Legislature(1993 - 1994)
04/06/1994 01:00 PM House JUD
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HB 153 - GOOD TIME: PT. MACKENZIE REHAB PROJECT Number 417 CHAIRMAN PORTER: "We have next, HB 153 reduction of presumptive sentences and we have with us, a representative of Madam Speaker, who is going to tell us about this bill." Number 420 MEL KROGSENG, Staff assistant to Speaker, Ramona Barnes. She said, "The Speaker would ask that the Committee Substitute in lieu of the original bill, a Committee Substitute with a new title, which would read, "An Act related to the awarding of special good time deductions for prisoners participating in the Point MacKenzie Rehabilitation Project, and providing for an effective date." The reason for this Committee Substitute is basically that, according to letters that have been sent by some of the superintendents in institutions to the chief classifications officer of the Department of Corrections, there seems to be reluctance on the part of inmates wanting to volunteer to go to Point MacKenzie because of a perceived notion - some of it is not perceived, some of it is actual - that there are not the same benefits at Point MacKenzie that there are in the regular conventional institutions. The reason that those benefits are not there, is that Point MacKenzie is a farm. It is a prison farm, it is not an institution. Therefore, we believe that it does not fall under the Cleary decision. We are not required to have a library there, and all the other requirements of Cleary. In order to keep this in this category, it is thought that it is essential that inmates volunteer to go there, rather than be simply assigned there. I have provided you with a packet which is labeled, `Active Inmate Profiles' which was run from the state OBSCIS system, Correction's computer system, on inmates, and if you would look at the second page two, you'll notice that there is the custody level classification on the left side at the top. There are 481 minimum custody prisoners as of March 28, and 96 community custody prisoners sitting in hard beds in our institutions last week. That's a total of 577 under the existing classification system, who would be eligible to go to Point MacKenzie. However, again, I believe there is a letter in your file that Mr. Ken Brown, Superintendent at Wildwood wrote to Bob Spinde who is our chief classification officer, saying that the inmates were reluctant to volunteer to go to Point MacKenzie. So Speaker feels very strongly that it would be appropriate to develop an incentive program. The incentive program that is being proposed in this Committee Substitute is a special good time incentive. For each full month for an inmate who volunteers to go to Project Hope - for each full month of participation at Project Hope, the inmate, upon recommendation of the project manager, would be credited with three days of special good time. This would be in addition to the regular good time that they are already eligible to receive. This good time would not be revocable unless the inmate were involuntary removed from Project Hope or Point MacKenzie for bad behavior. The project manager would post a set of rules which would list appropriate behavior and inappropriate behavior examples. As long as the inmate was not involuntarily removed for inappropriate behavior, then the good time would be irrevocable. So that should be a pretty good incentive. "I might tell you that as of this morning there were 54 prisoners at Project Hope. You were, I believe, given a copy of the proposed CS yesterday - that was changed this morning for two reasons. One, Point MacKenzie was spelled incorrectly in the original proposed CS, and additionally, no provision had been made for the inmates who are already there who volunteered to go there with no additional incentive. And we certainly didn't want to penalize those people because they have been doing a real bang up job for us and the program is starting to move forward. We had a visit yesterday from Mr. Bernie Carl from Fairbanks, who donated the first set of ATCO trailers. He tells us the state owns another camp at Prudhoe Bay - the Prudhoe Bay Hotel, I believe it's called. It is owned by DOT at this point. He has offered to house, feed, help in any way he can for us to go up with inmates, as we did before and remove that camp, and bring it down to either be used at Project Hope or at Palmer Minimum, as a potential minimum custody facility. There are some real good things happening out at Project Hope. We just simply need to have a little further enticement to get inmates out there and the Project Director, Mr. Michael Dindinger tells me he feels very comfortable that they could use 160 prisoners total out there this year, as long as we can sort of give them the enticement to come out there." CHAIRMAN PORTER asked Ms. Krogseng to give the executive summary for the record. MS. KROGSENG read the following Sponsor Statement: "The Department of Corrections is currently experiencing a problem with overcrowding in our institutions. The proposed Committee Substitute for House Bill 153 (Judiciary) is introduced to address two issues. First, it will help alleviate the overcrowding problem, and secondly, it will help attract volunteers for the Point MacKenzie rehabilitation project. Presently, inmates appear concerned that the benefits at Point MacKenzie are fewer than those