Legislature(2015 - 2016)Anch LIO AUDITORIUM
08/18/2015 01:30 PM House JUDICIARY
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| Presentation: Prison Costs and Reform: Perspectives from the Lower 48 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
JOINT MEETING
SENATE JUDICIARY STANDING COMMITTEE
HOUSE JUDICIARY STANDING COMMITTEE
Anchorage, Alaska
August 18, 2015
1:38 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
SENATE JUDICIARY
Senator Lesil McGuire, Chair
Senator John Coghill, Vice Chair
Senator Bill Wielechowski
HOUSE JUDICIARY
Representative Gabrielle LeDoux, Chair
Representative Wes Keller, Vice Chair
Representative Neal Foster
Representative Bob Lynn
Representative Charisse Millett
Representative Matt Claman
Representative Max Gruenberg
Representative Kurt Olson
MEMBERS ABSENT
SENATE JUDICIARY
Senator Mia Costello
Senator Peter Micciche
HOUSE JUDICIARY
All members present
OTHER LEGISLATORS PRESENT
Senator Johnny Ellis
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
PRESENTATION: PRISON COSTS AND REFORM: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE
LOWER 48
WITNESS REGISTER
ZOE TOWNS, Manager
State Policy Work on Adult Sentencing and Corrections
Public Safety Performance Project
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Washington, D.C.
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided an overview of the Pew Charitable
Trusts' work on the Public Safety Performance Project in various
states.
JAY NEAL, Executive Director
Georgia Governor's Office of Transition, Support, and Reentry
Atlanta, Georgia
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided an overview of Georgia's efforts
related to criminal justice and sentencing reform.
KENNY ELLIS, Legislative Liaison
The Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi
Jackson, Mississippi
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided an overview of Mississippi's
efforts related to criminal justice and sentencing reform.
RON GORDON, Executive Director
Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice
Salt Lake City, Utah
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided an overview of Utah's efforts
related to criminal justice and sentencing reform.
SENATOR GERALD MALLOY
South Carolina Legislature
Columbia, South Carolina
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided an overview of South Carolina's
effort related to criminal justice and sentencing reform.
TERRY SCHUSTER, Senior Associate
Public Safety Performance Project
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Washington, D.C.
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided an overview of the Alaska
Department of Corrections prison population data.
DIANE CASTO, Deputy Commissioner
Alaska Department of Corrections
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Addressed the Alaska Department of
Corrections' efforts related to recidivism reduction and reentry
programming.
JUSTICE ALEX BRYNER, Retired Alaska Supreme Court Justice and
Chair of the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided an overview of the Alaska Criminal
Justice Commission.
ACTION NARRATIVE
1:38:18 PM
CHAIR LESIL MCGUIRE called the joint meeting of the Senate and
House Judiciary Standing Committees to order at 1:38 p.m.
Present at the call to order were Senators Wielechowski,
Coghill, and McGuire; and Representatives Keller, Foster, Lynn,
Millet, Claman, Gruenberg, Olson, and LeDoux.
^PRESENTATION: PRISON COSTS AND REFORM: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE
LOWER 48
PRESENTATION: PRISON COSTS AND REFORM: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE
LOWER 48
CHAIR MCGUIRE announced the business before the committee is to
hear a presentation on prison costs and reforms from the
perspective of states in the Lower 48.
1:38:55 PM
ZOE TOWNS, Manager, State Policy Work on Adult Sentencing and
Corrections, Public Safety Performance Project, the Pew
Charitable Trusts (Pew), Washington, D.C., explained that the
presentation will consist of providing context around the
national trends on sentencing corrections that brings Pew to the
conversation and will help Alaska with its current engagement in
justice reinvestment.
MS. TOWNS said the presentation includes four leaders from four
different states who will share some of their experiences with
criminal justice reform and sentencing corrections reform. She
expressed hope that the committee members can extract some
lessons that will be relevant for the work in Alaska. She
identified the four leaders as follows:
· Jay Neal, Director of the Georgia Governor's Office of
Transition, Support, and Reentry. Director Neal was a state
representative at the time when Georgia took on its
criminal justice reform effort several years ago.
· Ron Gordon, Executive Director of the Utah Commission of
Criminal Juvenile Justice and senior staff to the Governor
of Utah.
· Kenny Ellis, with the Office of the Lieutenant Governor in
Mississippi.
· Senator Gerald Malloy, Judiciary Chair in the South
Carolina Senate and helped with reform efforts in South
Carolina.
MS. TOWNS stated that the four leaders come from very different
states that came to address reform for a variety of reasons. She
said the leaders will each speak about what brought their state
to the reform issue.
1:40:48 PM
She said she will provide data findings that brought Pew to
address sentencing reform. She explained that 10 years ago Pew
started the Public Safety Performance Project. Pew was
interested in the growing trend of incarceration in the United
States and the poor returns on investment that states were
getting in terms of public safety outcomes.
She said there were two trends that Pew focused on in its
research and its technical assistance. The first trend pertains
to the remarkable growth in the use of prisons and jails. By
2008, 1 in 100 American adults were in jail or prison, 1 in 31
adults were under some form of correctional control: jail,
prison, probation, parole, or supervision. She said the growth
was coming at a fairly extraordinary taxpayer expense. She
reported that in 1997, total state corrections budgets were $23
billion and today the total is $54 billion. She affirmed that
there was a real leap up in the amount of money that states were
spending and taxpayers were spending on prisons and other
correctional programs. She remarked that all of the correctional
spending was getting a low return on investment in terms of
recidivism outcome. She said policymakers were alarmed when Pew
found that within 3 years of exiting state prisons the
recidivism rate was over 40 percent.
1:43:03 PM
She said the high correctional costs and low returns that
captured the attention of economists, criminologists, and state
policymakers. This led to the second trend of states coming up
with solutions to head in a different direction. The hope was to
do more with less, make cost effective choices about who goes to
prison, how long inmates stay, and determine outcomes sought in
terms of recidivism
MS. TOWNS revealed that correctional science now has a large and
robust body of research that offers assistance in understanding
what works to change behavior. She said states have applied the
correctional science research to state practices and policies.
She remarked that a diverse group of states is pursuing justice
reform and strategies across the country, including Alaska.
She set forth that all of the work done by states that have
pursued reform has led to a new trend. She said for the first
time, the prison population began to dip downwards in 2008. She
admitted that the downward trend is hard to define as either
momentary or sustainable. She noted that the prison population
decline has been accompanied by a decline in crime as well. She
stated that getting more public safety for less is a win-win
that will hopefully continue over the coming years and decades.
CHAIR LEDOUX called attention to a graph that showed the
incarceration rate increase for inmates incarcerated under state
and federal jurisdiction from 1925 to 2008. She stated that the
graph is absolutely astounding. She asked if the prison growth
is due to more laws on the books.
