New Hampshire Citizens Commission on State Courts Draft Recommendations for Consideration March 13, March 20 Recommendation # 25 Research Committee: Sentencing Recommendation: Because effective sentencing practices requires a significant degree of coordination and consultation between policy-makers, judges, prosecutors, corrections officials, and others, the Court should establish a standing committee comprised of persons with influence and diverse expertise, and having as its charge the ongoing development, implementation, and advocacy for a just and cost-effective sentencing strategy for the state. Rationale: Taking account of both its membership and the outside experts whom it consulted, the Sentencing Research Group heard from State legislators, District and Superior Court judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, police, and county and state Corrections officials. Despite the great diversity of the experiences and backgrounds of those persons, the Research Group discovered that a substantial consensus exists throughout the relevant professions both as to the nature of the challenges confronting New Hampshire in the area of criminal sentencing, and as to the proper responses to those challenges. The Group’s other recommendations attempt to describe that consensus. Given that persons knowledgeable about issues of criminal sentencing in New Hampshire already substantially agree about the direction of the best path forward into the future, the Research Group feels that the most valuable step the Court could take in this area involves establishing and supporting a forum in which information can be exchanged and implementation strategies devised. A committee of this kind used to meet, called the Interbranch Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice. We recommend that such a group be revived. Among its most important first tasks would be to invite leading policy-makers from both political par q1 b q1 ties and from both chambers of the legislature to a one-day information-sharing session. The Group envisions that, at such a session, the extraordinary learning experience shared by members of the Group could be reproduced for the policy-makers whose participation is essential to the successful implementation of reforms such as those detailed in the recommendations below. Recommendation # 26 Research Committee: Sentencing Recommendation: New Hampshire should institute pretrial diversion and alternatives to incarceR!q Rationale: Judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, police, and corrections officials almost universally share the view that our current system of sentencing is neither cost effective nor provides crucial rehabilitative programs. Despite this common agreement, the state has been unable to address this issue in a meaningful way. The Sentencing Research Group believes that in appropriate cases, it is imperative to have alternatives to traditional sentencing available to allow each individual to address the issues that brought them in contact with the criminal justice system, and if possible, be educated and rehabilitated, ultimately reducing costs and future criminal behavior. This is particularly true with non-violent first offenders. Studies clearly establish that effective diversion programs reduce recidivism. Between 1981 and 2003, New Hampshire’s prison population grew by 600 percent. The Department of Corrections’ operating budget rose from $5 million to $79 million, making it the third fastest growing government function supported by the state’s general fund.i The counties spent $33 million on jails and houses of correction. Only one percent was devoted to treatment. While spending on incarceration in FY 2001 totaled $102 million, spending on alternatives to incarceration totaled $1.6 million.ii We spend millions of dollars to house offenders whose substance abuse issues contributed to their involvement in crime but fail to treat them while incarcerated and then release them on parole or probation with inadequate resources to provide effective supervision and treatment. With treatment as the priority, we would cut down on recidivism and ultimately, the cost of the criminal justice system. A percentage of those sentenced to prison need to be incarcerated for both punishment and protection of the community. However, a large percentage of the incarcerated population is sentenced to jail because alternatives to incarceration on a statewide basis do not exist. Although there are various pretrial diversion programs and alternatives to incarceration throughout New Hampshire, a consistent array of alternatives and sanctions is not available statewide. Some of these alternatives are successful such as the Merrimack County FAST Program and the programs instituted in Strafford County. The Department of Corrections Academy program has been shown to protect public safety and be cost effective when used instead of prison, but it is not utilized in all counties.1 Various correctional institutions have utilized electronic monitoring with great success. This monitoring is not available in other counties. New Hampshire must design and institute comprehensive pretrial diversion and alternative programs throughout the state. By doing this, we would rehabilitate offenders, save money and reduce crime. 1 Richard A. Minard, Jr., Locked Up: Corrections Policy in New Hampshire, Paper 2, February 2004, and Douglas Hall, Six Program Fueled State Spending Increases, 1993-2003, NH Center for Public Policy Studies.`/2Katherine Merrow and Richard Minard, Under the Influence, Alcohol, Drugs, Crime and Treatment in New Hampshire, NH Center for Public Policy Studies, July 2002. Recommendation # 27 Research Committee: Sentencing Recommendation: In future years, in order to ensure that the judicial system in New Hampshire can continue to protect public safety and rehabilitate offenders, the courts must rely heavily on the Department of Corrections’ field offices to provide effective supervision of probationers and parolees, to continue to provide timely information to the courts about noncompliant, or “slipping”, offenders so the courts can respond swiftly and individually to violators, to anticipate an increase in the number of offenders under supervision, and to ensure that a consistent and sophisticated philosophy regarding substance abuse treatment informs the training and work of probation and parole field officers. Rationale: One of the significant needs of the criminal justice system is for the Courts to be able to rely on Department of Corrections Probation and Parole field offices to closely and effectively monitor offenders in the community. Probation officers are the people who ensure that offenders are compliant with treatment programs, sentence obligations, curfews, conduct restrictions, and other requirements. Currently, the men and women who staff the field offices are people who render highly professional services. However, their caseloads