in the conventional institutions. Consequently, they are hesitant to volunteer. This proposed legislation will provide an incentive for inmates to participate in the program. By implementing a special good time statute, we believe inmates will volunteer to serve their time at the Point MacKenzie rehabilitation project instead of in one of the conventional institutions. At Point MacKenzie, there are no fences, other than for the reindeer. There are no lock-down facilities, and all inmates must be minimum custody level, or lower. Presently, there are over 550 inmates in our system that are classified appropriately, for placement at Point MacKenzie, but some form of incentive is needed to entice volunteers. Under this legislation, each inmate who participates in the Point MacKenzie rehabilitation project will be entitled to three days of special good time for each full month served at Point MacKenzie. This good time will be irrevocable once credited against the inmate's sentence, unless the inmate is involuntarily removed from the project for inappropriate behavior. The inmate's record will be reviewed by the project manager to determine if a recommendation is to be forwarded to the commissioner for the crediting of the good time against the inmate's sentence. Not all inmates who volunteer will be selected. Each inmate will be thoroughly screened by the chief of security at Point MacKenzie and/or his or her designee. If the chief of security feels that an inmate will not be a suitable candidate, that inmate will not be selected for placement at Point MacKenzie." Number 551 REPRESENTATIVE NORDLUND: "Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Shouldn't there be some fiscal savings?" Number 558 MS. KROGSENG: "Mr. Chairman, Representative Nordlund. Yes, I would think this would provide the department with a cost savings, how much I can't say for certain at this time, but it certainly will not, I don't believe it will cost us any money, but it should save money, because our inmates would be getting out earlier than they would otherwise." REPRESENTATIVE NORDLUND: "But their fiscal note is not complete yet, is that...." MS. KROGSENG: "I guess I would ask the committee to adopt a zero fiscal note and say that it was an oversight on our part yesterday, not to have that done." Number 571 REPRESENTATIVE PHILLIPS: "Thank you, Mr. Chairman. How many people are out at Point MacKenzie right now? And how - - currently how many can they house?" MS. KROGSENG answered that there were 54 inmates at present, and as soon as the kitchen is complete, the capacity will be 160. She said the department does not oppose this legislation. Number 594 REPRESENTATIVE PHILLIPS: "When we need these kinds of minimum security beds so badly, why do we have a facility that people have to go to voluntarily, though. Why do we not just mandate that they go there?" Number 600 MS. KROGSENG: "Chairman Porter, Representative Phillips, if we were to mandate it, there is concern that the counsel for the inmates who represented them in Cleary, might then say this is an institution, which would then require us to provide all the same programs and services, facilities, libraries, and so forth, that are provided in all the other institutions. We believe very strongly, that the inmates will volunteer to go if there is a little more incentive. We have been told, according to Mr. Brown, as I mentioned in the letter that you have, that the reason the inmates don't want to go there are thus and such. However, we have also received calls from employees within the Department of Corrections, whose names will remain anonymous, who tell us that although the material is being provided to them that says Point MacKenzie is thus and so, that by word of mouth they are being told, `Why would you want to go to Project Hope? All you're going to get to do is work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. It's a long way out there, there are no programs, your family cannot visit' -which is not true - it's been made into a very doom and gloom type scenario. There is a prisoner who was scheduled to go to Project Hope, and had been screened by security, who was a master mechanic, who they really needed out there, and just before he was to be transferred out there, he changed his mind because somebody talked him out of it. I don't have any concrete evidence, but that's the sort of thing that's happening, and it's not just in one institution, we've had calls from employees in several institutions. Speaker felt very strongly that this is a good program. We think there's a lot of potential at Project Hope, given the opportunity to have the program really get going, so consequently the idea for some kind of incentive." CHAIRMAN PORTER: "And I should add, when you mentioned the requirement for libraries, this doesn't presume normal libraries - the Cleary requires for law libraries, with a law clerk." MS. KROGSENG: "Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, if I might take just take another moment of the committee's time, just to bring you up to date on a couple of things that are happening out at Project Hope already. There is, as you may or may not have heard, in each institution we have to provide an educational counselor. I think you'll find that this `Active Inmate Profile' is very interesting, if you can take the time to look through it because it tells you how many