MS. TOWNS agreed that there are a lot more laws on the books
where both the number of laws and penalties have increased. She
said state and federal policymakers have expanded criminal
statutes where misdemeanors are felonies, aggravated felonies
instead of felonies, degree of class is moved up, and the
penalty ranges are changed. She specified that penalty
enhancements and prison has reduced crime if targeted on
serious, violent, and repeat offenders. She asserted that the
effects from prison on lower level offenders can actually be
criminogenic and possibly make them more likely to commit future
crimes. She summarized that states are looking at whether or not
they are targeting the right kinds of offenders.
1:46:22 PM
CHAIR LEDOUX asked what would happen if laws were rewritten to a
presumptive based upon 1925 laws. She specified that an
aggravator exception to a particular law would have to make
sense.
MS. TOWNS replied that some states are doing a little bit of
what Chair LeDoux suggested. She specified that states are not
picking a moment in time to go back to and erasing the books.
She said states are interrogating policies with fresh eyes to
review their outcomes. She opined that states went down a prison
building path in the 1970s based upon a consensus that nothing
worked to change criminal behavior and locking people up was the
only alternative. She conceded that the field of criminology in
the 1970s had not addressed questions about what can stop crime,
what can prevent crime, what kind of policing works, what kind
of community corrections programs work, and what kind of
treatment works. She revealed that criminology currently has a
robust and strong body of research that tells us what does and
does not work. She summarized that the intent is to go back to
some of the previous policies, but to also include new research
about what works to prevent crime and reoffending.
REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG asked if the incarceration graph
presented to the committee was based upon a percentage of
population. He said the nation's population in 1925 was a lot
less.
MS. TOWNS replied that the incarceration rate was approximately
2.3 million adult Americans behind bars in 2013. She stated that
she will follow up with Representative Gruenberg regarding the
graph's scale regarding the incarceration rates based upon the
population in 1925.
1:49:16 PM
CHAIR MCGUIRE asked if Pew had taken into account a point at
which the states began to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill.
MS. TOWNS replied a significant proportion of the offenders
behind bars are struggling with mental health disorders. She
asserted that a pretty big research consensus indicates that
deinstitutionalization had a pretty big role in prison growth.
CHAIR MCGUIRE expressed appreciation for Ms. Towns' response.
She said she recently attended a roundtable with lawmakers from
western states and every state cited one of the largest
percentages of those incarcerated were mentally ill. She said
mentally ill incarcerations are not just an Alaskan problem. She
summarized that the roundtable discussion centered on the fact
that western states deinstitutionalized the mentally ill and
went to community health models. She remarked that as states
have gone into deficit spending, funding for community health
programs has been cut and prisons have become the de facto
institution again for the mentally ill. She said prisons are not
backed up with the kind of training that mental health
institutions have. She stated that she looked forward to hearing
from the upcoming testifiers regarding how their states have
addressed the mentally ill population percentage.
REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN asked if the prison population graph the
committee was referencing is actually a per capita statistic
rather than a total population.
MS. TOWNS answered yes.
REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN asked if there was a seminal point between
1925 and 2008 where a significant uptick occurred in prison
populations.
MS. TOWNS answered that the 1970s showed a significant increase
in addition to the 1980s and 1990s due to federal and state
approaches to drug crime.
1:52:42 PM
JAY NEAL, Executive Director, Georgia Governor's Office of
Transition, Support, and Reentry, Atlanta, Georgia, noted that
he served in the state legislature for about nine years. He
detailed that Georgia's prison population was roughly 56,000
when the state began its Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI)
in 2011. He added that Pew provided technical assistance for
JRI. He revealed that in addition to the 56,000 inmate
population in 2011, 6,000 sentenced inmates were in county jails
awaiting an open bed. He noted that Georgia was spending
approximately $25 million a year for county subsidies to house
sentenced inmates in county jails. He revealed that Georgia
currently has a prison population of 53,000 and the jail backlog
has been eliminated. He detailed that in FY15 Georgia spent
$6,000 on jail subsidies rather than $25 million. He summarized
that in a matter of 3 years, Georgia eliminated its inmate
backlog of 6,000 and saved the state roughly $25 million in
subsidies for county jails for housing state sentenced inmates.
1:54:27 PM
MR. NEAL revealed that he has a ministerial background and was
never involved in politics until he ran for a state
representative seat in 2002. He said his philosophy and feelings
about addiction and the criminal element was very similar to
many others' views that led to the steep incarceration rate
increase in the 1980s into the 2000s. He noted that when the
federal government passed "Truth in Sentencing in State Prisons"
in the 1990s along with encouraging and incentivizing states to
pass the three-strikes law, Georgia decided to do one better and
passed a two-strikes law. He detailed that while the national
incarceration rate was 1 in 31 adults, Georgia was 1 in 13 and
the state continued to move in a direction where people
referenced Georgia as a penal colony. He said his campaign
promise was to work toward better education, better business
environment, and a safer community to raise children. He
admitted that he embraced Georgia's high incarceration rate at
the time and noted that he believed longer sentencing was an
option if results were not being achieved.
1:57:48 PM
MR. NEAL asserted that mental health and addiction go hand-in-
hand. He opined that one of the ironic characteristics of
addiction is that people will continue to do the same thing over
and over regardless of consequences that action brings, but the
state responds to addiction by trying to use consequences to
change addictive behavior. He revealed that one of the things
that happened to him over the course of his first years in the
state legislature occurred at the church he pastored. He noted
that men from a nearby recovery residence started attending his
church. He admitted that what he saw in the men from the
recovery residence was 180 degrees form what he always believed
about addiction. He said he could not understand the behavior of
men who loved their families, but did not straighten up, get a
job, take care of their families, and do the right thing. He
detailed that the recovery residents were broken hearted and
big, strong men who were in tears because they had failed their
families. He said he began to struggle with what he had always
believed about addiction.
He explained that he had an opportunity to begin to learn about
the science of addiction and what it does to the brain. He said
he realized that his approach through the years did not have any
kind of scientific backing to it. He opined that the approach
without scientific backing was treating individuals like
criminals who were not criminally minded, but were behaving
criminally as a result of their addiction. He remarked that
incarceration of addiction driven crime was what was leading to
the criminogenic factor that Ms. Towns talked about in her
presentation. He remarked that a person changes in prison and
does not come back the same, especially a person without a
criminal mindset that is sent to prison due to their criminal
behavior as a result of their addiction.
2:01:00 PM
MR. NEAL explained that he began to look at what he needed to do
as a representative to try to change Georgia's direction. He
detailed that he became an advocate for recovery and served as a
director for a residential drug treatment program in 2009,
ultimately leading to serving as the Director of the Governor's
Office of Transition, Support, and Reentry (GOTSR).
