LITTLE ROCK — To free up prison space for more inmates, the state’s probation and parole agency is paying private substanceabuse treatment centers and halfway houses to take in offenders who otherwise would stay locked up because they have no other places to live upon release.
Using money from a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, the state Department of Community Correction is paying the halfway houses $28 per inmate per day for up to 120 days, after which the inmates are expected to pay their own rents at the halfway houses or move out on their own.
The grant money, awarded in September 2010, had been used to house 105 parolees as of early this month.
The Community Correction Department said in its grant application that it expects to pay for housing for 200 parolees before the money runs out.
The grant is to expire in September 2012.
Along with housing, the grant money can be used to pay for parolees’ substance abuse and mental-health treatments and counseling.
The assistance is aimed at reducing the number of inmates who have been approved for paroles but remain in prison because they do not have plans for where they will live when they are released.
As of early this month, 222 parole-eligible inmates were in prison because of a lack of suitable plans, Community Correction Department spokesman Rhonda Sharp said.
Of those inmates, 181 were serving time for sex offenses. Sharp said those offenders often have difficulty making parole, in part because of restrictions on where they can live.
Under Arkansas Code 5-14-128, sex offenders deemed to be at high risk of committing more crimes are prohibited from living within 2,000 feet of schools, parks, day-care centers or youth centers. Many apartment complexes also refuse to accept sex offenders, Sharp said.
“There are several issues that sex offenders face when looking for a home that other offenders don’t have to consider, and they often end up staying in prison,” Sharp said in an e-mail.
By placing parolees in halfway houses or other facilities, the Community Correction Department hopes to not only free up prison space but also to ensure that the offenders are monitored after they are released.
Otherwise, at least some of the offenders would likely not be released until they had served all of their time, meaning they would not be placed on parole.
“We’re always backed up against that hard date of discharge,” Parole Board Chairman John Felts said.
As of May 13, 23 organizations, including substanceabuse centers, halfway houses and at least one homeless shelter, were licensed by the Community Correction Department to provide transitional housing to parolees.
Except for the grant money, however, the parole agency does not have any money to reimburse the organizations.
That means most parolees who move to halfway houses or treatment centers must pay rent, sometimes using money from their prison accounts or from the $100 issued to them by the Department of Correction when they are released.
One woman helped by the Justice Department grant, who asked not to be identified, said she requested information from several halfway houses while serving time at the McPherson Unit near Newport and found that “the money they wanted upfront was astronomical.”
“It was horrible,” the woman said. “They wanted like $700 down, and I didn’t want to go into debt.”
The woman, who is 54, was sentenced in Sebastian County to three years in prison in June 2009 for violating her probation on a hot-check conviction.
The woman said she was approved for parole that December but wasn’t released until April, when the Community Correction Department approved her for assistance from the grant to live at the Ozark Mountain Residential Treatment facility in Gassville.
After she was approved, the woman said staff members from the treatment center picked her up at the prison, took her to eat at a restaurant and to get clothes from the Salvation Army, and helped her obtain a new Social Security card.
Now she lives with two other women in a mobile home near the treatment center, where she attends classes on avoiding substance abuse and helps out with clerical tasks.
Although her assistance from the grant ended, the woman said she plans to keep living at the center using money from a disability check that she receives for back ailments.
“I firmly believe that God put me here at that particular time, and I believe when it’s time to go, he will let me know that,” the woman said.
If she had been on her own when she was released, the woman said, she probably would have succumbed to the addiction to painkillers that led to her prison stint.
“I’d probably be dead,” the woman said.
Dennis Amaral, the treatment center’s assistant director, said the center accepts only offenders with drug or alcohol addictions, and does not take those serving time for violent or sex-related offenses.
Parolees who are paying their own way are charged $150 for their first two weeks of housing. After that, the center charges $80 a week, which covers food, utilities and laundry expenses, as well as substance-abuse treatment.
So far, seven inmates have been housed at the center with assistance from the grant. The grant money, Amaral said, has helped the parolees and the center, which has seen its federal funding for substance abuse decline in recent years.
“So far, to this point, it’s been a blessing,” Amaral said of the money.
Sharp said that even with the grant money, placing some offenders in halfway houses has been difficult.
Of the dozen organizations approved to receive reimbursement for housing under the grant, only one — the South Arkansas Substance Abuse Center in El Dorado — will accept sex offenders.
Three of the 12 organizations also refuse to take violent offenders, and some of those that do take them do so only on a case-by-case basis, Sharp said.
Of the 105 offenders who have been housed under the grant, 23 had been serving time for sex offenses, and 15 others were serving time for violent offenses.
As of Monday, six parolees housed with money from the grant had been arrested on new charges, and 11 had been sent to a minimum-security lockup in Malvern for parole violations, Sharp said.
In addition to Ozark Mountain Residential Treatment and the South Arkansas Substance Abuse Center, groups that have received reimbursement from the grant include Health Resources of Arkansas, which operates facilities in Searcy, McCrory, Marianna and Batesville; Sober Living, Quality Living Center and Gyst House in Little Rock; the Freedom House in Russellville; Quapaw House in Hot Springs; The Sugarloaf Reintegration Center in Heber Springs and Community Rescue Mission in Fort Smith.
The grant program is among a number of state initiatives aimed at curbing the growth of Arkansas’ inmate population. Over the past decade, the number of inmates has grown more than 22 percent, from 12,289 on Sept. 30, 2001, to 15,099 as of Thursday.
Act 570, passed by the Legislature this year, includes provisions that will lessen the penalties for certain drugand theft-related crimes, and allow some inmates to be released on home confinement after serving as little as 120 days in jail.
Even with the changes, however, the inmate population is expected to grow by another 3,500 people over the next decade, Department of Correction spokesman Dina Tyler said.
“Transitional housing is a good thing,” Tyler said. “It’s getting it funded properly ... that’s where the hitch has been because funding has been so tight.”
Using state tax dollars, the Community Correction Department paid for transitional housing for parolees in 2007 and 2008, but the funding was eliminated because of statewide budget cuts.
When the federal grant money runs out, prison officials could explore other sources of funding, Board of Corrections Chairman Benny Magness said.
For instance, he noted, Act 570 increased monthly probation fees by $10, to $35, and directed most of the money to go toward services for probationers and parolees.
“There’s no question transitional housing helps, it’s just how much of the money we’ve got,” Magness said.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/28/2011