Community Sentencing More Favorable Than Short Prison Sentences on Reoffending Rates

An article on the positive statistical results of community corrections in comparison with short prison stays:

Perhaps most significantly, the figures also show a substantial drop in reoffending by adults who are given non-custodial sentences, with 36% of adults given community sentences now reoffending within one year. This contrasts favourably with short prison sentences, with nearly three out of every five offenders (59%) released from a prison sentence of less than 12 months reoffending within one year, the highest of any sentence. Unlike community penalties, short prison sentences are also barely more effective than they were at the start of the decade. Between 2000 and 2006 there has only been a 4.8% reduction in the frequency of reoffending for prisoners on sentences of less than 12 months (compared to a 23.4% reduction for community sentences).

As the author admits, community sentences are not directly comparable to short prison stays and therefore any statistical comparisons are somewhat misleading. But, always a fan of community corrections, I take positive news where I find it.

Georgia's Fast Track Facilities

Georgia has funded new facility designs - termed "Fast Track" - in order to deal with the prison population increase. From the Valdosta Daily:

Designed to house 256 inmates, the Fast Tracks were funded by the General Assembly four years ago to address the growth in the prison population and optimize current prison infrastructure, according to a press release from the Department of Corrections. The facilities, which are much larger than typical prison facilities, are expected to increase bed capacity for Georgia prisons by 1,800 by the end of the fiscal year.

The Fast Track design features an elevated control center located in the center of four dormitories, which allow clear visual observation of the entire facility. Restrooms and recreation areas are also brought forward to improve observation by security staff. Doors to each dormitory recreation area can be opened automatically from the control center as well.

Because of the improved infrastructure design, the department is able to open each of the Fast Tracks with fewer than 25 correctional officers compared to previous designs that require a security personnel staff of more than 40. There is also no requirement for additional food service, maintenance, administration or medical operations since the existing infrastructure will be leveraged.

I wish they had some pictures attached. I'm always interested in innovative prison architectural designs that allow for reduced staff.

New Inmate Vocational Training Program: Murder

O, the drama...From the Wisconsin State Journal:

A Wisconsin prison guard solicited an inmate to kill her former son-in-law, then framed him for prison rules violations when he refused to do it, the inmate claimed in a $2 million federal civil rights lawsuit filed Wednesday.

There are so many great parts to this story. First, the payment: $2500 and a plane ticket to Hawaii, where the murder was to take place. Like gun in one hand, drink with little umbrella in the other; do the deed in the morning, and still have time to catch a great wave in the afternoon. And is $2500 the going rate for murder nowadays or did she just figure she'd get a prison guard discount?

When the inmate declined (go figure), the criminal mastermind "then asked Rice if he knew any women who would meet her former son-in-law, seduce him and falsely accuse him of rape." Gotta give her a P for Persistence.

When the inmate declined again, the guard reportedly became angry and accused him of "being like all the other men in her life." What, all those other men you tried to bribe into killing someone? Those men?

She then (allegedly) conspired to falsely accuse the inmate of rule violations in retaliation. I have to say, only an idiot would do retaliate against an inmate who had dirt on her, so this really casts doubt on the inmate's complaint. I don't care if it's all a fraud - I give the inmate points for a great story.

More Uses for Old Prisons: Museum

Iraq is going to reopen Abu Ghraib as a museum - not of US prison abuses, as one might suspect, but of crimes under Saddam Hussein. Hmmm, not sounding like a real crowd pleaser, if you ask me...

A Vote for Open Prisons

Article and comments in favor of the use of open prisons in Scotland - or at least in favor of not holding the prison service responsible for the crimes committed by prisoners released on furlough. The author makes a good point that if the prison services were to be held accountable for inmates released "negligently," no inmate would ever be released.

To be critical, in this argument, he does not seem to differentiate between inmates released on furlough and those that are released due to the expiration of their sentence. In the first instance, prison officials have to make a judgment call as to whether to release an inmate on furlough - that's where negligence enters the picture. Once the prisoner's sentence expires, he has a constitutional right to be released - negligence cannot be an issue.

But he has a point - and this may in fact be why many states no longer release inmates on furlough. The public outcry over crimes committed (and let's face it, the high recidivism rate doesn't exist because every ex-convict is a saint upon release) would be great - as it apparently currently is in Scotland.

Case Note: Turner v. Burnside

The Eleventh Circuit, in an amazing decision, holds that “a prison official's serious threats of substantial retaliation against an inmate for lodging in good faith a grievance make the administrative remedy ‘unavailable,’ and thus lift the exhaustion requirement” of the PLRA.

