Exporting inmates not solving problem
BOISE – The costs of housing more than 300 overflow Idaho prison inmates at a private prison in Minnesota are adding up by the millions, and the state’s prisons are still over capacity.
“It’s about $500,000 every month, so about $6 million a year,” said Jim Tibbs, chairman of the state Board of Correction, of the latest effort to house Idaho’s fast-growing prison population. “It’s something that unfortunately the Department of Correction has to do, because they’ve got no other place to put ‘em.”
Two weeks ago, tents that had been housing 64 minimum-security inmates at the Southern Idaho Correctional Institution were struck because of cold weather, and a federal court order forced nearly 200 inmates to be moved out of overburdened cellblocks at the medium-security Idaho State Correctional Institution. At the same time, a troubling trend surfaced – Idaho has gained 47 inmates a month since the start of the fiscal year July 1, well above the projected 30 a month.
As a result, two groups of roughly 150 inmates each boarded planes in Boise, shackled together with plastic snap ties at their wrists and ankles and dressed in disposable red jumpsuits provided by their new overseers, Corrections Corporation of America. About half the inmates had volunteered to go; the other half were selected because they had at least two years remaining on their sentences and had no outstanding disciplinary, medical or legal problems. They’re now housed together on one tier at the Minnesota lockup.
“Obviously the governor would prefer not to have to send folks out of state,” said Mike Journee, spokesman for Gov. Dirk Kempthorne. “That’s a costly remedy for the situation. … The solution of sending those guys out was obviously a stop-gap measure.”
But it’s not clear yet whether Idaho has the stomach for the longer-term solution that Corrections Director Tom Beauclair has warned is needed – building three new prisons at a cost of nearly $160 million. Shipping inmates out of state doesn’t cost as much upfront, but it costs far more in the long term.
“I think in the interim we don’t have any choice but to pay the bill, and that’s disturbing,” said Rep. George Eskridge, R-Dover, a member of the Legislature’s joint budget committee and one of seven area legislators who co-sponsored a community meeting about Idaho’s prison dilemma at North Idaho College in September. “That’s $11 million we could be putting into education or something more profitable in terms of society.”
Idaho’s two-year contract with CCA’s Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minn., carries a price tag of $53 per inmate per day, well above the in-state cost of $44 per day. That’s $11.68 million for the 302 inmates for two years. That covers some basic medical care, some treatment and education programs, and the initial and final transports. But it doesn’t count an array of other costs, from additional transportation and medical costs to contract monitoring and records transfer costs.
In all, just for this fiscal year, the prison system now expects to have to ask lawmakers in January for a $7.87 million supplemental appropriation to cover the costs of housing overflow inmates both out-of-state and in county jail cells. That’s on top of the $118.6 million budget already allocated this year for corrections.
“There are things we would rather spend it on, but we’ve got to keep our population safe, too,” said Rep. Mary Lou Shepherd, D-Prichard, another co-sponsor of the September community meeting.
“We have 588 inmates in county jails,” said Correction Department spokeswoman Teresa Jones – though counties had only offered 412 beds. And even with those beds and the 302 out of state, “within Idaho Department of Correction facilities, today we’re at 101 percent of capacity,” she said.
Housing inmates out of state has its drawbacks. The transfer has drawn complaints from inmates’ families, who now will be unable to make frequent visits. Some inmates could have their chance for parole delayed because required programs are interrupted by the transfer. “It can be disruptive to the whole process, but you do what you have to do,” Tibbs said.
Plus, Jones said, “You’re sending out folks who are healthy, the cream of the crop, so you’re hardening your own system.” The inmates with disciplinary, medical and legal problems are left behind in Idaho prisons. “It makes it more difficult to manage inmates in-state and out of state,” Jones said. “It’s not an ideal situation, but we’re making the best of it.”
When Idaho sent 300 inmates to a private prison in Louisiana in 1997, five escaped – including one, a child molester from Kootenai County, who was on the loose for five years before being recaptured in Kentucky. About 100 Idaho inmates, incensed about the conditions at the Louisiana lockup, rioted and caused $35,000 in damage.
“You hope they don’t repeat that kind of an experience,” Tibbs said. “They’ve taken a great deal of effort hopefully to ensure that doesn’t happen,” he said, in part by carefully investigating the Minnesota prison, “but you never know.”
Eskridge said if Idaho is going to keep increasing its prison population, “then it’s probably more economical for the state to build the prisons. But I would like to avoid that.”
Idaho’s prison population has more than doubled in the past decade, with a current inmate total of 6,764. That’s up from 6,526 on June 30. Five years earlier it was 5,002, and in 1995 the figure was 3,234.
Slightly over half of Idaho’s male inmates and nearly 85 percent of its female prisoners are incarcerated for non-violent crimes – drug, alcohol and property offenses, with many of the property crimes related to substance abuse.
The total number of people sentenced by Idaho courts directly for felony substance abuse offenses has nearly doubled from 957 in 1996 to 1,807 in the just-concluded fiscal year 2005.
“The growth rate is faster than any other crime group,” Jones said.
When corrections officials held four well-attended community meetings around the state in September and October on prison growth, the overwhelming sentiment from those attending was support for treatment, both for substance abusers who end up in prison, and in communities, to get them off the track toward the lockup.
“The answer has got to be training to educate our people so they don’t even get involved, and then secondly if they do, find ways to help them kick the habit without going to jail to do it,” Eskridge said. “That’s why I firmly support drug courts, because I think they’re providing us some opportunity to save some of the people that are hooked.”
Yet, a crackdown on methamphetamine was one of Kempthorne’s top campaign promises when he ran for governor, and he succeeded in persuading lawmakers to enact tough new mandatory minimum sentences for those who manufacture the drug.
“We may have to re-look at that,” Eskridge said. “Some legislators are in favor of that. I think others are beginning to wonder if that’s what we need to do.”
Shepherd said she favors possible supervised release of some inmates who’ve served the fixed portion of their sentences to make space for the crush of new offenders. “We’d keep track of those, of course, but free up those beds,” she said. “Maybe that would make a big difference in whether we have to build or not.”
Exit surveys of those leaving prison this past summer, from June to August, showed 52 percent said the primary reason for their incarceration was methamphetamine, whether or not they were sentenced directly for drug crimes. “It gives you a snapshot that yeah, meth is probably driving prison population pretty rapidly,” Jones said.
Kempthorne has appointed a Criminal Justice Commission to study the whole criminal justice system, from drugs and gangs to prison growth. Journee said the governor hopes the group will give him “some guidance” as he formulates proposals for his final legislative session in 2006, as he completes his second term in office. The prison overflow just makes it more pressing.
“Those are things that the governor is planning on addressing, and this will probably make that even more of a priority,” Journee said.