April was National County Government month, and the theme was “Smart Justice.” Through this theme, the California State Association of Counties sought to highlight the ways counties are managing this new population of offenders. CSAC found that counties are working smarter to manage their new responsibilities.

According to PublicCEO, counties are either embarking on or expanding existing programs designed to curb recidivism. Specifically, CSAC found that Glen, San Bernadino, San Mateo and San Joaquin counties – some of whom BI works with – use evidence-based practices to change criminogenic thinking patterns and alter behavior in a meaningful way.

CSAC found that while counties embark on this process in their own individualized way, the crux of their programs is similar. Offenders are assessed for their potential criminogenic factors, are offered treatment and training, and receive support in their efforts to find employment and housing. One program administrator pointed out that this approach reduces new criminal activity and costs less than sending a repeat offender back to jail. It seems smart justice truly is playing out in these and other California counties.

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The report highlights six lessons these states learned from their justice reinvestment strategies, which helped them reduce corrections costs and growing prison and supervision populations, while also enhancing public safety. The six lessons are:

1. Conduct a comprehensive data analysis. Examining data on crime, arrest, conviction, sentencing, jail, prison, and probation and parole supervision better equips policymakers to identify the root causes of population growth and to invest in services and resources that will be most effective in reducing recidivism.
2. Engage in diverse constituencies. By consulting a broad range of experts, officials, and criminal justice stakeholders, states can accurate diagnose systemic issues and effectively respond to them.
3. Focus on the people most likely to reoffend. With scare resources, policymakers need to focus incarceration, treatment programs, and supervision priorities on the people most likely to commit future crimes; this will yield the biggest return on investment for public safety.
4. Reinvest in high-performing programs. Savings generated by new policies should be redirected into strategies that have been shown to reduce recidivism and improve public safety.
5. Strengthen community supervision. Because the community supervision population is twice as high as prison and jail populations, their programs and budgets need to be strengthened.
6. Incentivize performance. If state agencies save money by lowering the number of prison admissions while protecting public safety, some of those savings should be invested in those agencies.

Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Kentucky, Hawaii, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states developed these effective justice reinvestment strategies with the help of the Justice Center, the Bureau of Justice Assistance and The Pew Charitable Trusts. BI Incorporated has worked with many of these states, such as North Carolina and Pennsylvania, to employ justice reinvestment strategies. BI has specifically helped develop high-performing treatment and parole programs that help reduce corrections costs and reduce recidivism rates.

You can download the full report here.

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Dr. Edward Latessa

In his response, Dr. Latessa pointed out that the study was exclusive to Pennsylvania halfway houses and its findings cannot be generalized to include reentry programs nationwide. In Ohio, for example, Dr. Latessa said the University of Cincinnati conducted studies that were able to pinpoint practices that result in effective reentry programs. The results of these studies were applied to reentry programs throughout Ohio to enhance them and have helped them effectively reduce recidivism rates.

BI has consulted with Dr. Latessa to help refine and advance its evidence-based reentry programs in the last decade. In addition to Dr. Latessa’s remarks about Ohio reentry programs, BI works with several states, including California, Illinois, New Jersey and North Carolina, and counties nationwide to implement effective reentry programs. These programs include full day reporting centers or CORE day reporting programs, both designed to deliver evidence-based practices that help curb recidivism and enhance public safety.

By employing practices such as daily reporting, intensive case management, cognitive behavioral treatment, and connecting clients to long-term community resources, these reentry programs have been able to effectively rehabilitate re-offenders, ease prison and jail overcrowding and save taxpayer dollars.

You can read Dr. Latessa’s full response to the New York Times piece here.

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Florida has two other reentry centers waiting to open in Baker and Miami-Dade Counties while the State Senate creates a budget plan for the Department of Corrections. The DOC wants to open the reentry center in Gadsden first because the facility is next door to the state’s law-enforcement training academy, which will provide administrative support. Additionally, the academy will monitor the center and apply what it learns about rehabilitation to the Baker and Miami-Dade centers.