people in the institutions, out of our almost 3,000 inmates, have a GED, how many have completed a high school education, how many have not, how many have a four-year degree, how many do not. We're paying thousands of dollars for education programs. We have 47 inmates out of almost 3,000 who've gotten a GED. That seems to be, I'm told, the biggest issue in the institutions as far as education is concerned. There is a program at Project Hope right now - a GED program - being run by the inmates, it is accredited by the State Board of Education and inmates are teaching other inmates and helping them to get their GED. There is a fire training program which will provide forest fire training. The inmates will get a state certificate that has no reference to Project Hope, or to the Department of Corrections. They will be certified firefighters. They will, in addition to being able to, when they complete their sentence, go out and obtain work in this area of labor, they will also provide volunteer firefighter services for the Point MacKenzie area. There is no fire department out there at all. There's just a tremendous amount of potential to be had at Project Hope, if we can get it really rolling. It's picking up steam - it just needs a little more impetus. And the people that are out there - Mr. Carl that I referenced before, has two men right now who have been released, who are working for him on the North Slope. He said he would like to hire everyone who's released because when the men went up and took down the camp to bring it down, they did such an excellent job. Give them a little incentive. Give them the idea that they're worthwhile and they can make a contribution. There is potentially hope for some of these folks down the road." REPRESENTATIVE GREEN: "Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If this can be brought about, there's 110 or so beds in other institutions that would be freed up and I think this is an excellent, excellent chance to do that." Number 674 REPRESENTATIVE NORDLUND: "The good time reduction of the sentence here amounts to three days out of a month is essentially 10 percent. Under the regular good time, what is the reduction for that?" Number 680 JERRY LUCKHAUPT: "For the record, my name is Jerry Luckhaupt, Division of Legal Services. Right now, inmates get one-third of whatever their sentence is. One-third comes off the top. When they come in the institution -- it's a record keeping measure -- they take one-third off. When the person finishes serving the two-thirds of their sentence, they are then released on mandatory probation, if they haven't screwed up while they've been in the penitentiary and they serve out on mandatory parole that remaining one-third of their sentence. Add on -- this extra three days a month would add on to that period of time and so it would be subtracted off of that one-third, it would continue stair-stepping down, so it would actually increase their time on mandatory parole. In a lot of cases, that mandatory parole gives you a bit of a hammer over the inmate when he gets out and back into society. They know that they just can't revert back to their previous bad behavior. In a lot of situations that mandatory parole is not supervised in most cases, right at first it is, and then gradually moves into an unsupervised sort of routine." REPRESENTATIVE NORDLUND: "What kinds of folks go to Point MacKenzie - you know, what kind of crimes have they committed. Any time you have another bill dealing with furloughs and we're talking about good times, and basically relieving people of their sentences, it's always a concern to the public that you're letting people back in society sooner than maybe you want to and I'm just trying to figure out who we're letting off the hook here." Number 706 MS. KROGSENG: "Mr. Chairman, Representative Nordlund, it's my understanding that the department's policy is that no untreated sex offenders would be allowed out there regardless of custody level, but they must be minimum custody or lower, which would be community. And as I said, as of March 28, there are 577 inmates at those two custody levels - community and minimum. I might also tell you that on this run that I had done, there's a crime category and out of the 2800 inmates that were in the institutions on March 28, 1414 were crimes of violence, 283 crimes against property, 314 crimes of substance abuse, crimes of other categories were 793. Now part of those could be unsentenced, certainly because we've had 700 and some inmates who had not been sentenced yet and they're not classified until after that. There were 577 with the appropriate classification." Number 721 REPRESENTATIVE NORDLUND: "So the decision on who can participate in the program is made on the security risk, as opposed to the crime they committed?" Number 724 MS. KROGSENG: "Yes, that's correct. And as I understand it, Mike Newman who is the chief of security, goes personally and interviews each potential candidate to go to Point MacKenzie, and I'm told that he looks them eyeball to eyeball and says to them, `Are you ready to be my roommate for a month?' And he's been a CO, I believe, for about 17 years. He has, I believe, a very good understanding of who would be a potentially good candidate and who would not. And he has, in fact, rejected someone that was brought out there, stayed for one day, and was returned to the institution