Facts:

“According to [Turner’s] complaint, a prison employee supervising inmates forced Turner to clean an oven even after Turner had protested that it was not safe to do so because the oven was sparking electricity and the floor was wet. When he touched the oven, Turner received an electrical shock that knocked him to the ground and permanently damaged his leg. Instead of turning off the power or sympathizing with Turner, the supervisor joked about what had happened, called Turner stupid, and filed a disciplinary report against him. Turner alleges that the supervisor later told him that exposing Turner to the risk of electrical shock was his way of getting back at him for being too fat. After he was shocked, a prison guard took Turner to the prison's infirmary where he contends that he received deliberately indifferent medical care…

On September 9, 2004, two days after Turner submitted his formal grievance, Warden Tydus Meadows called him ‘to security.’ When Turner arrived, Meadows was holding the formal grievance form Turner had submitted, and said, ‘Oh--you're the one that got shocked!’ The warden told him, according to Turner: ‘that if I didn't like the way they did things around here he would put my ass in the van with inmate Johnson and transfer me so far south that I would never be able to see my family again till I got out of the Georgia Prison System.’ Meadows then tore up Turner's complaint in front of him and said that he ‘had better not hear of another grievance or lawsuit pertaining to [Turner] getting shocked.’”

Analysis:

Classy stuff. The Eleventh Circuit’s decision not to hold this against Turner may seem to the logical and sane to be natural and the only just result. However, the magistrate judge actually decided against Turner because he did not follow up by filing an additional grievance or appealing the warden’s decision (to tear up the grievance). This strikes me as very akin to the courts pretending that an inmate who is retaliated against for using the grievance procedure should follow it up with another grievance…grieving the retaliation. Like that’s going to happen. The District Court, of course, followed the magistrate’s recommendation.

The Eleventh Circuit took a different stance. Acknowledging the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement, the court noted that the PLRA “does not require inmates to craft new procedures when prison officials demonstrate--and here we mean that word literally--that they will refuse to abide by the established ones.” The Georgia grievance procedure did not require inmates to grieve breakdowns in the procedure or to resubmit the same grievance to the same official who destroyed the original grievance (maybe prison officials will read this case and do a little redrafting).

Turner also argued that the warden’s threat made the appeal remedy unavailable to him. According to the court, “a remedy has to be available before it must be exhausted, and to be ‘available’ a remedy must be ‘capable of use for the accomplishment of [its] purpose.’”

“One of the purposes of administrative remedies is to give prisoners a way of attempting to improve prison conditions without having to file a lawsuit...That purpose is thwarted if the prisoner is told that lodging a grievance will result in his overall condition becoming worse instead of better. Where cost outweighs benefit a rational decision maker will forego the benefit. When an inmate foregoes administrative remedies because prison officials have made it irrational for him to pursue them, the inmate loses a benefit that Congress intended to bestow on him. The corrections and judicial systems also lose the substantial benefits that administrative remedies were intended to provide them…

Stated differently, at least some threats disrupt the operation and frustrate the purposes of the administrative remedies process enough that the PLRA's exhaustion requirement does not allow them. The construction of "availability" that we adopt is beneficial because it reduces any incentive that prison officials otherwise might have to use threats to prevent inmates from exhausting their administrative remedies, and it thereby safeguards the benefits of the administrative review process for everyone.

We conclude that a prison official's serious threats of substantial retaliation against an inmate for lodging in good faith a grievance make the administrative remedy "unavailable," and thus lift the exhaustion requirement as to the affected parts of the process if both of these conditions are met: (1) the threat actually did deter the plaintiff inmate from lodging a grievance or pursuing a particular part of the process; and (2) the threat is one that would deter a reasonable inmate of ordinary firmness and fortitude from lodging a grievance or pursuing the part of the grievance process that the inmate failed to exhaust.”

The court’s decision opens the door to a whole host of inmate arguments as to what constitutes an “unavailable” administrative remedy. What qualifies as a threat? How to even make sense of the phrase “reasonable inmate of ordinary firmness and fortitude?” I haven’t a clue what that means, but I’m liking the direction of the court’s thinking. An appellate court is finally acknowledging the realities of inmate life rather than sticking to the law like all of life falls within its clearly-cut lines.

2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 18510

Las Vegas Considering New Prison Design

Check out this excerpt from the Las Vegas Sun:

"The head of the state prison system said he’s willing to stake his career on the design for a proposed Southern Nevada prison that would be built without guard towers.

Fencing is more effective than towers,” prisons chief Howard Skolnik told the state Public Works Board on Tuesday. “Every escape has been the result of human error.”

The fences would be equipped with technology that would detect an inmate approaching or touching the barrier and alert guards, Skolnik said. The fences aren’t electrified; “they don’t kill,” he said.

The design, similar to that being used in other states, eliminates the human error that has led to every escape from a Nevada prison since Skolnik has been with the Corrections Department, he said."