Posted by Scott Packard on Wed, Feb 03, 2010 @ 08:00 AM
Every Wednesday, I'll be providing a few links to other stories related to the corrections community that I think will prove helpful. So, without further ado, here are this weeks Wednesday Hotlinks:
Cellular phone jamming devices may not be allowed in US prisons and jails (at least not yet), but Down Under the Australian Communications and Media Authority is considering lifting the ban on the jamming devices.
Inmates in Livingston Parish, LA will no longer be receiving free health care. According to the Parish President Mike Grimmer, it costs the parish $370,000 per year to provide health care to the 500 inmates.
Eleven inmates were hurt in a prison fight over the weekend in Arizona. Apparently, two inmates started fighting at the Lewis prison complex after lunch, which then bloomed into a larger fight with homemade weapons involved.
President Obama released his budget plan for fiscal year 2011. Included in the budget is $270 million allotted for the federalization of the Thomson prison in Illinois. The administration hopes to move suspected terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to Thomson.
What are the benefits of staff unity within a corrections environment? Corrections.com writers Joe Bouchard and Tracy Barnhart have an in depth discussion about the benefits of staff unity.
Posted by Scott Packard on Fri, Jan 29, 2010 @ 12:00 PM
"One thing at a time. Most important thing first. Start now." Those 11 words can be a mantra for your productivity.
Are constantly distracted by your ‘to do' list? Do you give up after trying deciding to whether to paint the garage or cut the grass? Does your societal induced ADD have unintended consequences? (Like forgetting to turn off the coffee maker, thus causing your kitchen to smell like a Starbucks run by forgetful monkeys)
Working in a corrections environment leaves little room for error. A misplaced pen can turn into a shiv, or an unintentional unlocked door can lead to an escape. I can guarantee you that those 11 words up top and help better your productivity during the day. It helps isolate the most critical tasks first, and in turn focus on those tasks while blurring out the rest of your distractions. To run an efficient corrections facility, each "cog" must be doing his/her job properly to allow the other cogs to run smoothly.
So now it's your turn dear reader. What other life philosophies do you prescribe to make sense of this mad and distracting world? Do you meditate during the day? Or have yourself a nice coffee and/or cigarette break? Let your thoughts be heard in the comment section below!
Posted by Scott Packard on Thu, Jan 14, 2010 @ 03:41 PM
In this weeks Facility Spotlight, we're flying from Leavenworth, KS to San Francisco, CA to visit a notorious correctional facility, Alcatraz. (Though we'll now have to take our underwear off along with our shoes when going through security.)
Of referred to as 'The Rock', Alcatraz has served as lighthouse, military fort and prison, and eventually as part as the Federal Bureau of Prisons until 1963.
As early as 1861, Alcatraz was used to hold Civil War prisoners. From the conclusion of the Civil War until 1907, it served as a detention facility for a hodgepodge of criminals, including some Hopi Native Americans in the 1870's.
From 1907 until 1933, Alcatraz was a military prison that even held some conscientious objectors from WW1 (like Leavenworth). Finally, in 1933, The Rock was decommissioned as a military prison and transferred to the Bureau of Prisons.
In 1963, it was determined that is quite costly to house inmates at Alcatraz ($10/day per inmate at the time) and decided to transfer the inmates to the US Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois.
FYI, for comparison, it only cost the BOP $3/day per inmate in Atlanta.
Although only a prison for 29 years, Alcatraz had seen it's fair share of notable inmates. For example:
Al Capone - Capone was an infamous mobster who gained notoriety by leading his crime syndicate. Such acts committed by his "gang" included bootlegging alcohol during the prohibition and racketeering. Interestingly though, Capone was only ever to be indicted for tax evasion. Capone received his golden ticket to Alcatraz because he continued to run his syndicate while serving time in Atlanta. He was successful in buying off corrections officers in Atlanta. He only served almost 5 years at the Rock, but contacted syphilis there and was transferred to a terminal facility in Los Angeles.
George "Machine Gun" Kelly - Another infamous mobster, Kelly served time in Alcatraz after he and his wife kidnapped two prominent Oklahoma City businessmen. However, Kelly was quite the model inmate at his 17 years at the Rock that his nickname was downgraded to "Pop Gun". He was transferred to Leavenworth and died of a heart attack 3 years later after moving.