He explained that Georgia began in 2011 with a bill to establish
a criminal justice reform council with the focus on looking at
sentencing and corrections reform. He revealed that Georgia's
governor understood very clearly the need of addressing
individuals who are not criminally minded in a different way. He
noted that the governor was a former prosecutor as well as a
former juvenile court judge. He added that the governor's son is
a Drug Court judge in the State of Georgia.
He detailed that Georgia began to look at how to take non-
criminally minded individuals who are caught up in addiction-
driven crime and provide alternatives to address accountability
as well as what is driving the criminal behavior. He revealed
that criminal behavior goes away when an addict without a
criminal mind gets into recovery.
He explained that as Georgia began criminal justice reform, a
number of sentencing laws were changed; that led to individuals
who were involved in drug and property offenses, mostly due to
drug addiction, to be diverted from the prison system through
Accountability Courts, Drug Courts, Mental Health Courts,
Veterans Courts, and Day Reporting Centers, while holding the
individuals accountable in a very rigorous way. He asserted that
Georgia's approach is not gentle or soft, but a rigorous program
that the individuals go through.
He specified that a legislative package for criminal justice
reform was introduced in 2012 with the governor wanting
consensus. He revealed that Georgia's Speaker of the House,
Lieutenant Governor, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
Attorney General, minority leaders of the House and Senate
joined Governor Deal in a press conference that introduced a
bill that set up the Criminal Justice Reform Council. House Bill
1176 passed in 2012 with a unanimous vote in both the House and
Senate.
2:04:02 PM
MR. NEAL said the governor turned his attention to juvenile
justice reform in 2013 and a comprehensive legislative package
was passed unanimously in Georgia's House and the Senate. He
remarked that Georgia's approach to sentencing reform for adults
and juveniles has been comprehensive, but the governor asserted
that lasting impact would require the state to address inmates
leaving the prison system. He detailed that 21,000 individuals
annually leave Georgia's prison system and the intent was to
address what the state does to ensure that individuals
successfully return to their communities.
He detailed that the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform
was codified for a five year term with an assignment to address
reentry via GOTSR. He said GOTSR manages a collaborative reentry
effort among all departments, agencies, and communities. He
asserted that reentry is a community issue and problem that
requires community involvement for resolution. He revealed that
legislation was passed in 2014 on the Georgia Prison Reentry
Initiative. He said the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice
Reform continues to address adult and juvenile reforms. The
Georgia Legislature has committees that continue to look at
oversight and measuring reform outcomes while other committees
look at reentry. He remarked that voters have shown their
understanding of the value of reform efforts when three
legislators that voted against reform in 2015 were ultimately
voted out of office.
He summarized that Georgia's reform initiative has been a
holistic approach that does not have a "silver bullet." He
asserted that reform has been data driven from the start with
technical assistance by Pew. He noted that Ms. Towns was
actually assisted Georgia during the very beginning. He said
reform continues to be data driven and one of GOTSR's
responsibilities is to ensure that the justice reinvestment
savings are being utilized on evidence based, community centered
programs. He noted that the first year saw $17 million new
dollars placed into community efforts.
2:07:39 PM
CHAIR MCGUIRE asked Mr. Neal to discuss Georgia's altered
approach to offenders with addictions and how the process
continues to be hard with severe penalties.
MR. NEAL replied that Georgia tried a number of things to
provide an opportunity for individuals who were caught in drug
and property crimes. He explained that every year approximately
5,000 to 6,000 individuals were entering prison for the first
time with nonviolent drug and property offences; they are the
individuals that Georgia is trying to give opportunities to
through Accountability Courts or the Daily Reporting Centers in
order to address the addiction that is driving the criminal
behavior.
MR. NEAL noted that Accountability Courts were initially cherry-
picking low risk and low needs offenders to assure success. He
said based on best practices research, low risk and low needs
offenders where shown to be at higher risk from a rigorous court
setting. He revealed that Accountability Courts adopted
standards where moderate and high risk offenders and high needs
offenders are targeted. He revealed that Georgia currently has
100 Accountability Courts.
He explained that an Accountability Court is a lengthy and
detailed two year process where offenders meet regularly with a
staffing team. He said offenders are held accountable, drug
tested on a regular basis, and required to get jobs. He
summarized that opportunities are provided where interaction
with the court system does not impact criminal records upon
successful completion. He added that Georgia has done some
things to deal with collateral consequences as well. He admitted
that the state is not where it needs to be with collateral
consequences, but significant progress has been made.
2:10:14 PM
REPRESENTATIVE KELLER commented that Accountability Courts may
be Georgia's lead diversion tactic. He asked if GOTSR has found
contractors or providers that offer treatment programs that work
and if there is a shortage.
MR. NEAL replied that GOTSR works with community service
providers, the criminal justice element of the Accountability
Courts. He detailed that most of the treatment is provided by
community service providers that contract with Accountability
Courts. He added that additional community service providers are
needed.
He said one of the areas GOTSR saw a need for was on the
juvenile justice side. He detailed that 25 percent of all
juvenile offenders receiving out of home placement were
misdemeanors for status offenses; a grant program was created
for communities to address that group. He detailed that status
offenses meant that an offense would not occur if the individual
was 21.
MR. NEAL said GOTSR also found that many communities did not
have evidence based community service programs for juveniles. He
noted that evidence shows that juveniles are more successful
when they receive services from the community they are from. He
detailed that a grant funded program was set up and counties in
judicial circuits were invited to apply if they agreed to reduce
the number of out-of-home commitments by 15 percent. He revealed
that out-of-home commitments were reduced by 62 percent in the
first year. He added that in just over a year, evidence based
community centered programs for juveniles are in every judicial
circuit. He remarked that access for juveniles has been
increased, but the state is not where it needs to be.
He said one of the things that Georgia has learned is that
criminal justice reform is no just a one-shot policy change
approach. He asserted that believing that making some policy
changes will take care of all efforts moving forward is not
going to work. He detailed that Georgia's reform effort is in
its fifth year and the state continues to press on with a lot of
support from the legislature as well as the public.
2:14:05 PM
CHAIR LEDOUX asked if mandatory treatment is always required.
MR. NEAL replied that going to an Accountability Court requires
mandatory treatment. He admitted that there are times where
offenders do not want to pay the price and choose prison instead
of the Accountability Court. He shared that many individuals
completing the Accountability Court process have said their
lives have been saved, families reunited, and a new lease on
life was provided. He said Accountability Courts are rigorous
and mandatory treatment is part of the process.
CHAIR LEDOUX asked for an example of a sentence that an
Accountability Court imposes.
