Legislature(2011 - 2012)BELTZ 105 (TSBldg)
01/26/2011 01:30 PM Senate JUDICIARY
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| Overview: Department of Corrections | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
SENATE JUDICIARY STANDING COMMITTEE
January 26, 2011
1:32 p.m.
Senator Hollis French, Chair
Senator Bill Wielechowski, Vice Chair
Senator Joe Paskvan
Senator Lesil McGuire
Senator John Coghill
MEMBERS ABSENT
All members present
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
OVERVIEW: DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
- HEARD
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
No previous action to report
WITNESS REGISTER
JOE SCHMIDT, Commissioner
Department of Corrections (DOC)
Anchorage, AK
POSITION STATEMENT: Presented an overview of the Department of
Corrections.
CARMEN GUTIERREZ, Deputy Commissioner
Prisoner Rehabilitation and Re-entry
Department of Corrections (DOC)
Anchorage, AK
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided information about cost-effective
justice measures within the Department of Corrections.
ACTION NARRATIVE
1:32:03 PM
CHAIR HOLLIS FRENCH called the Senate Judiciary Standing
Committee meeting to order at 1:32 p.m. Senators Coghill,
Paskvan, McGuire, and French were present at the call to order.
Senator Wielechowski arrived during the course of the hearing.
^OVERVIEW: DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
CHAIR FRENCH announced that the business before the committee
would be to hear an overview from the Department of Corrections
focusing on cost effective justice.
1:32:42 PM
JOE SCHMIDT, Commissioner, Department of Corrections (DOC), said
his overview of the department would briefly cover the size of
the department and the budget, prisoner trends, the population
management strategy, the program strategy, the PACE program, the
implementation plan and philosophy for Goose Creek, and the
five-year plan. He introduced Ms. Gutierrez, Leslie Houston, and
Shalon Harrington.
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT provided the following information about
the Department of Corrections:
· 1,500 staff are employed.
· 12 facilities statewide have a total of 3,778 beds.
· 1,000 prisoners are incarcerated in Hudson, Colorado under
an out-of-state contact with the GEO Group.
· 13 field probation offices to supervise 6,000 parolees or
probationers.
· 15 contract jails statewide have 159 beds.
· 730 halfway-house beds are currently used.
· 290 offenders are on electronic monitoring.
· 38,000 people are booked in and out of DOC very year, which
is significant in a state with a population of 700,000.
· 1 in 36 adults in the state are under the supervision of
DOC, according to the PEW study.
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT said the DOC population management strategy
is to utilize halfway houses - but only for people who are
qualified and determined to be safe in these locations, and to
employ electronic monitoring. He clarified that there is no
study that shows that these reduce recidivism, but a prisoner in
a halfway house is able to get a job. With employment there is
opportunity to find housing and sober support before being
entirely released from custody. These things have been shown to
reduce recidivism and the halfway house makes it possible.
Electronic monitoring is the most cost-effective supervision
available. In the past 4 years 94 or 95 percent of the people
that start the program finish it without committing a violation
or a new crime.
1:37:23 PM
CHAIR FRENCH questioned what keeps DOC from putting more people
on electronic monitoring.
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT offered to provide the list of criteria,
but certain people like sex offenders are not eligible for
electronic monitoring. He added that he prefers to err on the
side of caution when making these decisions because he doesn't
want the program to be compromised.
CHAIR FRENCH asked if he personally approves every electronic
monitoring application.
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT said no; if the officers who make the
determinations find some type of public concern that is
unrelated to the crime he said he's quick to warn against
putting that inmate into the electronic monitoring program.
1:39:19 PM
SENATOR PASKVAN asked if the sentencing statutes need to be
modified or if certain low-risk categories of crime should more
frequently be considered for electronic monitoring.
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT thanked him for asking the question and
said they could look at making the EM program larger, but the
limiting factor would be the need for increased staff resources.
He offered to do some work before coming back to further
discussing expanding the program. It would be a good thing to do
because it's been so successful.
CHAIR FRENCH agreed that would be a great an opportunity for a
future hearing to focus solely on electronic monitoring because
it seems to have promise.
SENATOR PASKVAN added that he's concerned about the
disproportionate number of the indigenous population behind bars
and that there might be inequities. Electronic monitoring seems
to be one of the easiest ways to potentially address the issue,
he said.
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT replied there are several reasons he
believes that's true. In 2008 the prison population dropped by
250 prisoners after halfway houses and electronic monitoring
were first employed. In that same year the percentage of Alaska
Natives in prison dropped from 36 percent to between 34.5
percent and 35 percent. Looking into it further, he saw that
Alaska Natives are 1 year younger than the average age of an
offender and 55 percent get out in the next 6 months so they
would be tend to be those that would qualify for the electronic
monitoring program. He said he looks forward to reviewing this
in the public process.