are uniformly too high for them to provide intense supervision of every offender who could safely be placed on pretrial release in the community or sentenced to adult probation. Also, many judges in the District Courts are reluctant to place offenders on probation because the bulk of the available resources of the Department of Corrections field offices is devoted to supervising felony-level offenders. These factors limit the sentencing options available to judges and affect the quality and level of supervision available in our communities. In the future, if the Department of Corrections can provide adequate staffing in the Probation and Parole field offices to meet the anticipated demand for their services, and if those field officers are able to benefit from training derived from a comprehensive correctional approach to substance abuse treatment, then the criminal justice system can provide more timely and better information to judges about the conduct of offenders in the community and achieve better outcomes in terms of community safety and offender supervision and rehabilitation. Recommendation # 28 Research Committee: Sentencing Recommendation: New Hampshire needs to provide appropriate, timely, and adequate treatment for substance abuse at all phases of the interface of individuals with the criminal justice system, including pretrial, post-sentencing, and incarceration. Rationale: Substance abuse is present in 75 to 85 percent of New Hampshire offenders and is a contributing factor in a wide variety of crime. Alcohol and drug- related crimes committed during 2001 alone will cost New Hampshire approximately $144 million. Although appropriate treatment reduces alcohol and drug use and criminal behavior, it is often unavailable. Of an estimated 12,700 offenders in need of substance abuse intervention during 2001, New Hampshire’s publicly funded treatment system had the capacity to serve only 4,700, leaving approximately 8,000 offenders with no treatment unless they purchased it through the private market.1[1] Successful treatment of substance abuse is a major factor in reducing recidivism. There is probably no more significant investment that we can make to cut down crime, recidivism, and the expenses related to crime and incarceration than to assure that appropriate substance abuse programs are available at each stage of the criminal justice system, and that those who are incarcerated can receive treatment in a timely fashion so as not to unnecessarily prolong their incarceration. New Hampshire is currently considering building a new secure prison facility. We believe that the state would be better served by investing in the establishment of a substance abuse program of excellence that addresses needs present in all aspects of the criminal justice system, including a residential treatment facility. That we currently do not have a substance abuse program at the state prison, but rather an “education” program, is a significant missed opportunity. 1[1] Katherine Merrow and Richard Minard, Under the Influence Part 1, pp. 3 and 22, and Under the Influence Part 2, p. 47, NH Center for Public Policy Studies, October 2002 and February 2003. Recommendation #29 Research Committee: Sentencing Recommendation: The Court should work to insure that women who are incarcerated in New Hampshire are provided comparable conditions of confinement and equal educational, vocational, treatment and rehabilitative opportunities as men. Rationale: Based upon testimony and evidence received by the Sentencing Research Group, it is clear that women who are incarcerated in our state have fewer educational and vocational programs, less treatment and inadequate and inequitable rehabilitative services available to them then do men similarly situated. Female state prison inmates are housed in a facility which is widely viewed as inadequate. The population of women prisoners at the New Hampshire State Prison grew from 23 in 1983 to 182 in 2003, an increase of close to 700%. According to a study conducted by the New Hampshire Commission on the Status of Women (Double Jeopardy: December 2004), in 2000 the New Hampshire Department of Corrections reported spending $4,564 less annually per female inmate as compared with male inmates at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men and $1,906 less annually compared to inmates at the Northern Correctional Facility at Berlin. That study emphasized the significance of this finding because in conversations with New Hampshire Department of Corrections administrators and staff as well as state legislators, they came to understand that women are more expensive than men to incarcerate, largely due to increased medical costs and the need for more intensive therapy interventions. The facility has no on-site medical unit, is out of compliance for ACA accreditation standards for cell space, lacks adequate space for appropriate therapeutic rehabilitative training and educational programs and lacks adequate accommodations for attorney and family visits. As the Commission on the Status of Women found, the large majority of female inmates are low risk, non-violent offenders. They occupy expensive prison space better reserved to violent offenders who pose a clear and present danger to public safety. Additionally, without effective rehabilitation, inmates released into the community present the same risk as before their incarceration maintain the same motivations - addiction, mental illness, poverty - to commit crime again. Recommendation #30 Research Committee: Sentencing Recommendation: New Hampshire needs to provide adequate space in its sex offender treatment program so that offenders need not extend their incarceration merely to complete a requirement of their sentencing that cannot be provided during their requisite term due to capacity issues. Rationale: Presently many inmates are incarcerated beyond their required terms only because they cannot gain admission to their court-ordered sexual offender treatment program merely because of capacity issues. Currently, there are currently approximately 300 inmates on the waiting list unable to enter the program in time for completion in time for their parole eligibility date. Hence taxpayers and the prison system end up spending more money on incarceration than they would by expanding the treatment program to match need. Asking judges to stop making such treatment part of their sentencing as way of dealing with the capacity issues is not the answer, but neither is asking taxpayers to pay more money for extending incarceration merely because of a capacity issue. 1 Richard A. Minard, Jr., Locked Up: Corrections Policy in New Hampshire, Paper 2, February 2004, and Douglas Hall, Six Program Fueled State Spending Increases, 1993-2003, NH Center for Public Policy Studies. 2Katherine Merrow and Richard Minard, Under the Influence, Alcohol, Drugs, Crime and Treatment in New Hampshire, NH Center for Public Policy Studies, July 2002.