MR. NEAL answered that most Accountability Courts are pre-
adjudication and part of a plea agreement where an individual
chooses the Accountability Court in order to avoid conviction.
He added that some post-adjudications occur where an offender
ends up in Accountability Court after struggling under parole or
probation. He detailed that Accountability Court provides a high
risk and high needs individual with an opportunity to deal with
their addiction that resulted in their addiction driven crime.
He specified that an individual going through a typical two year
process meets with their treatment team on a weekly basis. He
added that the treatment team's probation officer meets with a
judge on a weekly basis as well to review an individual's
progress and areas where improvement is needed. He reiterated
that the Accountability Court process is very intense. He
revealed that participants in the Accountability Courts become a
community where a great deal of comradery is established between
members and peer accountability is provided as well.
CHAIR LEDOUX asked what specifically makes the Accountability
Court process "rigorous."
MR. NEAL replied that each individual receives an individual
plan based on their own risk and needs. He explained that
Georgia's detailed and complex assessment shows very clearly
where an individual's risks and needs are. Individuals may
receive intensive out-patient substance abuse counselling,
mental health assistance, education opportunities, or job skills
training. He asserted that a "one size fits all" approach
restricts opportunities to be successful.
2:18:49 PM
CHAIR MCGUIRE said she considers the diversion program in Alaska
to be rigorous when an individual is asked to give up their
addiction and be rehabilitated. She detailed that individuals
are required to submit to drug or alcohol testing and to make a
commitment to their families and their lives to no longer be
addicted. She said individuals that commit to the diversion
program have a high success rate, but the commitment is big. She
concurred that some offenders would rather go to jail than make
the commitment.
MR. NEAL replied that commitment involves changing so many
things that change is one of the reasons for success. He said
commitment is a holistic approach to the overall need of the
individual.
2:20:31 PM
KENNY ELLIS, Legislative Liaison, the Office of the Lieutenant
Governor of Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi, introduced
himself.
RON GORDON, Executive Director, Utah Commission on Criminal and
Juvenile Justice, Salt Lake City, Utah, introduced himself.
SENATOR GERALD MALLOY, South Carolina Legislature, Columbia,
South Carolina, stated that he has been in the South Carolina
Senate since 2002 and was chair of the Senate's reform
commission.
MR. ELLIS revealed that Mississippi had the second highest
incarceration rate in the U.S. prior to the state's criminal
justice reform. He said Mississippi was spending astronomical
amounts on the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) and
the state was simply not getting a very good return on
investment. He detailed that the 10 years prior to reform,
Mississippi's appropriations had gone up nearly 50 percent while
the inmate population only increased by 4 percent. He said
something had to change due to the disproportion between MDOC
spending and its inmate population.
He disclosed that Mississippi is a very conservative state that
is primarily Republican. He remarked that looking at criminal
justice reform issues by a Republican or conservative was
considered to be a bit taboo. He revealed that Mississippi
decided to think "outside of the box" when Georgia's
conservative leadership decided to approach criminal justice
reform.
He shared that as Mississippi started digging into criminal
justice reform, the state realized that more conservative
philosophies applied. He said the state's froogle approach led
to a better return on investment for the taxpayers' money. He
revealed that through reforms, Mississippi was able to cut the
budget by $266 million, enough to roughly cover the state's MDOC
appropriation for one year.
He added that Mississippi can now predict what its budgets will
be as it moves forward. He noted that prior to reforms,
Mississippi was unable to predict its yearly MDOC appropriation.
He revealed that Mississippi would appropriate $300 million to
MDOC and the department would routinely require another $50
million to $60 million. He said appropriation instability did
not allow the state to accurately project its next fiscal year
for MDOC, the Department of Health, or anything that relying on
general fund dollars.
He summarized that Mississippi's prison inmate population is
down 4,000 since the state attained consensus on a bill that
passed where reforms were enacted in July 2014.
2:24:06 PM
CHAIR MCGUIRE said she appreciates the overview on Mississippi's
conservative political context and the concern for how voters
would view criminal justice reform. She pointed out that Mr.
Ellis did not mention the state's consideration for the value of
human life and the rehabilitation of a person that has served
their time and society has chosen to forgive. She concurred that
addressing costs is important for legislative bodies. She asked
if policies surrounding human life was taken into consideration
by Mississippi.
MR. ELLIS answered yes. He said from the policy prospective, any
agency will be looked at from a monetary prospective, but MDOC
deals with human lives. He detailed that MDOC deals primarily
with young individuals that may have slipped up, some due to
problems with drugs. He said Mississippi's goal is to go ahead
and truly correct the individuals that come to MDOC. He said
Mississippi wants offenders to get the help they need, serve
their time, stay out when they get out, and to be productive
members of society.
2:26:01 PM
MR. GORDON explained that Utah had a couple of different
policies to discuss once the state set its reform
recommendations. He said one policy addressed saving money by
implementing good recommendations that maintained or improved
public safety, the other addressed improving the lives of
people. He figured that fiscal savings would be more persuasive,
but he found out that just the opposite was true. He detailed
that Utah's policymakers had data to give them some level of
comfort that public safety would be maintained and the dialog
shifted to human lives. He noted that one Utah legislator shared
a story where his business had been repeatedly broken into by a
criminal with a drug addiction and the legislator stated that he
was more concerned with how to break the individual's cycles of
addiction and crime. He stated that he knew a significant step
forward was made when the legislative discussion addressed
saving lives rather than the number of prison beds and the
criminal system budget.
He disclosed that Utah's Justice Reinvestment Bill passed in
2015 and the legislation was the darling of the session. He
attributed the willingness to discuss different policies to the
data and research provided by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the
Crime and Justice Institute, and the Bureau of Justice
Assistance. He said the Utah-specific data provided a level of
assurance that the state was heading in a good direction.
He detailed that Utah has a fairly low incarceration rate, about
half of the national average and the state felt that it was
doing great. He remarked that Utah avoided some of the criminal
justice policy pitfalls that have been a thorn in the side of
other states. He admitted that Utah felt that the state did not
see a need for significant, comprehensive reform. He asserted
that Utah currently takes pride in the fact that the state is
involved with the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI).
2:30:22 PM
MR. GORDON revealed that Utah began discussions about relocating
its aging 4,000 bed prison facility. He said the state got
nervous when the discussion for a new facility went from 4,000
to 10,000 beds. He admitted that Utah knew that the new facility
would eventually be filled with the state looking back asking
how it got to that point. He detailed that Utah's governor
called for a comprehensive criminal justice policy review and
the task was charged to the Utah Commission on Criminal and
Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) with assistance from Pew.
