Study Focuses on Barriers to Successful Prisoner Re-Entry Into Atlanta Communities

One out of every 100 Americans is incarcerated. One in 13 adults in Georgia is either in jail or on probation and parole, and the state holds the fifth largest prison population in the nation.

Hundreds of prisoners are released and return to metro-Atlanta neighborhoods every month. For Emory's Office of University-Community Partnerships, which has worked with dozens of community groups, services organizations, policy makers and government leaders for nearly a decade, issues around incarceration are a big piece of the puzzle in developing strategies to build strong communities.

"In many ways, the success or recidivism of former inmates has a tremendous impact on the communities where they settle, but given the stigma attached,.....http://gapublicsafety.blogspot.com/2009/03/study-focuses-on-barriers-to-successful.html

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One in 31 U.S. Adults are Behind Bars, on Parole or Probation

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Explosive growth in the number of people on probation or parole has propelled the population of the American corrections system to more than 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 U.S. adults, according to a report released today by the Pew Center on the States. The vast majority of these offenders live in the community, yet new data in the report finds that nearly 90 percent of state corrections dollars are spent on prisons. One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections examines the scale and cost of prison, jail, probation and parole in each of the 50 states, and provides a blueprint for states to cut both crime and spending by reallocating prison expenses to fund stronger supervision of the large number of offenders in the community.

"Most states are facing serious budget deficits," said Susan Urahn, managing director of The Pew Center on the States. "Every single one of them should be making smart investments in community corrections that will help them cut costs and improve outcomes."

In the past two decades, state general fund spending on corrections increased by more than 300 percent, outpacing other essential government services from education, to transportation and public assistance. Only Medicaid spending has grown faster. Today, corrections imposes a national taxpayer burden of $68 billion a year. Despite this increased spending, recidivism rates have remained largely unchanged.

Research shows that strong community supervision programs for lower-risk, non-violent offenders not only cost significantly less than incarceration but, when appropriately resourced and managed, can cut recidivism by as much as 30 percent. Diverting these offenders to community supervision programs also frees up prison beds needed to house violent offenders, and can offer budget makers additional resources for other pressing public priorities.

One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections provides a detailed look at who is in the corrections system and which states have the highest populations of offenders behind bars and in the community. Key findings include:

-- One in 31 adults in America is in prison or jail, or on probation or
parole. Twenty-five years ago, the rate was 1 in 77.
-- Overall, two-thirds of offenders are in the community, not behind
bars. 1 in 45 adults is on probation or parole and 1 in 100 is in
prison or jail. The proportion of offenders behind bars versus in the
community has changed very little over the past 25 years, despite the
addition of 1.1 million prison beds.
-- Correctional control rates are highly concentrated by race and
geography: 1 in 11 black adults (9.2 percent) versus 1 in 27 Hispanic
adults (3.7 percent) and 1 in 45 white adults (2.2 percent); 1 in 18
men (5.5 percent) versus 1 in 89 women (1.1 percent). The rates can
be extremely high in certain neighborhoods. In one block-group of
Detroit's East Side, for example, 1 in 7 adult men (14.3 percent) is
under correctional control.
-- Georgia, where 1 in 13 adults is behind bars or under community
supervision, leads the top five states that also include Idaho, Texas,
Massachusetts, Ohio and the District of Columbia.


The report also analyzes the cost of current sentencing and corrections policies. The National Association of State Budget Officers estimates that states spent a record $51.7 billion on corrections in FY 2008, or 1 in every 15 general fund dollars. Adding local, federal and other funding brings the national correctional spending total to $68 billion.

While total correctional spending figures have been available before, new data collected by the Pew Center on the States for the report provides the first breakdown of correctional spending by prisons, probation and parole in the past seven years:

-- In FY 2008, the 34 states for which data are available spent $18.65
billion on prisons (88 percent of corrections spending), but only
$2.53 billion on probation and parole (12 percent).
-- For eight states where 25 years of data were available, spending on
prisons grew by $4.74 billion from FY 1983 to FY 2008, while probation
and parole spending increased by only $652 million. This means that
while prisons accounted for one-third of the population growth, they
consumed 88 percent of the new corrections expenditures.
-- The 34 states that were able to provide data reported spending as much
as 22 times more per day to manage prison inmates than to supervise
offenders in the community. The reported average inmate cost was $79
per day, or nearly $29,000 per year. The average cost of managing an
offender in the community ranged from $3.42 per day for probationers
to $7.47 per day for parolees, or about $1,250 to $2,750 a year.