James "Whitey" Bulger - Bulger has a rap sheet a mile long, including but not limited to: murder, extortion, money laundering, and narcotics distribution. Bulger was sent to Alcatraz for robbing a string of banks in Rhode Island. Apparently, the Rock didn't break him, as he went on to organize and lead notorious Irish-American gangs in Boston, Mass. He's currently on the FBI's Ten-Most wanted list.
Posted by Scott Packard on Tue, Jan 05, 2010 @ 03:17 PM
Cory Booker, the Mayor of Newark, NJ, recently released a blog post about breaking the cycle of re-arrest and re-imprisonment in Newark. He acknowledges the need to not only reduce violence and criminal activity in Newark, but to also lessen the taxpayers money when it comes to arresting and detaining these offenders.
Mayor Booker highlights several programs (both bi-partisan by the way) that are helping fight recidivism in Newark and the state of New Jersey. One of the biggest programs is the Newark Prisoner Reentry Initiative (NPRI), which was made possible by the likes of the Manhattan Institute, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, Nicholson Foundation, and Public/Private Ventures. This program also receives funding from the Labor Department.
NPRI assists qualified offenders with job searches and mentoring and training programs. The program has helped over 600 former offenders and pushed the one year recidivism rate to below 10%, a staggering feat.
Of course, it helps to have vested community partners to make programs such as NPRI work. For example, Newark's local Essex County College hosts a program called Opportunity Reconnect. Opportunity Reconnect is a one-stop reentry center for former offenders by providing government agencies located together on-site to provide access to services such as welfare, Medicaid, housing, health services and family reunification. Also on-site are education, workforce preparation and job placement workshops. Another community partner is ReLeSe, a pro bono group of lawyers that assist former convicts in regaining their driver's licenses.
All these programs are aimed at lowering recidivism and eliminating the cycle of criminality. The NPRI program is still in its incubation stages, but the early results look promising. It will be interesting to review the recidivism rates in five to ten years.
So another question to the readers. What programs exist in your facility to help combat recidivism? Does your community provide something similar to NPRI or anything else that helps former offenders reenter their daily lives?
Do you have any ideas that could help your or other facilities?
Leave a comment below and share your ideas and plans with the corrections community!
Posted by Scott Packard on Wed, Dec 02, 2009 @ 02:47 PM
When does a tax become an illegal tax? Well, that's a loaded question, because if you were to ask 100 people, you would most likely get 100 different responses. In 2004, the Center for Constitutional Rights and prisoners' families sued the New York Department of Correctional Services over what they felt were excessive calling rates for inmates. (According to this NY Times article, the telephone vendor charged $.16/minute plus a $3 surcharge).
In January of 2007, newly elected governor Eliot Spitzer enacted legislation that made it illegal for the NYDOCS to accept correctional telephone commissions, thus reducing the rates charged to inmates and their families. However, the CCR and inmates' families were also asking that they be refunded for the commissions paid to the prisons through high rates, or what they called an illegal tax.
Opponents of telephone commissions say that these rates hinder communication between an inmate and his/her family. By taxing these families, it not only hurts the chances of a successful reintegration in society, but also sets the family back financially substantially.
Proponents of this issue will point out that correctional facilities and entities already operate on a shoestring budget and these commissions help hire and train employees and pay for overtime. In a lot of counties and states, the commissions received can only be used towards an Inmate Welfare Fund (IWF), which helps pay for amenities the inmates use and for educational programs (i.e. GED completion programs, vocational training) that will give an inmate a head start when he/she leaves.
So, I think it's high time for a little social experiment. Let's pretend for a second that I am the Governor of your state (yes, your imagination section of your brain would need to be quite large to comprehend that). Are you for or against commissions? Do you think there is enough middle ground for a consensus compromise that would appease both parties? Leave your comments and thoughts below. I'd like to come back to this issue in a few weeks or months and follow up with everyone's thoughts. Or, if you don't want publicly voice your opinion (or you're shy), email me at spackard@dsiiti.com. I'll promise to keep all info confidential.
Posted by Scott Packard on Wed, Oct 28, 2009 @ 01:21 PM
Wow, has really been this long since my last blog entry?! I guess that's what happens when you turn a year older and Altoona sees a few inches of snow in early October. Anyways, I'm back with another "Facility Spotlight" segment. This time, I move from the Rockies to the Plains. (Queue the ‘Dumb and Dumber' quote: "I expected the Rocky Mountains to be a little rockier than this.") But I digress.