He revealed that CCJJ found that two thirds of Utah's prisoners
were in prison for probation or parole revocations, not for new
crimes, but for technical violations. He remarked that Utah was
tired of dealing with technical violators and the state did not
know what to do other than sending the individuals to prison
after the ninth violation. He said Utah was failing the
individual and the state by not supervising the technical
violators appropriately. He detailed that many of the reform
recommendations deal with strengthening community supervision
and ending that cycle of recidivating. He said data showed that
Utah was not intentionally deciding to incarcerate people longer
and longer, but the state was incarcerating low level drug
offenders longer and longer. He detailed that people who did not
have a criminal history and did not have prior felony
convictions were being sentenced to prison for longer periods of
time. He admitted that Utah kept telling people that it takes a
lot to go to prison in the state; however, the data showed that
that is not always the case. He revealed that some of Utah's
drug offenders go to prison with no felonies or one prior
felony. He stated that the data was not always pleasant to
receive, but the data was important in providing the foundation
for everything the state did.
2:33:20 PM
SENATOR MALLOY said he has been the Chairman for the Senate
Judiciary Committee in the South Carolina Legislature since
2002. He added that he is a lawyer and a Democrat from a rural
area in South Carolina.
He explained South Carolina's demographics and political party
affiliation as follows:
· Estimated population of 4.6 million.
· Each state senator represents 100,000 people.
· 46 senators in the South Carolina State Senate.
· 28 Republican senators, 18 Democratic senators.
· 124 members in the South Carolina House of Representatives.
· Approximately two thirds of South Carolina's House of
Representatives are Republicans.
· Republicans are in all of South Carolina's constitutional
offices, e.g. Governor's Office and the Department of
Agriculture.
SENATOR MALLOY revealed that he was asked to chair a criminal
justice task force in 2006. He specified that the task force was
assigned to look at certain criminal matters and the findings
revealed that the state needed to address sentence reform. He
explained that he was asked to chair the Sentencing Reform
Commission, a position that he thought was a setup to let people
out of prison and he would ultimately be the scapegoat. He noted
that he was reluctant at first, but realized that a safe
community was important for enabling good educational matters
and economic development.
He revealed that the Sentencing Reform Commission started as a
group similar in makeup to Alaska's general assembly. He
referenced an analogy, "Sometimes what we have to do is make
sure that we can solve the problems that we can solve." He
asserted that the Sentencing Reform Commission is a problem
solving mechanism.
2:36:28 PM
He opined that the War on Drugs did not work and too many people
were incarcerated. He explained that South Carolina had 25,000
inmates when the reform legislation was first introduced in 2010
and the 5-year projection was 28,000. He revealed that South
Carolina currently has 20,500 inmates, down 4,500 from 2010. He
added that the state was technically down 7,500 when compared
against the projection for 2014. He pointed out that South
Carolina has realized real savings by closing three and a half
prisons. He noted that the governor that signed the bill in 2010
called the legislation the most important that he had signed,
but added that results would not be known for 20 years. He said
35 percent of the savings are available for reinvesting.
He explained that South Carolina's sentencing reform involved
the state's three branches: legislature, executive, and
judiciary. He said reform consensus was non-partisan where the
"P" in "politics" was taken out and put into "people." He said
like Georgia, South Carolina passed reform legislation
unanimously in the Senate with only four "no" votes in the House
of Representatives.
2:38:36 PM
SENATOR MALLOY explained that South Carolina had a four-prong
approach to sentencing reform: adopt common sense sentencing
reforms, improve release policies, strengthen parole and
probation, and establish an ongoing oversight committee. He
noted that he is the Chair for the Sentencing Reform Oversight
Committee and noted that the committee has a five year sunset.
He said the committee had strong law enforcement people that
addressed release mechanisms. He noted examples for release
changes as follows:
· Senior citizen inmates that were thought to be more docile
were provided with a method of release.
· Schedule-1 drugs were changed to provide for conditional
discharges.
He said the committee brought a conglomerate of people to the
table and noted that victims were not forgotten. He added that
restitution was expanded and the amounts received by victims was
increased. He pointed out that some mandatory minimums were
taken out and probation and parole were addressed. He remarked
that the state ultimately realized that it did not have a system
prior to sentencing reform. He said the South Carolina
Department of Corrections is working on mental health and mental
issues. He added that the state is also working towards Drug
Courts. He opined that there is no one-size-fits-all.
He revealed that African Americans account for 30 percent of the
state's inmate population. He said as an African American, the
way South Carolina incarcerates African American males is
reprehensible and immoral. He said training and diversity within
the law enforcement community is needed.
He summarized that South Carolina's prison population is going
down and the state's crime rate has gone down as well.
CHAIR MCGUIRE noted that Senator Malloy addressed diversity
training. She reiterated a concern that Alaska has a
disproportionate inmate population of African Americans and
Alaska natives. She asked if South Carolina's reforms included
training for corrections officers, identifying mental health
issues, and rehabilitation for inmates incarcerated in a hard-
prison.
2:43:34 PM
SENATOR MALLOY answered no. He said the bill addressed saving
the Department of Corrections money and then to end up with
programs that will help the department. He provided an overview
where the bill addressed sentencing reform, supervision
requirements, and administrative sanctions for people going back
to prison for technical violations. He stated that the
programming issue and not the warehousing issue within the South
Carolina Department of Corrections addresses Chair McGuire's
concerns. He summarized that saving money provides more money to
be allocated towards programs and politics is about resource
allocation. He remarked that the state will be better off
allocating more resources towards programs. He said a
determination has to be made whether to pay to be a
rehabilitative and repentant society or a "lock 'em up" society.
MR. GORDON pointed out that Utah's reform package does address
the issue of providing additional assistance to those with
mental health disorders, both in the community as well as in the
prison facility. He said a fundamental part of Utah's package
makes sure that everybody who goes into the criminal justice
system has an evidence based screening and assessment to
identify specific needs. He admitted that Utah was previously
treating crimes and not people. He said additional funds have
been appropriated to identify specific needs and risk factors in
the community and within the prison facility. He detailed that
the development of standards for treatment has been mandated,
something that Utah had not previously done. He added that
providers now have to be certified and meet minimum standards in
order to receive state funds.
2:46:36 PM
REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG noted that Senator Malloy was a
Democrat and a member of the state's minority party. He asked
why, as a minority member, he was put in charge of the Georgia
Criminal Justice Reform Council.
SENATOR MALLOY answered that South Carolina's legislature is
more of a meritocracy where hard work pays dividends when
individuals minimize themselves for the greater good. He said
partisanship was taken off of the table because reform was
research driven and evidence based.