1:44:09 PM
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT explained that when he started as
commissioner, the only program that was available to prisoners
was the residential substance abuse treatment (RSAT) program. It
had a 1-year waiting list but not many prisoners would qualify
since the average sentence in Alaska is 160 days. To address
this issue they worked on a program plan that had shorter, less
intensive programs for a greater number of offenders. In 2008
and 2009 they put together 90-120 day programs and with a 25 bed
capacity can run 4 sessions per year. The long program was cut
to 6 months and moved to the Colorado facility.
1:46:07 PM
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT informed the committee that Deputy Director
Brandenburg had expressed an interest in writing an evidence-
based program plan in 2007 and his idea was given momentum and
credibility at the 2008 crime summit. There he met Steve Aos who
had data on which programs would reduce recidivism and what that
means to an economy. This resulted in the Legislature and the
Alaska Mental Health Trust funding an ISER study to develop a
list of effective Alaska programs based on Mr. Aos' work. He
noted that with few exceptions, these programs were very similar
to what Mr. Brandenburg had expressed interest in initially.
In 2008 and 2009 DOC received funding from the Legislature to
start putting these programs in place. They've been in long
enough that the first inmates have been released from custody
for one year. The data reflects 40 percent recidivism after one
year compared to 66 percent recidivism after three years without
the evidence-based program plan. Ultimately they expect a 50
percent recidivism rate, which is in line with other similar
programs.
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT said 1,000 inmates can go through the
program every year and he isn't asking to do any more than that
right now. In another year they expect to have a realistic idea
about which inmates can get into this program at the beginning
of their sentence because there are other impediments.
1:49:22 PM
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT said that when he saw that probation and
parole revocations returned 190 offenders to jail every month he
asked the director to look at what they might be doing wrong.
Subsequent research showed that 50 percent of those coming back
had committed new crimes and 25 percent of the total had
committed the new crime while they were waiting to go to court.
When he told Ms Gutierrez about the numbers, she suggested they
look into developing a probation enforcement program like the
one in Hawaii. That was done and the Alaska program is called
"PACE" for probation accountability certain enforcement. The
premise is that if someone in the program messes up, they go to
jail that day; within 48 hours they're in front of a judge. This
gets their attention.
The first PACE program had 32 probationers who were high-risk
for failure. Within the first couple of weeks 17 were back in
jail and then 4 weeks went by without a hearing. This month 70
offenders will be on the program and while it hasn't been going
long enough for conclusive results, it looks like this is
working. The numbers are exactly tracking the Hawaii results and
the model exactly mirrors the Hawaii program.
CHAIR FRENCH asked if the program is only in Anchorage.
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT answered yes and this budget cycle they're
looking whether they have the resources to start a program for
misdemeanor domestic violence offenders in Fairbanks.
1:54:07 PM
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT said that Goose Creek will be ready for
occupancy in March 2012. The plan is to put about 30 minimum-
custody prisoners there with a small staff compliment to check
each unit and all the systems. Next session DOC will bring a
ramp-up plan for FY 13.
SENATOR COGHILL asked if there are any plans to upgrade aging
halfway houses.
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT replied he isn't aware of any plans for
renovations but a contractor would do upgrades. He offered to
look into it further.
SENATOR MCGUIRE mentioned SB 220 that she and Senator
Wielechowski introduced and asked if DOC has considered applying
for any of the energy efficiency loans that AHFC administers.
COMMISSIONER SCHMIDT replied they did some work on efficiency
work and he agrees that there is an economic impact to improving
energy efficiency.
1:59:30 PM
CARMEN GUTIERREZ, Deputy Commissioner, Prisoner Rehabilitation
and Re-entry, Department of Corrections (DOC), said her
presentation would cover: DOC growth; collaborative efforts DOC
and stakeholders have engaged in to address the issue of
prisoner reentry; the cost-effective approach to justice; and
DOC's next steps.
MS. GUTIERREZ stated that DOC is committed to provide secure
confinement, rehabilitative programming, and supervised
community reentry. Its overarching mission is to improve public
safety while being a good steward of public resources. Research
by the federal Bureau of Justice and the PEW Center on the
States "One in 100" project indicates that the Alaska prison
population is the 11th fastest growing in the United States.
From 2000-2007 the Alaska prison population increased by 106
prisoners per 1,000 residents as opposed to the national rate of
26. This is a faster growth rate than all but West Virginia and
Kentucky. While 12 states decreased their prison populations,
the growth of the Alaska prison population far exceeded the
state population growth. Bookings increased by more than 3,000
from 2004-2009 and the daily average number of prisoners
increased by about 1,000 from 2004-2010. When the Goose Creek
Correctional Center opens it will have 1,536 beds and an ISER
study speaks to what that translates to if the current growth
rate continues.
