Coconino jail crowding may bring a tent city

Or it may bring a detox/treatment center, which would be far better for the community and long-term outcomes with drug/alcohol offenders. I really hope your sheriff doesn't follow Joe Arpaio's idiotic footsteps. He's just a clown, as far as law enforcement officers go - even other cops here think so. Arpaio just happens to be a very powerful, twisted and dangerous clown.

In any case, he and his policies are not to be emulated by more intelligent people. He's actually investigating the legitimacy of Barak Obama's birth certificate - a priority for his office, even though his people are brutalizing prisoners in the psychiatric wing of his jail, and the MCSO can't solve major crimes like murder because they're so busy chasing down immigrants who smuggled themselves over the border (and got jobs which are paying into - not stealing from - our social security accounts for us...).


So, good luck, Coconino County. Hope your sheriff is a smart man interested in evidence- based practice and goes for the detox center instead of a tent city.

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Crowding at jail hits crisis level

AZ Daily Sun
ERIC BETZ Sun Staff Reporter
Sunday, September 18, 2011 5:25 am

This week, the inmate population at the Coconino County Jail Detention Facility reached "crisis" levels for the third time in three years, according to jail managers.

The Coconino County Sheriff's Office says the surge in prisoners is making it harder to manage various groups of inmates in a way that prevents conflict and is reducing how much money the jail can make from renting beds to state and federal agencies.

And if the problem persists, the jail might have to erect a "tent city" next summer to handle the overflow, especially if it must house more state prisoners for free.

MORE CITE AND RELEASE

The sheriff's office sent a memo to local law enforcement, prosecutors and judges this week asking them to do whatever they can to help alleviate the problem.

That means citing and releasing offenders when safe to do so and expediting the judicial process.

The problem started earlier this summer as the local transient population rose with warming temperatures in Phoenix. Most of the increase in inmates has come from misdemeanor offenders booked on charges like disorderly conduct or simple assaults. Felony bookings have not increased.

"This is the first time we've seen a spike in population to this extent," said Coconino County Sheriff Bill Pribil. "In summer we usually see population increases because we have a lot more transients coming to Flagstaff, but we've seen an unusually high increase this summer."

INCOMPATIBLE POPULATIONS

The jail typically classifies inmates and separates them by gender, criminal sophistication, past history, mental illness and other characteristics. Mixing potentially incompatible populations can increase the risk of an assault on officers and other inmates.

To manage populations safely, the jail tries to maintain an 80 percent occupancy. It's currently above 90 percent.

The jail has been fortunate there hasn't been an increase in assaults so far, Pribil said. And the number of misdemeanor bookings usually falls off significantly as the winter approaches.

But the surge has implications for the jail's future, with legislation taking effect next summer that will require the county to house state inmates sentenced to less than a year behind bars.

$2 MILLION IN RENTALS AT RISK

Rather than pay the county to house these inmates, the state can force the county accept the inmates for free or force it to pay the state an unspecified daily fee not to take them.

The jail currently generates about $2 million annually by renting beds to agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Office and the Arizona Department of Corrections.

On a typical night, the jail will rent about 100 of its nearly 600 beds. This summer they've only been able to rent around 75 beds per night.

"Right now the (jail) district is solvent and looks to be so for the near future," Pribil said. "This could be a double whammy. At this point we have the capacity to absorb the increase, but that ability has come at the expense of lost rental bed revenue."

TENT CITY EXAMINED

The sheriff's office is trying to stay ahead of the curve by brainstorming ways they can continue to make money and properly manage inmates even if the population continues to swell, or if the situation is exacerbated next summer.

Among the fixes being considered is a tent city similar to the one used by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Pribil says his officers have visited the facilities in the valley and they think it could work here if they needed it. The tent structures have already been picked out, as has a place to put them, but things like restrooms, showers and meal delivery would still have to be arranged. Managing such a facility would also require additional staff for the sheriff's office.

The tent housing could be operational within three weeks, if required, Pribil said.

But a tent city would only be possible here during the summer months.

Adding a full-service detention center in Page could alleviate some of the problem too, so that the county doesn't have to frequently transport short-term inmates.