SENATOR MALLOY revealed that the third most incarcerated crime
in South Carolina was driving under suspension where an
individual receives a six month mandatory sentence after the
third offense. He remarked that living in poverty or a lack of
money are reasons for the cycle of driving under suspension. He
added that 44 percent of South Carolina's incarcerated were non-
violent and in prison for less than 18 months. He said South
Carolina was locking up people that the state was mad at rather
than people who were bad. He summarized that the state has to
make certain to rehabilitate those that can be rehabilitated and
turn an individual from a tax burden into a taxpayer.
He asserted that mental illness is an issue that South Carolina
has to address. He explained that by closing more prisons and
saving substantial funds allows for more money to be placed in
programs that handle mental health and rehabilitative issues in
addition to expanding Drug Courts.
2:50:54 PM
REPRESENTATIVE KELLER thanked the presenters for conveying their
experience with prison reform. He agreed that reform is a
continual process. He asked if any of the states had to
readdress something that required more attention.
MR. ELLIS replied that Mississippi strictly had to go back and
rework the reform bill's language, there was no policy mistake.
He detailed that the original reform bill set up an oversight
task force that constantly monitors data and policies. He said
the Mississippi Department of Corrections has been compiling
data. He added that a separate Reentry Council was also set up.
He noted that the Reentry Council is headed up by the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi and the federal
judge in Mississippi. He concurred that reform is an ongoing
expense.
MR. GORDON stated that Utah's Justice Reinvestment Report
identified areas that required further attention that were not
ready to be included in the state's JRI bill. He said like
Mississippi, Utah established CCJJ as an oversight commission to
track every data point and report back to the legislature.
2:54:27 PM
SENATOR MALLOY stated that Representative Keller's question asks
where the reform programs are going versus where they currently
are. He said South Carolina set up a Senate Oversight Committee
as well. He detailed that the committee had a five year sunset
and is currently in the process of renewal. He explained that he
acts as a gatekeeper if someone files a criminal bill with a
mandatory minimum, the bill must have a study that shows the
financial as well as prison impacts. He noted that South
Carolina is not a "one size fits all" state and judges were
entrusted to decide without mandatory minimums. He detailed that
the Senate Oversight Committee meets with the state's parole
board to review risk assessment issues and inmates release
numbers. He explained that the committee is trying to put models
together that assess variable costs, marginal costs associated
with incarceration, and cost avoidance. He said based upon
reform legislation, the state has a 35 percent model where
savings are recommended back to the general assembly to possibly
be invested into supervision. He admitted that the financial
aspect involves 170 people from the legislature each time and
reasonable people do disagree, but he asserted that the state is
going in the right direction. He remarked that the reform
legislation is not perfect and he wishes the state would have
gone further.
SENATOR MALLOY set forth that Alaska can get a lot out of
sentencing reform, particularly on drug crimes, treatment
matters, and conditional discharges. He remarked that he did not
know what Alaska's pretrial intervention is, but noted that
South Carolina received a cost avoidance report from Clemson
University which addressed the financial impact all the way down
to the number of children that were not place in foster care due
to the reform legislation. He said there is a lot of work that
can be done and a lot of assistance that can be provided from
all around. He said sentencing reform takes buy-in from each and
every person that is evidence and research based. He asserted
that a state has to find its own drivers. He summarized that
South Carolina does not operate the way other states do and
Alaska has to find the issues that works for Alaska.
2:58:15 PM
He noted that a U.S. Senator from South Carolina told him that
the U.S. House of Representative and the Senate are taking up
sentencing reform and pointed out that he questioned how
conservatives can argue against reform based upon the facts.
CHAIR LEDOUX noted that Senator Malloy pointed out that a
significant portion of South Carolina's prison population was
made up of people who had traffic-related things like driving
under suspension where the person could not pay so that
basically the prisons were functioning almost as a debtors'
prison. She asked if every state can expect to be surprised from
a situation that Senator Malloy described due to the data from
Pew where people actually knew about beforehand.
3:00:03 PM
SENATOR MALLOY replied sometimes legislators do not have
political will. He said sometimes a problem can be recognized
but nobody does anything because a legislator might be perceived
as being soft on crime, even though the public sometimes does
not understand the issue. He asserted that the small things
matter and noted that the following occurred after reform
legislation was passed:
· Individuals with DUI related offenses were given an
opportunity for monitoring where the person pays for
monitoring rather than the state.
· An amnesty period was provided so that offenders can pay
back their fines based on installment.
· DMV provides inmates that are released with identification
for job applications rather providing a bus ticket to
nowhere.
He said the statistics did not reveal the issues, but a study
that put the statistics together allowed South Carolina to
address non-DUI related offenses like incarcerating offenders
for driving under suspension.
MR. GORDON explained that Utah never did a deeper data-dive on
its drug offenders in prison. He admitted that Utah fought with
Pew on their data's accuracy, but ultimately became alarmed that
the state did not know everything about its prisoners.
REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN opined that the power struggle between the
three branches of government on the state and federal level had
led to mandatory minimum laws that essentially sends a message
that judges cannot be trusted to give the right sentence. He
asked if South Carolina has recognized that a little more trust
must be placed into the judiciary where judges are allowed to
tailor the offense to the offender.
3:03:09 PM
SENATOR MALLOY answered yes. He detailed that South Carolina may
be unique because the general assembly elects judges.
REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN noted that Alaska has a merit based system
for judges through the governor rather than the legislature.
SENATOR MALLOY detailed that South Carolina's judicial selection
is a checks-and-balance process where the Judicial Merit
Selection Commission screens judges through the South Carolina
Bar Association and the public. He said three candidates are
selected and brought before the general assembly. He remarked
that providing a judicial sentencing flexibility treats judges
responsibly and the judges will respond responsibly in return.
He asserted that providing judges with flexibility has worked
because the state's crime rate is down 8 percent.
3:05:27 PM
TERRY SCHUSTER, Senior Associate, Public Safety Performance
Project, the Pew Charitable Trusts, Washington, D.C., introduced
himself.
DIANE CASTO, Deputy Commissioner, Alaska Department of
Corrections, Juneau, Alaska, introduced herself.
JUSTICE ALEX BRYNER, Retired Alaska Supreme Court Justice and
Chair of the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission, Anchorage,
Alaska, introduced himself.
MR. SCHUSTER stated that his presentation will specifically
focus on what is driving the growth in Alaska's prison
population and what future prison growth will look like if
additional reforms are not made.
CHAIR MCGUIRE confirmed with committee members that Mr.
Schuster's presentation is entitled "Alaska Prison Growth
Drivers and Costs."
MR. SCHUSTER said Alaska's prison population has grown 27
percent in the last decade, a significant amount of growth over
a 10 year period. He set forth that his presentation examines
what has driven Alaska's prison population growth and helps to
identify area that may be worth examination and policy
discussion.