2:04:01 PM
CHAIR FRENCH asked the cost to keep a prisoner in prison for a
year.
MS. GUTIERREZ replied it's now up to $48,000 per prisoner per
year.
CHAIR FRENCH said he'd been working with $44,000, but at the new
rate it's easy to see that the ongoing cost of increasing the
prison population by 1,000 prisoners every year is $48 million
per year.
MS. GUTIERREZ clarified that the most recent number is actually
$49,800, which translates to a daily rate of $136.
CHAIR FRENCH asked if there are ways to slow the prison growth.
2:05:21 PM
MS. GUTIERREZ replied the impetus for DOC's change in direction
was the cost of incarceration and the Alaska recidivism rate.
Two of three prisoners return to prison within the first three
years of release. The majority return within a year and the vast
majority return within the first six months. Based on the
results of the UAA Institute of Social and Economic Research
(ISER) study, the commissioner asked if the state was getting
good value for the dollars it was spending and what it could do
to improve the outcomes.
MS. GUTIERRIZ provided the following Alaska DOC statistics:
· Ninety-five percent of the people who are convicted
and sentenced to prison eventually gain release.
· Length of sentence, on average:
· 160 days per offender;
· 298 days for felons; and
· 97 days for convicted misdemeanants.
· In 2008 about 289 convicted felons were released into
Alaska communities every month.
· In 2009 about 295 convicted felons were released into
Alaska communities every month.
· As the number of prisoners increases, so does the number of
prisoners released.
· In 2000 about 2,427 prisoners were admitted into
a correctional facility and about 2,600 were
released.
· In 2008 over 3,600 prisoners were admitted and
over 3,700 prisoners released.
2:08:17 PM
SENATOR PASKVAN mentioned the approximately $6,000 increase in
the cost of incarceration and asked if DOC has identified a
component, such as utilities or wages, or if they see a trend
that might help address ways to stem the cost of incarceration.
MS. GUTIERREZ said Leslie Houston, director of administration,
would follow up and provide the information.
CHAIR FRENCH said he'd look for that information in the budget
subcommittee process.
MS. GUTIERREZ confirmed that they would address the issue in
that presentation.
2:09:40 PM
MS. GUTIERREZ continued her presentation with the following
statistics:
· 1982 - 1 in 90 Alaskans were under the jurisdiction of DOC.
· 2007 - 1 in 38 Alaskans were under the jurisdiction of DOC.
· 2009 - 1 in 36 Alaskans were under the jurisdiction of DOC.
SENATOR PASKVAN asked if it's a particular type of crime that's
driving the increase.
MS. GUTIERREZ conceded that the department's data collection
isn't good enough to make it easy to hone in on the issue.
However, DPS, DOC, and DOL are working with the Criminal Justice
Working Group to update the 2007 recidivism study and they hope
that the data that they've collected will shed light on some of
the factors that are driving recidivism. We don't want to give
anecdotal evidence, she stated.
2:12:33 PM
SENATOR MCGUIRE said she's very interested in knowing what
crimes are being committed because she has no objection
whatsoever with returning someone to prison if they've committed
new types of crimes like cyber crimes or predation on young
children. She said she'd like to know the following about
incoming prisoners:
· Education. At what point did the prisoner's formal
education begin, when did they start to read, and at what
level did they leave formal education.
· Abuse. Was the prisoner sexually or physically abused, at
what age did it start, and when did it stop.
· Substance abuse. At what point were they exposed to alcohol
and drugs, when did these become part of their life, were
their parents or people close to them substance abusers.
· Job training. Have they every learned a skill that would
help in getting a job.
· Mental health disorders. Have they been diagnosed with a
mental health disorder, do they feel like they have one.
· Sex offenders. At what point did they begin having thoughts
about predation on young people and when did they start
acting on those thoughts.
SENATOR MCGUIRE further stated she doesn't want another survey,
she wants to understand why we are at this point; what can we do
to grow what we are doing inside our prison populations in order
to truly rehabilitate. If 95 percent of the people who go in are
going to come back and live in our communities, we would like
them to come back as better people.
2:16:31 PM
MS. GUTIERREZ responded that she would follow up and report on
the issues that were highlighted. When she first met
Commissioner Schmidt, he told her she would be successful the
day she no longer had a job; she knew then she wanted to work
for him. She said she knows that Alaska has the ability to solve
this problem, and she wants to be part of the solution. She
emphasized that she does not want to be a part of growing the
prison system; of course there needs to be a place for dangerous
individuals, but what about the substance abuser, or the
individual who has serious mental health disorders who has
received no treatment.