With approximately 34,000 prisoners released from Florida’s prisons every year, Department of Corrections Secretary Mike Crews says preparing them for release is crucial. By equipping inmates with the knowledge and resources they need to effectively transition back into the community, cognitive-based reentry programs like the ones created by BI Incorporated can help reduce recidivism rates and save taxpayers money. Recidivism rates in Florida are down to 27.6 percent from 33 percent in 2003. According to the DOC, for every one percent decrease in recidivism rates, taxpayers save approximately $19 million.

Read more here.

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BI Monitoring Operations was opened in the 1980s. Since then, more than 2,000 correctional agencies have used its services. During this span, BI location monitoring equipment has helped agencies to supervise more than 4 million offenders via this national hub of offender monitoring.

What makes BI Monitoring Operations unique is its depth and experience. BI staff handles more than 70,000 calls each month at the call center. In addition, staff that assist correctional agencies average more than nine years’ tenure, an unheard of length of service that allows staff to become intimate with customer issues and service.

Monitoring specialists receive extensive training so that they are capable of handling a range of compliance monitoring issues and concerns, such as offender monitoring scenarios and equipment troubleshooting.

Because technology and equipment are continuously being updated and improved, the BI Monitoring Operations specialists are re-trained and regularly re-certified on systems and procedures. As a result, BI Monitoring Operations can quickly and accurately respond to alerts, notifying agencies within minutes following a grace time for event pairing, automatic corrections or explanations from an offender once contacted. In addition, almost every call (97%) to the Monitoring Operations is routed to a specialist within one minute of being answered. Almost every call is answered in four seconds.

BI Monitoring Operations was the first monitoring service to obtain ISO 9001 certification, recognized worldwide as an achievement in quality. Monitoring Operations management has constantly pushed for higher standards of excellence, helping to propel industry standards higher nationwide. By continuously exceeding the expectations of its community corrections’ customers, BI Monitoring Operations continues to grow. In March 2013, more than 40,000 offenders were being monitored via the center.

For more information on Monitoring Operations, call 800-701-5171.

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Motivational Interviewing is a core principle of BI Incorporated Day Reporting programs as well as its in-custody or Jail Employment Education Program (JEEP). While MI is guided by an agent, such as a probation officer in the field or a case manager within a BI DRC, toward specific behavior change, it is also client-centered, which means it is considers the offender’s needs, wishes and beliefs about the change process. Agents first help offenders address issues that led to criminal behavior. Then, they try to help offenders figure out for themselves what the right thing to do is through a focused conversation. The ultimate goal is for offenders to find the personal motivation to achieve positive outcomes.

MI was born in the 1980s as an alternative to confrontational counseling styles that polarize clients and agents, which for a long time was common in the addictions treatment field. MI is not treatment itself; rather, it aims to prepare offenders for treatment or complement their treatment program. This evidence-based technique can be integrated into reentry programs to aid the rehabilitation process. By changing an offender’s thinking and problem behaviors, MI has the potential to help effectively rehabilitate offenders and reduce recidivism.

The NIC published a guide for implementing MI in Corrections. It covers the history of MI, how to learn it, supervising and coaching MI, and assessing MI skills. You can read the full guide here,

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The publication provides an overview of eight principles, incorporated into all BI treatment and training programs such as Day Reporting Centers, cited as proven strategies to reduce recidivism and enhance public safety. The principles include:

• Assessing offender risks and needs
• Target interventions
• Enhancing offender motivation to change
• Providing skill training and directed practice
• Increasing positive reinforcement
• Engaging ongoing community support
• Measuring relevant processes and practices
• Providing measurement feedback

In addition to these core principles, the publication discusses and provides resources on other corrections subjects including effective rehabilitation programs; appropriate caseload sizes for probation officers; the effectiveness of treatment for sexual offenders; pretrial services; specialty courts; and more. A PDF of the full publication is available here.