REGIONAL DETOX CENTER MULLED

A more comprehensive solution might be a regional detox, treatment and rehabilitation center. Pribil recently visited a facility in the Gallup, N.M., area that he thinks might work well in northern Arizona.

That New Mexico center is a partnership between counties, the state and the Navajo Nation, and Pribil says there is discussion about trying to get state funding and a possible partnership with the Navajo Nation for a facility here too.

If they can build a consensus, legislation on such a center could come as soon as the next session.

"As managers we need to look forward and see what might happen and see what might be our response," Pribil said. "We have quite the braintrust here. Our people are students of this profession."

Eric Betz can be reached at ebetz@azdailysun.com or 556-2250.

Collatoral damage: prisoners, their futures, and their families.

This report is especially for those who think we need to make people pay for the cost of their own incarceration, as if they don't already pay a price. On the contrary, Americans make prisoners and their families pay, and pay, and pay - long past the original terms of the sentence, in so many ways. We might as well cut off some of these prisoners' right hands and brand their foreheads with "CRIMINAL", given the social and economic consequences of having a felony record.


Trust me, Arizona - we punish our more impoverished criminals sufficiently with their imprisonment and other sanctions - the ones with money to pay for their prison stay generally spent that money on lawyers who got them off on probation. We don't need to go after poor kids like we do, though they are often the target of the AZ Department of Corrections, which makes it hard for prisoners to support their families, and is now also imposing a new banking fee on prisoners and a $25 annual fee on each visitor to recoup their background check expenses. No wonder ADC director Chuck Ryan was hand-picked by Governor Jan Brewer to be her Chief Disciplinarian: he seems to think a lot like her and AZ Me Party Senate President Russ Pearce, who both believe that children should be punished for the "crimes" of their parents.


So, from the PEW Charitable Trusts / Economic Mobility Project, here's the executive summary of Collatoral Costs: Incarceration's Effect on Economic Mobility. In short, it's devastating, and amounts to cruel and unusual lifelong punishment for offenders and their families - and has a far more insidious effect on their communities than most people have any idea of. I think the powers that be just keep us all thinking it's a good idea because it assures them that they have a constant supply of slave labor for the state and low wage labor in the community to undercut unions and the working class if we start feeling too entitled to things like a living wage...

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Collatoral Costs: Incarceration's Effect on Economic Mobility

Executive Summary

Currently 2.3 million Americans are behind bars, equaling more than 1 in 100 adults. Up from just 500,000 in 1980, this marks more than a 300 percent increase in the United States’ incarcerated population and represents the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

Over the last four years, The Pew Charitable Trusts has documented the enormous expense of building prisons and housing inmates that is borne by states and the federal government. Indeed, in the face of gaping budget shortfalls, more than half of the states are now seeking alternative sentencing and corrections strategies that cost less than prison, but can protect public safety and hold offenders accountable. A less explored fiscal implication of incarceration is its impact on former inmates’ economic opportunity and mobility.

Economic mobility, the ability of individuals and families to move up the income ladder over their lifetime and across generations, is the epitome of the American Dream. Americans believe that economic success is determined by individual efforts and attributes, like hard work and ambition, and that anyone should be able to improve his or her economic circumstances.

Incarceration affects an inmate’s path to prosperity. Collateral Costs quantifies the size of that effect, not only on offenders but on their families and children. Before being incarcerated more than two-thirds of male inmates were employed and more than half were the primary source of financial support for their children.1 Incarceration carries significant and enduring economic repercussions for the remainder of the person’s working years. This report finds that former inmates work fewer weeks each year, earn less money and have limited upward mobility. These costs are borne by offenders’ families and communities, and they reverberate across generations.

People who break the law need to be held accountable and pay their debt to society. Prisons can enhance public safety, both by keeping dangerous criminals off the streets and by deterring would be offenders. However, virtually all inmates will be released, and when they do, society has a strong interest in helping them fulfill their responsibilities to their victims, their families and their communities.When returning offenders can find and keep legitimate employment, they are more likely to be able to pay restitution to their victims, support their children and avoid crime.

To calculate the impacts of incarceration on economic mobility, The Pew Charitable Trusts commissioned new analysis by two of the leading researchers in the field, Dr. Bruce Western of Harvard University and Dr. Becky Pettit of the University of Washington.


