Capitol Comments

Michigan Prison Closing, Fate for Detainees Uncertain

By Mikel Chavers

For Standish, a small town in northern Michigan that’s home to a maximum security prison the state is preparing to close Oct. 31, the economic effect of the closure will be felt pretty hard—unless the facility is picked by the federal government to house Guantanamo Bay detainees.

But the small town’s fate hangs in the balance and just one month away from closure and job loss, the town still waits on word from the federal government.
 
The prison is the small town’s largest employer.

Michigan’s unemployment rate is already at 15 percent and closing prisons is a hard pill to swallow. “That creates even greater pressures for us,” said John Cordell, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections.

New Jersey Takes Detention Alternatives Statewide

By Mary Branham

Something was going on in New Jersey; that much was clear.

“We had seen a decade of increasing detention populations during a time period when juvenile arrests were declining and that didn’t make sense to us,” said Jennifer LeBaron, manager of research and evaluation for New Jersey’s Juvenile Justice Commission.

And there were problems with the state of detention. In Camden County, for instance, a detention facility built for 37 juveniles hit a high population mark of 131, averaging a daily population of 95. So Camden County, along with four other counties, became part of New Jersey’s initial participation with the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, or JDAI, a program through the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Managing the Addicted Offender

By Mary Branham Dusenberry

Prison populations are growing at a time when the fiscal picture in the states is bleak. That growth is cutting into the resources set aside to deal with substance abuse issues.

That creates problems down the line for states, according to speakers at the Interbranch Working Group session, Managing the Addicted Offender, Sunday afternoon. States are taking new approaches to try to deal with the underlying problems for those in the court system because of drug offenses.

“We like any other part of American society have a certain percentage of the population that needs to go away for a very long time because they’re bad people,” said Michael Brown, secretary of Kentucky’s Justice and Public Safety Cabinet.

Reducing Detention To Help Juvenile Offenders

By Mary Branham Dusenberry

It doesn’t make sense to take a student who isn’t going to school out of school even more by placing them in detention for truancy.

That’s the view of the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Rand Young, a technical assistance provider with JDAI, shared alternatives to detention for low-risk juvenile offenders during the Public Safety and Justice Workshop Sunday.

Instead of detaining the youth, Young suggested alternative rehabilitation options, including community service work projects, weekend programs, house arrest and electronic monitoring, day and evening reporting centers, and foster and shelter care programs.

CSG Justice Center Releases Mental Health Court Primer

The Council of State Governments Justice Center today released Mental Health Courts: A Primer for Policymakers and Practitioners.

The primer was unveiled at the Philadelphia policy forum of the Chief Justices’ Criminal Justice/Mental Health Leadership Initiative, through which state Supreme Court chief justices receive support as they establish statewide task forces to improve the response to people with mental illnesses involved in the criminal justice system. Mental health courts are one of many issues the collaborative task forces are considering as they develop strategic plans for the coming year.

The primer provides the field with its first comprehensive introduction to this increasingly popular specialty court model, which connects individuals with mental illnesses to treatment services while under court supervision. The publication—supported by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice—presents an overview and history of mental health courts. It describes mental health courts’ goals and processes, how they differ from drug courts, research findings about their effectiveness, and resources for jurisdictions interested in starting a program.

The primer complements a recent Justice Center publication, Improving Responses to People with Mental Illnesses: The Essential Elements of a Mental Health Court.

Get free copies of both publications.

States Using GPS to Track High-Risk Domestic Violence Offenders

By Mikel Chavers

It is stories like Mary Babb’s that are driving a new movement in the states to track domestic violence offenders using GPS monitoring devices.

Last year, Babb’s estranged husband slammed into her SUV with his pickup truck, according to the Kalamazoo Gazette in Michigan. Babb’s vehicle was overturned and she was suspended upside-down by her seat belt, the newspaper reported. While she hung there helplessly in front of the office where she worked, Thomas Babb fired two rounds from a shotgun, killing his wife while horrified witnesses looked on, according to the newspaper.

This year, Michigan joined a growing number of states tracking domestic abusers and stalkers using GPS devices. The new law allows judges to order domestic-violence suspects to wear GPS devices, even before they go to trial, the newspaper reported.

“The system isn’t set up to protect victims (of domestic violence),” Diane Rosenfeld, a Harvard Law School professor, told the Public Safety and Justice Task Force during The Council of State Governments annual meeting Dec. 5. “If you want to protect yourself you go into hiding—and that’s not an appropriate response.”

Taking Homes from Unsuspecting Property Owners

By Mikko Lindberg, research associate, CSG Southern Legislative Conference

A new scheme involving identity theft is running parallel with the overall rise in mortgage fraud cases in the U.S. Deed fraud is becoming an increasing concern for local, state and federal officials. Also labeled as house stealing by the FBI and land fraud by the Property Records Industry Association, deed fraud is a ploy where a criminal takes ownership of a residence, pulls out the equity of the property and disappears, leaving the actual owner or owners of the residence to deal with an outstanding mortgage.

According to the FBI, the process goes like this:

Justice Center Selects Four State Chief Justices for Mental Health Initiative

Chief justices in Delaware, Idaho, New Hampshire and Wisconsin have been selected to participate in the Chief Justices' Criminal Justice/Mental Health Leadership Initiative by The Council of State Governments Justice Center. The initiative is a national project that assists state supreme court chief justices improve responses to people with mental illnesses involved in the justice system.

According to a 2006 report by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, nearly one-fourth of both state prisoners and jail inmates who reported they had a mental health problem had served three or more prior incarcerations--supporting concerns among court officials that people with mental illnesses continue to cycle through their courtrooms.

The four chief justices will convene task forces of state leaders to examine ways to enhance how the cirminal justice system addreses the needs of people with mental illnesses.

Read the full press release and learn more about the CSG Justice Center.

States Ponder Recording of Death Penalty Cases

By Jennifer Horne Boyter

The large number of post-conviction exonerations based on DNA testing has led many states to consider how to lessen the chances of wrongfully convicting someone for a crime he did not commit.

Electronic recording of custodial interrogations has emerged as a popular and powerful innovation for state criminal justice systems, especially in homicide cases.   

Recording interrogations provides an objective record of a critical phase in the investigation that later can be carefully reviewed for inconsistencies and used to evaluate the demeanor of the suspect. These recordings not only help guard against false accusations of police coercion, but also allow prosecutors, judges and juries to assess whether the defendant’s statement is both credible and voluntary, helping to prevent wrongful convictions. 

Southern States Reconsider ‘Tough on Crime’ Approach

By Mikel Chavers

Although the state of Oklahoma makes good use of corrections resources, Oklahoma  state Sen. Kenneth Corn believes the costs of staffing and running state corrections facilities and programs are still eating a bigger and bigger piece of the pie.

In 1991, the state was spending roughly $156 million on corrections. This year, the state will spend an estimated $506 million on corrections—an increase nobody is excited about.

Part of the increase in spending was a result of the state’s tough on crime approach, Corn said at the Southern Legislative Conference in Oklahoma City July 13. “We can lock everybody up—let’s be tough and crime; let’s put everybody in jail,” Corn said of those days.

“We’ve been passing these laws with little regard to what the financial implications are,” Corn said. And so far, no legislator is really stepping forward to change the state’s tough on  crime approach, Corn said. “We spend all of our time trying doing the political gotcha game—everybody wants to be tough on crime,” he said. “Sometimes I think it’s better for us to take a step back as lawmakers.”