He explained that his presentation breaks up Alaska's prison
population into three groups. He said the first group is the
pretrial population that accounts for a bit more than a quarter
of Alaska's prison inmates. The second group is the sentence
population that accounts for half of the inmates in Alaska's
prison that have been sentenced to a term of imprisonment. He
said the third group accounts for a little less than a quarter
of the population are the probationers and parolees who have
violated the terms of their supervision.
MR. SCHUSTER referenced prison population changes that have
occurred between 2005 and 2014 as follows:
· Sentence offenders has grown 14 percent.
· Pretrial population has grown 81 percent.
· Probation and parole violators has grown 15 percent.
3:09:46 PM
He said the growth in the pretrial population can be attributed
to two things: more people coming into prison pretrial and or
people could be spending more time in prison during pretrial. He
specified that data has shown that fewer people are coming into
pretrial over the last decade, but people are staying in prison
for longer periods of time.
REPRESENTATIVE KELLER asserted that a very alarming warning
signal is people spending more time incarcerated pre-
adjudication.
MR. SCHUSTER compared lengths of pretrial stay between 2005 and
2014 as follows:
· 11,000 people were arrested and held pretrial for non-
violent misdemeanor charges, accounting for more than half
of the pretrial population in 2014.
· 75 percent of all of the pretrial prison admissions are
non-violent and violent misdemeanors in 2014.
· Non-violent misdemeanor defendants are staying 3 days
longer.
· Violent misdemeanor defendants are staying 7 days longer.
· Non-violent felony defendants are staying 3 weeks longer.
· Violent felony defendants are staying 1 month longer.
He noted that non-violent misdemeanor defendants staying 3 days
longer adds up when applied to thousands of detentions.
3:15:16 PM
REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN asked if the pretrial stay for felony
defendants is a reflection of how long it takes to get to trial
or to plea.
MR. SCHUSTER replied that he would be hesitant to agree with
Representative Claman's statement. He noted that the majority of
people coming into pretrial are misdemeanor defendants and more
than half are never released during their pretrial period. He
added that defendants with felony charges are more likely to go
to trial and their stay may be attributed to pretrial
negotiations as well as higher bail dollar amounts.
REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN commented that as a policy matter, trying
to reduce the pretrial time for non-violent felonies and
misdemeanors should be addressed.
MR. SCHUSTER replied Pew thinks that the length of stay during
pretrial is an area that the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission
should address.
He stated that the sentence population makes up half of Alaska's
prison population; that population has grown 14 percent between
2005 and 2014. He pointed out that the number of people being
sent to prison was higher in 2005 than 2014. He explained that
admissions to prison for sentenced offenders is not what is
driving the growth, but the length of stay has increased. He
revealed that 6,500 people were sentenced to a term in prison
for a non-violent offense in 2014, accounting for 82 percent of
the people who were sentenced to prison.
3:19:01 PM
CHAIR LEDOUX asked how many violent misdemeanors pleaded to a
non-violent misdemeanor in 2014.
MR. SCHUSTER replied that he did not have the information.
He addressed length of stay for non-violent felony sentenced
offenders and revealed that length of stay has increased across
the board for all types of non-violent felony offenders. He
detailed that length of stay for property and drug offenders
increased by a month, length of stay for alcohol and public
offenders increased by three months. He added that multiplying
the increases by hundreds and thousands of cases adds up to a
lot of prison beds that Alaska was not using 10 years ago.
CHAIR LEDOUX asked what a felony offense is for public order.
MR. SCHUSTER explained that a lot of the public order offenses
are weapons offenses where a felon is in possession of a weapon.
He added that he did not know if an aggravated misdemeanor for
public order can become a felony.
3:21:16 PM
He revealed that violent felony offenders are also spending
longer time in prison than in 2005. He specified that there are
two categories of violent felonies in Alaska: person offenses
and registerable sex offenses. He revealed that person offenses
are staying 17 percent longer and sex offenders are spending 86
percent longer. He explained that the length of stay was arrived
at by only looking at people who had been released and noted
that very long sentences of 40 years or longer we not calculated
because the individual had not been released. He admitted that
the length of stay calculation was conservative because the
longer sentences were not taken into consideration.
MR. SCHUSTER summarized that a lot of low level offenders are
being sentenced to prison. He added that the length of stay in
prisons has increased for both non-violent and violent felony
offenders. He remarked that the increase in length of stay has
been driving the state's growth in the sentenced population.
He addressed probation and parole violators and noted that data
was derived from a snap-shot comparison between July 1, 2005 and
July 1, 2014. He reiterated that the things that can contribute
to population growth are people coming into prison on
supervision violations and or people staying for longer periods
of time for supervision violations. He explained that the data
was ascertained by looking at how many people are coming into
prison on probation and parole revocations. He detailed that
revocations were broken down into length of imprisonment
categories that was imposed: 0-7 days, 8-30 days, 1-3 months, 3-
6 months, 6 months to 1 year, etc.
3:24:28 PM
He revealed that more people received prison revocations in 2014
than in 2005. He detailed that the biggest growth is in the 0-7
day's category due partially from the creation and expansion of
the Probation Accountability and Certain Enforcement (PACE)
Program where people are going into prison on very short
revocation sanctions. He explained that the PACE Program focuses
on high risk offenders that are on probation and violations of
conditions lead to prison revocations. He noted that the PACE
Program also captures people who are detained in prison while
awaiting their revocation hearing and the judge of the parole
board awards the time served while being detained. He detailed
that the average person waits about a month prior to a
revocation hearing, but technically the person's prison
revocation is categorized as 0-7 days.
He pointed out that increases also occurred in all of the
revocation time period categories. He noted that a robust body
of research indicates that longer lengths of stay for technical
violations goes against reducing recidivism rates. He explained
that community supervision deals with swift and certain
sanctions that are proportional to violations and is less
disruptive to people's lives.
CHAIR LEDOUX asked if those who are going in for revocations are
committing other crimes or just screwing up their parole.
3:26:37 PM
MR. SCHUSTER replied sometimes it is both where people are
coming in on technical violations when new criminal activity is
being investigated. He detailed that an individual with a new
crime falls into the pretrial group and a person coming in on a
technical violation will fall into the supervision violators
group.
CHAIR LEDOUX asked what good is parole after a person has served
their time in prison.
MR. SCHUSTER said an example of the use of parole applies to a
situation where a person is sentenced to 24 months of prison
with 22 months suspended. So the individual serves 2 months in
prison with probation afterwards. He detailed that most people
actually are released with some period of probation already
attached to their sentence. He explained that sometimes people
who are released on parole end up being on both parole and
probation at the same time.
3:28:05 PM
CHAIR LEDOUX asked what the difference is between parole and
probation.