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After investing in five generations of the employment-centered Reintegration of Adult Ex-Offenders Program, the ETA found that ex-offenders fair better in the job market if they have credentials in their chosen industry. They have also learned ex-offenders reenter their communities more successfully when they receive supportive services prior to their release from prison. Based on this research, the ETA will require grantees to provide inmates with the necessary education and training to receive these industry-recognized credentials. Grantees must also provide employment preparation and mentoring, and connect participants with supportive services.

Approximately 700,000 inmates are released from prisons every year. Re-entry programs supported by these grants help them successfully transition back into their communities by providing them with the skills and support necessary to obtain good jobs. Successfully reentering the community reduces the likelihood they’ll reoffend, and subsequently, save taxpayers money that would otherwise be spent on the high cost of incarceration. BI Incorporated, as part of day reporting and in-custody programs it operates for community corrections agencies, delivers employment and educational modules that help inmates, parolees and probationers gain footing in the job market. With gainful employment, ex-offenders usually stabilize and are less likely to re-offend.

Read the DOL’s announcement here.

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The high cost of caring for inmates aged 50 and older is becoming increasingly problematic for states as the elderly inmate population soars. In New Jersey alone, the inmate population has increased nearly 90 percent since 2000, with nearly 3,000 older prisoners incarcerated. In fact, older inmates are the fastest growing segment of the prison population across the country. According to a 2012 ACLU report, approximately 246,000 inmates were over the age of 50.

BI Incorporated works with many correctional agencies to manage inmates, most of whom have demonstrated positive patterns behind bars, in the community. BI equipment and software allows inmates to be monitored with electronic monitoring systems at a much lower cost than incarceration while they serve out their sentences. With more aging prisoners, states in particular seek cost-effective options that reduce costs with relatively low risk to public safety.

With so many elderly inmates behind bars and the high cost of incarcerating them, many states are taking action to move older inmates out of prison. In Louisiana, for example, state legislators have passed laws making it easier for older, non-violent, low-risk offenders to be released early. The ACLU urges states to adopt a program similar to Louisiana’s, especially since decades of research show crime rates decrease steadily after age 24, and almost no crimes are committed by those older than 65.

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Of particular note, the panel also talked about matching certain offenders with an appropriate level of supervision via electronic monitoring. “If it’s a sex offender, obviously you’d want GPS (tracking),” said Richard Irrer, former head of the Michigan DOC’s electronic monitoring programs, one of the largest and oldest in the nation.

In addition, the group highlighted the fact that electronic monitoring providers do not select which clients go on which type of system (GPS tracking, alcohol monitoring, RFID, etc.), and the importance of closely monitoring offenders. Across the board, the panel reminded community corrections professionals of the importance of managing alerts promptly.

Offenders will test the system, said one panelist, “trying a tamper here and there, miss a curfew by five, 10 or 15 minutes,” to test boundaries and see if supervising agents are paying attention. Supervising agents have to respond, letting the offender know right way that there will be consequences for noncompliant actions and tampers.

BI’s monitoring hardware uses multiple tamper technologies and our monitoring software incorporates numerous safeguards that enable BI to notify agencies of abnormal system or offender activity. At the same time, BI consistently reminds customers that physical inspection of installed devices is a critical part of maintaining the integrity of any location monitoring system. BI devices are designed so that client attempts to open, tamper with, or damage the device are visible upon physical inspection. In addition, agencies can adjust alert settings for problematic clients.

With crowded jails and prisons nationwide, consequences may not always include incarceration, but this is an option for certain tampers or noncompliant actions. Instead, other graduated consequences can be employed, such as more restrictive curfews or a change from one type of system to another, such as RFID to GPS tracking, which offers more details on offender movement in the community. “Agencies are becoming a little more creative along those lines,” Irrer said.

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