MS. GUTIERREZ mentioned the idea of identifying those entering
the system that don't pose a threat to the community and said we
believe in consequences and public safety, but perhaps we're
punishing people because we're mad, not because they are a
threat. If there is a way to impose a sanction and reinforce
societal norms that doesn't cost $130 dollars plus per day, we
might want to consider that.
She also noted that the DOC has been involved for a period of
time with the Criminal Justice Work Group, and they have a
committee that is focusing on prevention and recidivism. She
explained that prisoner entry requires that society address the
issues of housing, employment, substance abuse, and appropriate
mental health supports in communities. DOC does not have the
mandate for all of that, so there needs to be collaboration, she
said. The Alaska Re-entry Task Force was formed by the Criminal
Justice Working Group in February of 2010, and with the support
of the Alaska Judicial Council and DOC the task force hired a
consultant and prepared the Alaska Five-Year Strategic Prisoner
Reentry plan. Ms. Gutierrez stated that the goal of the document
was two-fold. Part 1 is a resource document - it has numbers and
outlines what community organizations are doing to address the
issues of housing, employment, substance abuse and mental health
treatment in the community. Part 2 is a specific plan that
outlines what it would take to turn the curve of recidivism.
2:23:01 PM
MS. GUTIERREZ explained that the state barrier is a patchwork of
laws, regulations, and policies that make it very difficult for
convicted felons to find employment in this state. She suggested
doing an inventory to see if these laws serve a legitimate
purpose, or if of them are thwarting the attempt to reintegrate
people into society.
2:24:31 PM
CHAIR FRENCH asked when the report would be released.
MS. GUTIERREZ replied she hopes it will be released within a
month and the Alaska Judicial Council will have the document
professionally edited and published.
MS. GUTIERREZ then stated she would like to focus on
collaboration. In the summer 2010, DOC received a letter from
the National Governor's Association inviting states to put
together a team to participate in a cross-governmental
conference on sentencing and corrections. With approval of the
Governor's office, DOC prepared the proposal; a condition of
participation was that all three branches of government needed
to be represented at the conference. For the Executive Branch it
was Deputy Attorney General Rick Svobodny, and Commissioner
Schmidt; for the Judicial Branch it was Court of Appeals Judge
Bolger and District Court Judge Stephanie Rhodes; from the
Legislature it was Representative Mike Kelly and Senator Dennis
Egan. At the conference, they learned that DOC is already doing
many things that were recommended. As a result of contacts made
at the conference, Alaska Common Ground and Partners for
Progress were able to put together a justice summit last summer.
The NGA agreed to provide technical assistance for the summit,
and they brought to Alaska Representative Madden from Texas, as
well as Judge Warren, who is the emeritus president for the
National Council on State Courts.
2:30:05 PM
MS. GUTIERREZ again brought up the success of the Probationer
Accountability with Certain Enforcement (PACE) program; without
the ability to collaborate, she said, that program would never
have gotten off the ground.
2:31:14 PM
CHAIR FRENCH noted that by focusing on the worst offenders, you
get a great cause and effect relationship.
MS. GUTIERREZ explained that certain enforcement of consequences
is needed for people who lack the ability to think long-term.
The program started with 30 probationers, and has now grown to
70 probationers. She said she believes that there is great
promise for this model in Alaska. A controlled study of this
model was done in Honolulu, where the drug of choice is
methamphetamine; this model reduced drug use by 50 percent.
2:33:52 PM
Ms. Gutierrez pointed out that Texas followed recommendations
that are basically outlined in the ISER report and flattened the
growth of its prison population and is not projected to need
another prison bed until 2013. This, she said, is cost-effective
justice. In terms of next steps, Alaska needs to put together a
work group of people who can identify what is driving prison
growth, figure out the best practice methods and employ them in
a true to the model fashion to see if we can level off our
prison growth in the next four years.
2:36:19 PM
CHAIR FRENCH stated that the committee will work with her.
SENATOR COGHILL asked if there is communication and
collaboration with the Juvenile Justice System on some of these
issues.
MS. GUTIERREZ responded that Barb Henjum, Director of Juvenile
Justice, was on the Criminal Justice Working Group, and DOC is
learning about some of the positive outcomes in Juvenile
Justice, particularly the sex offender treatment program. The
program that Mr. Aos listed as being most effective over time in
reducing recidivism was the family nurse practitioner
partnership program.
CHAIR FRENCH said he looks forward to receiving the report when
it's released.
2:39:00 PM
There being no further business to come before the committee,
Chair French adjourned the Senate Judiciary Standing Committee
hearing at 2:39 p.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| DOC Summary S-JUD 01-26-2010.pdf |
SJUD 1/26/2011 1:30:00 PM |