"Violent and career criminals need to be locked up, and for a long time. But our research shows that prisons are housing too many people who can be managed safely and held accountable in the community at far lower cost," said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center on the States' Public Safety Performance Project, which produced the report. "New community supervision strategies and technologies need to be strengthened and expanded, not scaled back. Cutting them may appear to save a few dollars, but it doesn't. It will fuel the cycle of more crime, more victims, more arrests, more prosecutions, and still more imprisonment."

One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections provides states with a blueprint and specific case studies for strengthening their community corrections systems, saving money and reducing crime. Research-based recommendations include:

-- Sort offenders by risk to public safety to determine appropriate
levels of supervision;
-- Base intervention programs on sound research about what works to
reduce recidivism;
-- Harness advances in supervision technology such as electronic
monitoring and rapid-result alcohol and drug tests;
-- Impose swift and certain sanctions for offenders who break the rules
of their release but who do not commit new crimes; and
-- Create incentives for offenders and supervision agencies to succeed,
and monitor their performance.

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Poll Finds Strong Support Across Racial and Ideological Lines for Improving Rehabilitation Services for Prisoners and Ex-Offenders

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A recent poll has found that Americans across the country and in Georgia overwhelmingly support providing progressive rehabilitation and education services for inmates and ex-offenders recently released from prison, underscoring that the nation appears ready to shift criminal justice policies away from mass incarceration, which has not been making communities safer.

Seventy-two percent of respondents nationally and 86 percent of those in Georgia said they are concerned about crime in their community, according to the poll conducted in December 2008 by Zogby International for Community Voices at Morehouse School of Medicine. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of respondents said it is "very important" to improve access to job training, drug treatment, mental health care, mentoring and family assistance before and after inmates are released.

"The poll results strongly indicate that Americans have determined that mass incarceration of criminals, a policy that has been in existence since the 1960s, is not making their neighborhoods safer," said Dr. Henrie Treadwell, director of the Community Voices program. "The nation is crying out for a new policy that rehabilitates criminals and better prepares them to be productive when they are released."

Dr. Treadwell noted that largely because of tougher sentencing, particularly for drug convictions, the incarceration rate in the United States is the highest in the world at 715 inmates per 100,000 residents, far outdistancing the Russians, who are second at 584 per 100,000.

"Communities recognize that the mass incarceration policy needs to be replaced with a mass rehabilitation policy," Dr. Treadwell said. "Our neighborhoods need better health, education, job training and counseling services for inmates that are returning to their communities."

Among the poll results indicating that Americans want to move in that direction:

-- 70 percent of the national respondents and 69 percent of Georgians
said they would rather see additional state money spent on treatment
programs and other services for ex-offenders than on constructing new
prisons.
-- 93 percent nationally and 91 percent in Georgia said that former
felons should be provided with job training.
-- Overwhelming percentages supported providing student loans (80 percent
nationally, 78 percent Georgia), public housing (79 percent
nationally, 73 percent Georgia) and medical services (88 percent
nationally, 84 percent Georgia).


The poll findings cut across ideological lines. Of the 1,039 people interviewed nationally, only 20 percent identified themselves as liberals, while the remainder were moderate (27 percent), conservative (33 percent), very conservative (8 percent) or non-ideological (12 percent). Strong agreement across racial-ethnic lines was found in a national sample that was 74 percent white, 13 percent African-American and 9 percent Hispanic.

"Clearly, Americans are looking for public policies that make communities safer and don't just lock people up to make them more hardened criminals when they are released," Dr. Treadwell said. "We have new leadership in Washington. Hopefully, ending mass incarceration and vastly improving rehabilitation services will be a critical part of the 'change' agenda."

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Ron Sailor Jr Sentenced to Over 5 Years on Federal Charges

Walter Ronnie ("Ron") Sailor, Jr, 33, of Norcross, Georgia, was sentenced September 17, 2008, by United States District Judge Jack T. Camp on charges of money laundering and wire fraud.

Sailor was sentenced to 5 years, 3 months in federal prison, to be followed by 5 years of supervised release and also ordered to perform 240 hours of community service. Sailor also was ordered to forfeit all of the property involved and traceable to his crimes, at least $181,802.24.

Read the whole story.

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