The Board of Corrections has found itself in an unenviable position in recent months as members have struggled to toughen up the state’s parole system without overwhelming already crowded prisons and county jails.
On Wednesday, the board amended a policy created last summer to address concerns about parolees who either fail to follow the rules or commit new crimes while under state supervision.
That policy was good in that it gave the Department of Community Correction time to stabilize and re-evaluate its parole system, said Benny Magness, chairman of the board.
On the flip side, its stringent requirements led to unprecedented overcrowding as county jails and state prisons took on a flood of errant parolees.
“We were reaching a critical mass of what we could withstand,” Magness said. “So we started looking for a happy medium.”
Some of the changes to the policy are contingent on a new GPS-monitoring system, which should help ease the backlog in county jails, Community Correction Department officials said.
The system is monitored by a company rather than parole officers, who are too few to adequately staff the system. That means more parolees can be outfitted with ankle monitors instead of remaining in jail until revocation hearings are held.
Only parolees with nonviolent charges will be eligible.
Parolees accused of serious offenses - such as murder, kidnapping, aggravated robbery, rape and certain types of battery and assault - will remain in jail until their revocation hearings.
Some changes to the policy, however, will contribute to a rise in both county-jail and state-prison populations.
These, board members said, will require the Legislature to take a hard look at additional funding for both the Department of Community Correction and the Department of Correction.
“We hope these policies will show that public safety is first,” Magness said. “But,” he warned, “we can hold only so many inmates.”
The changes expected to increase the number of jail and prison inmates are:
The Department of Community Correction will no longer release holds on a parolee awaiting a revocation hearing just because a sheriff or jailer asks for a release.
Any such requests from sheriffs or jail staff members must be made in writing.
A parolee who fails to report and cannot be located for 30 days will be deemed to have evaded supervision. A warrant will be issued each time a parolee fails to show up. Once a parolee has three warrants for evading supervision, he will be jailed and a revocation hearing will be requested.
A parolee who evades supervision for 180 days will be deemed an absconder and jailed. A revocation hearing will be requested.
A parolee with a history of violent or sexual felonies who evades supervision for 90 days will be jailed, and a revocation hearing will be requested.
The board also approved on Wednesday changes to the Technical Violator Program. The program allows some parolees to waive their rights to revocation hearings. Instead, these parolees are sent to Technical Violator Centers, where they will be assigned to work crews. They also will meet with counselors to come up with suitable parole plans.
In the past, some parolees were sent to the centers multiple times, a practice that irked legislators. Now, however, a parolee will be allowed only two stays at a Technical Violator Center.
The stays will be longer, as well. The program will be extended from 60 to 90 days for the first confinement at a center. A second confinement will be extended from 90 to 120 days.
No one with violent or sexual charges will be allowed at the centers. Nor will parolees who were deemed sexual predators while in prison.
With these changes will come requests for funding from the Legislature, agency directors told the board.
Sheila Sharp, director of the Community Correction Department, cited a need for 131 more probation and parole officers. She also would like to hire 20 more to create special response teams that search for problem parolees and probationers. For the current fiscal year, these positions would cost just under $5.7 million. Fiscal 2015 would require about $12 million in funding.
The agency also needs $832,227 in supplemental funding to reimburse county jails that are holding parolees who are waiting for beds to open up at state prisons. That figure applies to the remainder of this fiscal year, Sharp said.
For fiscal 2015, she estimates reimbursements to cost at least $1 million.
Other funding requests include the hiring of armed officers to supervise work crews at the Technical Violator Centers.
The prison system is requesting supplemental funding for fiscal 2014 to cover the cost of adding 446 beds to existing prisons; county jail reimbursements; and past holiday and overtime pay still owed to prison employees.
The cost of the new beds is $4.1 million; jail reimbursements are $7.8 million; and employee pay is $11.6 million.
For fiscal 2015, the projected costs are $7.9 million for new beds; $5.1 million for county jail reimbursements; $7.7 million for holiday and overtime pay; and $85.2 million for a new 1,000-bed prison unit.
In other business Wednesday, the board released the results of statewide audit of parolees’ case files. The report was put together by Mark Colbert, compliance administrator and attorney.
The audit showed that 89 percent of the state’s 14,088 parolees are reporting to their officers in accordance with their parole plans.
Investigators also reviewed 2,253 parolee case files.
The report states: “Our sample consisted of all parolees with at least one abscond during the four-year period ended July 1, 2013.”
Of the 2,253 parolees whose files were reviewed, 710 were currently considered to be absconders. “We believe these individuals pose a greater than normal threat to public safety,” the report states.” In most cases, they are located only when incarcerated because of additional charges.
“Based on the information in our review, we believe that once a parolee absconds, the percentage is high that he or she will abscond again or commit additional crimes.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/14/2013