Major findings include the following:

INCARCERATION IS CONCENTRATED AMONG MEN, THE YOUNG, THE UNEDUCATED AND RACIAL AND ETHNIC MINORITIES—ESPECIALLY AFRICAN AMERICANS.

• One in 87 working-aged white men is in prison or jail, compared with 1 in 36 Hispanic men and 1 in 12 African American men.

• More young (20 to 34-year-old) African American men without a high school diploma or GED are currently behind bars (37 percent) than employed (26 percent).

INCARCERATION NEGATIVELY AFFECTS FORMER INMATES’ ECONOMIC PROSPECTS.

• Serving time reduces hourly wages for men by approximately 11 percent, annual employment by 9 weeks and annual earnings by 40 percent.

• By age 48, the typical former inmate will have earned $179,000 less than if he had never been incarcerated.

• Incarceration depresses the total earnings of white males by 2 percent, of Hispanic males by 6 percent, and of black males by 9 percent.

FORMER INMATES EXPERIENCE LESS UPWARD ECONOMIC MOBILITY THAN THOSE WHO ARE NEVER INCARCERATED.

• Of the former inmates who were in the lowest fifth of the male earnings distribution in 1986, two-thirds remained on the bottom rung in 2006, twice the number of those who were not incarcerated.

• Only 2 percent of previously incarcerated men who started in the bottom fifth of the earnings distribution made it to the top fifth 20 years later, compared to 15 percent of men who started at the bottom but were never incarcerated.

THE IMPACTS OF INCARCERATION REACH FAR BEYOND FORMER INMATES TO THEIR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES.

• 54 percent of inmates are parents with minor children (ages 0-17), including more than 120,000 mothers and 1.1 million fathers.

• 2.7 million children have a parent behind bars—1 in every 28 children (3.6 percent) has a parent incarcerated, up from 1 in 125 just 25 years ago. Two-thirds of these children’s parents were incarcerated for non-violent offenses.

• One in 9 African American children (11.4 percent), 1 in 28 Hispanic children (3.5 percent) and 1 in 57 white children (1.8 percent) have an incarcerated parent.

A CHILD’S PROSPECT OF UPWARD ECONOMIC MOBILITY IS NEGATIVELY AFFECTED BY THE INCARCERATION OF A PARENT.

• Previous research has shown that having a parent incarcerated hurts children, both educationally and financially.

• Children with fathers who have been incarcerated are significantly more likely than other children to be expelled or suspended from school (23 percent compared with 4 percent).2

• Family income averaged over the years a father is incarcerated is 22 percent lower than family income was the year before a father is incarcerated. Even in the year after the father is released, family income remains 15 percent lower than it was the year before incarceration.3

• Both education and parental income are strong indicators of children’s future economic mobility.4

With millions of prison and jail inmates a year returning to their communities, it is important to identify policies that address the impact of incarceration on the economic mobility of former inmates and their children. Based on information previously put forward by The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project and Pew’s Economic Mobility Project, this report outlines ways to reduce the productivity losses associated with serving time in jail or prison.

These recommendations include the following:

• Proactively reconnect former inmates to the labor market through education and training, job search and placement support and follow-up services to help former inmates stay employed.

• Enhance former inmates’ economic condition and make work pay by capping the percent of an offenders’ income subject to deductions for unpaid debts (such as court-ordered fines and fees), and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit to include non-custodial, low-income parents.

• Screen and sort people convicted of crimes by the risks they pose to society, diverting lower-risk offenders into high-quality, community-based mandatory supervision programs.

• Use earned-time credits, a proven model that offers selected inmates a shortened prison stay if they complete educational, vocational or rehabilitation programs that boost their chances of successful reentry into the community and the labor market.

• Provide funding incentives to corrections agencies and programs that succeed in reducing crime and increasing employment.

• Use swift and certain sanctions other than prison, such as short but immediate weekend jail stays, to punish probation and parole violations, holding offenders accountable while allowing them to keep their jobs.


1 Western, 2006; Glaze and Maruschak, 2008.
2 Johnson, 2009.
3 Ibid.
4 Isaacs, Sawhill and Haskins, 2008.