimate than McGivern:
Marc Levin, director of the Center for Effective Justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, agreed that the process is creating needless costs. In a recent report, he noted that granting parole to “infirm” inmates would save the state $42.6 million in 2013, while only adding $1.57 million in parole costs.Most of these high-expense prisoners/patients would be eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance if they were paroled, meaning the feds would pick up their medical tab instead of it coming 100% from the state general fund. If the state is going to do this, though, it would behoove them to assist with eligibility determination for SSDI as part of the reentry process so that local hospital districts aren't stuck with the tab for indigent services.
Levin said his organization is planning to propose legislation to simplify the process for medical parole. Levin said time and money are wasted when doctors spend write recommendations for inmates who won’t be considered eligible for medical parole anyway. And, he said, the parole board members don’t likely have the medical knowledge to understand the language in the recommendations.
A single commission with doctors and parole officials “in the same room” discussing cases “would really streamline the process,” Levin said.
"high-expenses" are being pocketed by people and corporations who buy politicians, regulators, administrators to keep those expenses high.
Out of one pocket into another.McGiverin estimated that if the state released on parole its terminally ill and infirm convicts, the savings could reach $76 million over two years.
These prisoners will not magically be given private sector health insurance.
They will be forced on Medicaid/-care rolls.
I guess there is always the ER. pfft.
Look up the thread on bail bond reform. It is all tied up. There is a nasty underbelly in local politics where bail bondsmen have some very perverse incentives that feed the system, and those incentives are rather predatory on the poor.
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