So let's jump in shall we? This week, we visit the United States Disciplinary Barracks (USDB, or Leavenworth) based at the US Army post in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Sitting next to its cousin; the civilian US Penitentiary, Leavenworth; the USDB is the US military's only maximum-security facility and it houses male service members convicted at court martial hearings. The corrections officers are referred to as ‘corrections specialists' and are trained at the US Army Military Police school in Missouri.
The current facility is actually a reincarnation of the first USDB. The current facility holds 515 beds and became operational in September of 2002. Interesting enough, the USDB, along with the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility in Michigan, are being considered for relocation of the 220 prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
Also, the USDB has been continuously been accredited from the American Correctional Association since 1988. If you have the urge to reside in this place, you must be either an enlisted person with a prison sentence over 5 years, a commissioned officer, or a prisoner convicted of offenses related to national security.
Although not as high profile as the ADX Florence, some inmates have included:
William Calley - Mr. Calley was the only soldier convicted in the My Lai massacre. I won't go into details, but a rouge unit of soldiers during the Vietnam War conducted a raid on the village in South Vietnam that killed anywhere between 347 to 504 unarmed citizens.
John Neufeld - Mr. Neufeld was a Mennonite (similar to Amish) conscientious objector to WWI. He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor at the USDB, but was paroled to dairy work after 5 months.
Jonathan Wells - Mr. Wells, before he wrote ‘Icons of Evolution', served 18 months at the USDB for refusing to serve during the Vietnam War. He was drafted by the Army and spent 2 years serving in Germany. After his discharged in 1966, he attended University of California and publicly refused to report for reserve duty.
Lastly, the USDB also houses the US Military's ‘death row' inmates. As of 2009, there have been 29 executions there, including 12 German prisoners of war during WWII. The last execution took place in 1961. Currently, only 8 death row inmates are housed at the USDB.
Posted by Scott Packard on Wed, Sep 16, 2009 @ 02:52 PM
In my ongoing quest to bring the good news of self sufficiency, I found an article the other day about 1,150 acre farm in Tulare County, California that is able to feed all 1,700 inmates housed in the county.
According to the article, over 3,500 pounds of pork and beef are culled from the farm, as well as 50,000 pounds of vegetables. This entire program is managed by the Tulare County Sheriff's Department.
I, for one, applaud the efforts by the Sheriff's Department to be self-sufficient. There are several positive outcomes for such an endeavor. The biggest benefit is that the County saves money by reducing their dependence on outsourced foods. In today's economic environment, anything that can save cash (big or small) always adds to the bottom line. Taxpayers are happy to see that their taxes can be spent on other items such as funding for police and fire services. Another positive aspect is that this is a valuable learning tool for inmates. Many inmates, unfortunately, are from urbanized areas that don't create an opportunity to realize the many benefits for farming and self-sufficiency. If this experience can teach an inmate about a hard days work and lessen the impact to the taxpayers, then I would call it a win-win.
I think if California, or any other state, wants to cut down on recidivism, then I think it might be valuable to offer a co-op or extension program to help these inmates after they get out. When inmates return home, there are ways to start a small individual or community garden that they can be taught.
The big picture is that to reduce crime, the biggest factors are education and engagement. If we could start a cycle of educating communities about buying locally produced food and engaging them with proper tools to keep the cycle going, then I think we could reduce the incidence of crime in young individuals.
So do you agree, or disagree? Any other ideas we could share with the rest of the corrections industry? If so, please leave a comment at the bottom!
Posted by Scott Packard on Mon, Aug 17, 2009 @ 02:04 PM
Earlier this month, on the night of August 9th, the Reception Center West at the California Institution for Men in Chino, CA erupted into chaos and mayhem. Reports estimate a total of nearly 250 injured prisoners with 55 requiring hospitalization. For eleven hours, black and Latino prisoners with gang affiliations engaged in combat.
Because of the quick response of the CO's and prison authorities, this melee resulted in zero prison employee injuries, zero fatalities and zero escaped inmates.