JUSTICE BRYNER specified as follows:
Under Alaska law, probation happens when you have a
portion of a sentence that is imposed but it is
suspended that you don't have to serve, as long as you
are on good behavior and comply with conditions
imposed by the court. If you violate those conditions,
you can have your probationary period unsuspended and
the remainder or portion of the remainder of your
sentence can be imposed.
Parole occurs when you are sentenced into prison for a
specific time. In serving your time, if you serve your
time and get credit for good time served, under the
parole provisions you get a certain amount of credit
for good time that shortens the actual sentence and
you can get released before your actual number of days
are served. When you are released you are released to
parole which means, again you have to comply with
conditions of service, you have to comply with all of
the conditions of your parole which is just like
probation there, and if you violate them, you can be
taken back to the court and then the court can impose
the rest of that sentence and you can be forced to
serve the rest of your unserved sentence.
3:30:05 PM
CHAIR LEDOUX asked what would happen if time served in prison
was strictly used and parole was done away with. She pointed out
that prisons are ending up with a significant number of people
who are going to prison for technical violations of parole
rather than for a new crime.
JUSTICE BRYNER replied that an effective strategy for technical
violators, especially with low risk offenders, is to shock the
offender with a short stay in jail and probation rather than
unreasonably imposing excess prison time. He explained that the
strategy lets the offender know to take their situation
seriously.
MR. SCHUSTER stated that there are also a lot of benefits to
community supervision where people are coming out of prison to
have extra support and be held accountable when they are most
likely to have some trouble reentering the community. He noted
that Deputy Director Casto will address reentry efforts that the
Alaska Department of Corrections (DOC) is working on to make
sure that during those moments when people are transition from
prison that they have support in place and a plan for success.
MS. CASTO explained that she has been with DOC for a little over
two months. She noted that her background includes work in
health and social services: 20 years with the state and 17 years
in the non-profit sector. She said DOC is a huge and complicated
system, but not so different from health and social services
where DOC is just further down the continuum of care.
She revealed that DOC is putting a lot of effort into the issues
related to recidivism reduction and reentry programming. She
divulged that one of the reasons DOC Commissioner Taylor brought
her on was due to her experience working with communities,
partners, establishing services, and doing case management;
things that were not being done by the department. She pointed
out that many DOC staff members questioned the hiring of a
person with a "social work" background. She asserted that she is
trying to change the department's terminology to address reentry
as "case management."
MS. CASTO addressed Chair LeDoux's point and noted that the
department is focusing on what can be done to assist a person
rather than just holding them and saying that they are being
watched. She said the intent is to help guide and provide
services to assist with community entry in a positive way.
She said coming back from the other side for many of Alaska's
inmates who have been in the prison system for a long time is a
real shock where friends, family members, a home, and job are
gone. She added that an individual may also be struggling with
substance abuse or a mental health situation.
3:35:31 PM
She explained that DOC's plan is to work with its community
partners. She detailed that DOC works strongly with the
Department of Labor and the state's unions to do apprenticeship
programs to train and provide good skills to inmates prior to
release. She added that DOC works with its partners in housing
and the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation to make sure inmates
have housing lined up prior to getting out.
She revealed that she was surprised at the number of inmate
cases with severe mental health or physical health problems. She
noted that she has been working for the last 15 years in mental
health and substance abuse and she was surprised by the severity
level.
She explained that DOC will begin developing its partnership
with communities to address how inmates will be moved back into
the communities. She specified that DOC has reentry coalitions
in four communities: Fairbanks, Matanuska-Susitna Valley,
Anchorage, and Juneau. She revealed that funding from the Alaska
Mental Health Trust will allow DOC to award grants to the four
coalitions to hire coordinators. She detailed that services will
be developed to better lay out a plan so that returning citizens
do not go back to prison on technical violations or come back to
a community just because they need a place to live. She revealed
that during a recent prison tour that a sergeant from the
facility shared that a number of people will commit low level
crimes just to return to prison in order to have a place to live
with meals and healthcare. She asserted that DOC must do a
better job in providing better services on the outside than on
the inside in order to help people be successful.
MR. SCHUSTER explained that absent further reform, Alaska's
prison population is expected to grow 27 percent and cost at
least $169 million over the next ten years. He detailed prison
population projections without further reform as follows:
· 1,400 additional prison beds will be required.
· Current prison bed capacity will be exceeded in 2017.
· 128 beds in a reopened facility will be exceeded in 2018.
· The cost to reopen a facility and transfer excess prisoners
to out-of-state facilities amounts to $169 million.
· Building a new prison would likely cost more than $169
million, the Goose Creek facility cost $240 million to
build.
3:41:50 PM
He said Governor Walker, the Speaker of the House, and the
Senate President have come together with other leaders and
agreed upon a process aimed at curbing Alaska's future prison
growth in a way that is safe, protects public safety, and holds
offenders accountable; they have charged the Alaska Criminal
Justice Commission (AJC) with developing a comprehensive package
of recommendations for reforms. He detailed that reforms would
be statutory and budgetary for the Legislature to consider
during the upcoming legislative session.
He said AJC is a diverse group of stakeholders that includes
lawmakers: Representative Keller and Senator Coghill. AJC is
also comprised of judges, law enforcement members, DOC's
commissioner, the attorney general, a public defender, an Alaska
native representative, an advocate for victims' rights, and a
representative for the Mental Health Trust Authority. He
detailed that over the past year, AJC has been holding meetings
and gathering testimony from public hearings around the state.
He revealed that AJC will be holding additional public meetings
in Fairbanks, Bethel, Nome, Kotzebue and surrounding villages to
make sure peoples' voices are heard from remote and rural areas
as well. He added that AJC will be holding policy development
meetings during the fall and presenting a report to the
Legislature in December.
3:43:51 PM
REPRESENTATIVE FOSTER said he appreciates AJC's open process to
get out to rural Alaska and the entire state.
CHAIR MCGUIRE thanked the Pew Charitable Trusts for assisting
the state with data. She said she appreciated hearing from the
representatives from the different states on how they
incorporated Pew's data in turning things around.
JUSTICE BRYNER thanked the Pew Charitable Trusts for assisting
AJC and providing their technical expertise that allows the
commission's process to be data driven. He asserted that Pew's
experience encourages the commission to believe that it is doing
something that can succeed. He thanked the state's three
branches of government for agreeing to invite Pew. He expressed
gratitude to the Legislature on a bipartisan basis for adopting
SB 64. He specified that SB 64 gave AJC the authority to
undertake and complete the process. He asserted that all AJC
members would agree that the Legislature's action was very
insightful and very timely.
CHAIR MCGUIRE thanked Senator Ellis, co-prime sponsor of SB 64,
for joining the committee meeting. She thanked all House and
Senate members for their time as well.
ADJOURNMENT
3:45:53 PM
The meeting was adjourned at 3:45 p.m.
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