because they did not like the behavior he was displaying immediately. And that's very critical for this project to succeed, because there are no fences." REPRESENTATIVE KOTT: "Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think one of my questions has already been answered, but the subsequent one is, can you tell us what you used as a yard stick or measurement to come up with three days. What's so magical about the three days?" Number 738 MS. KROGSENG: "Mr. Chairman, Representative Kott. The old statute - the old good time statute which, I believe a copy has been put in your packet, allowed for crediting of three days for each month of actual (indiscernible) in a prisoner camp project or activity for the first year or any part of it and not to exceed five days for each month of any succeeding year. Now, we've left it at three. We've not provided for any increase." Number 748 REPRESENTATIVE DAVIDSON: "Ms. Krogseng, why is it that there are not these facilities -- we saw this list in here of the things people were not going there because of -- why aren't those other than what we've mentioned as far as the law library. Is that why there isn't kind of a -- can we get by with a partial type of library -- or some of these other substance abuse programs or other educational programs available at Point MacKenzie?" Number 762 MS. KROGSENG: "Mr. Chairman, Representative Davidson, I believe that eventually probably some of them will be available, especially the substance abuse counseling. I know there is a plan to have a substance abuse program there. However, we don't want to have it mandated. Because if one is mandated, then the next thing you know, another requirement will be added, we believe, and another, and another, and another. It's a farm - a work farm. The idea is that in addition to providing training for the inmates, it could and hopefully should, and will in the long run provide sufficient food to feed the prison population, at least up in the central and northern part of the state. That's basically why. I'm sure there will be a library of sorts out there, but we don't want it to be mandated. We don't want it to be anything considered to be even remotely close to Cleary." REPRESENTATIVE GREEN: "Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the whole concept and (indiscernible) keeping it away from Cleary is an outstanding idea, because it's about half the cost of a regular institution. We go a screen..." MS. KROGSENG: "One-third." REPRESENTATIVE GREEN: "One-third. The incarceration time dropped from 33 1/3 percent to 40 percent and they'll serve 60 percent. That seems to be a real good compromise to accomplish two things. I think it would be a benefit to those who are incarcerated, as well as to the state, obviously in a fiscal crisis year, without jeopardizing safety to the public. So, it seems like it's about a three- way win, win, win situation." REPRESENTATIVE PHILLIPS: "Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think this is a very good idea. I know if I was in jail, I certainly would much rather go out to a work farm than I would to sit in jail - in a prison all day. And I would move that we move House Bill 153, Draft K dated 4/6/94 and no fiscal note, out of Judiciary with individual recommendations." CHAIRMAN PORTER: "Is there discussion? Representative James." REPRESENTATIVE NORDLUND: "Mr. Chairman, I would move that we adopt the CS if we haven't already done so." CHAIRMAN PORTER: "Well, I think that was part of the motion -the CS, dated 4/6/94." REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: "Yes, I just have only one comment. I grew up in Oregon where we have the prison farm which is a very successful operation. It was fenced, however, but I know that they were very productive, and they did pay their own way in many of the years, so I support this concept." CHAIRMAN PORTER: "I guess just for the record, I should add that the first ten years or so of my time in Anchorage, the Police Department ran an honor farm with the same principles. And on most occasions, there was one person looking after about 50 guys. No problems." MS. KROGSENG: "Mr. Chairman, if I might, I believe Mr. Dindinger on the farm that he ran back in Wyoming or Oklahoma had 130 some inmates, had 10 personnel, and in the two or three years he was there, had one minor incident and that was it. And it is very cost effective. The beds, we anticipate, should run about $35 a day and then..." REPRESENTATIVE NORDLUND asked if this was the only committee of referral for this bill. CHAIRMAN PORTER responded he did not know. MS. KROGSENG: "Mr. Chairman, Representative Nordlund, yes, it was." REPRESENTATIVE NORDLUND: "I think we need to have a fiscal note before we pass it out." CHAIRMAN PORTER: "Very good idea. Within the discussion of the motion, could we say that we will include a zero fiscal note signed by the committee?" The committee was in agreement. REPRESENTATIVE NORDLUND: "Although one from Corrections would be good - I think it'd be a positive fiscal note and that would do more good for the bill than just a zero fiscal note from this committee." CHAIRMAN PORTER: "We'll endeavor to do that." MS. KROGSENG: "I will contact the department. Thank you." CHAIRMAN PORTER: "Which would negate the zero from us. Is there further discussion? If not, the bill is moved."
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