Every day, correctional employees, correctional vendors and other prison personnel wake up and find themselves conducting business in a dangerous environment. Although 99% of the time everything seems normal and running like a well oiled machine, we must keep that small "What If' thought in the back of our minds when walking the concrete corridors.
Thanks to efforts by national, state, and local correctional associations and other entities, jails and prisons across the country are able to conduct business as usual within that 99% window. But, as Chino showed us, when that 1% event does happen corrections personnel will be ready.
This incident shows why millions of dollars are invested each year into continuous training and more effective and efficient products and services to jails and prisons nationwide. For example, the Arizona Detention Association holds classes throughout the year for CO's within Arizona and the association holds an annual leadership and technology conference.
So, another question for the audience.
What efforts have been made by your facility or association to keep you and your fellow employees on the front line of defense?
Do you have any examples that may benefit other readers?
Let your thoughts flow in the comments section below!
Posted by Scott Packard on Mon, Aug 03, 2009 @ 04:00 PM
It's the time of the year again where two sides square off and theatrically dance around until both sides come to agreement. No, it's not a revival of "West Side Story", it's the arrival of the budgetary blues. Yep, your elected representatives are digging down deep in their respective trenches and going to battle.
Of course, corrections and law enforcement are almost always caught in the middle. Many stories over the past few months within the corrections industry are tied in with ways jails and prisons are coming up with ideas to save money. The Washington state DOC is looking to release seriously ill inmates to save on incarceration and health costs. Some states, like Illinois, are considering cutting back their already depleted DOC staff.
Unfortunately, it seems more budget cuts like these will continue until the national (and global for that matter) economy starts to get better.
In the mean time, corrections staff and administration have to come up with creative ways to reduce cost. Some of the most common ways that I've seen to cut costs are reducing the number of CO's and executive staff, arranging group transportation of inmates to court and other places and lowering health and food costs.
In other creative examples, Broward County is looking for a volunteer entity to run a jail, Los Angeles County was considering freeing 4,000 inmates and some state DOC's are looking into relaxing some of their prison policies.
As I reported before, there are other jails and prisons across the country looking for ways to cut costs. So, to ask my readers again, what ways are you looking to cut costs?
Maybe you found something that has worked and want to share with other readers?
Let your ideas flow in the comments section below.
Posted by Scott Packard on Fri, Jul 17, 2009 @ 03:23 PM
Over the past few years, cellular phones have slowly been finding their way into prisons and jails. In hindsight, we all should have seen this coming.
Inmate telephone technology is better each day and more conversations are being recorded and archived. It was only a matter of time before inmates started using cell phones to order hits, continue operations of their crime rings, or even just talk to loved ones.
One possible solution, cellular transmission jamming, could be a viable option. A lot of county and state jail officials would like to start using them. There is one tiny little problem though. In the simplest terms, The Communications Act of 1934 does not allow signal jamming. Thus, prison and jail officials cannot legally install jamming devices even though the technology does exist to make this possible.
There is an ongoing intense debate on Capitol Hill this week over the issue of whether to allow cell jammers into correctional facilities. The Safe Prisons Communications Act of 2009 (H.R. 560) would allow the installation of jamming devices in any correctional facility for 10 years. There are other regulations and rules with it, of course, but the main idea is to allow jails and prisons to stop inmates from using cellular phones.
Now, why would there even be a debate about this issue if it can prevent crimes? Well, CTIA (used to be known as the Cellular Telephone Industries Association) does not like the fact that jails and prisons could possibly jam signals from their devices. Steve Largent, President and CEO of CTIA, has proposed a few options instead of just straight jamming. One alternative solution could be a cell phone detection (not jamming) device that would pinpoint the coordinates of a rouge cellular phone. Another option would be to manage the access of the wireless signals and allow only transmission from safe phones (jail officials, approved visitors on official business, etc.).
So, are these alternative solutions viable? Mr. Largent told the senators last week:
"Just last week, CTIA convened a day-long meeting involving North American vendors of cell detection and managed access solutions and engineers from a number of CTIA's carrier members to discuss potential solutions to this issue. We hope our efforts will put the industry in a position to trial alternative solutions in partnership with various states ...".
To follow the status of HR 560 online, click here. So I question for the readers. What is your opinion?
Should Capitol Hill allow cellular jamming technology in jails, or should jails and prisons use one of the alternatives proposed by the CTIA?
Use the comments section below to express your opinion!