Officials hope reforms, not new prison, will address overcrowding

Dec. 15, 2014, 6:26 a.m. ·

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Sens. (from left) Ernie Chambers, Kate Bolz, Steve Lathrop, Heath Mello and Bob Krist discuss their prison investigation report. (Photo by Fred Knapp, NET News)

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A report on Nebraska’s prison problems released Monday strongly suggests prison overcrowding contributed to the early release of prisoners. But officials are still hesitant to build new prisons, saying other reforms might be able to handle the situation.


At a news conference releasing the report of the special legislative committee he chaired, Omaha Sen. Steve Lathrop conceded the committee could not say for sure prison overcrowding contributed to hundreds of inmates being released from prison too early. Lathrop referred to the Nebraska Supreme Court’s Castillas decision on how sentences should be calculated. “We could not get a witness to come before the committee to say, ‘Well, we didn’t follow Castillas because we had an overcrowding problem.’ But it certainly -- in view of all the other ways in which overcrowding influenced decisions and the willingness of people to ignore the law and in particular opinions from the Supreme Court -- leaves this committee concerned that that may well have been the case,” Lathrop said.

Nebraska’s prisons currently hold nearly 2,000 more inmates than they were designed to. A master plan for the Department of Correctional Services released in October calls for adding more than 1,000 beds by building or adding on to prisons in Lincoln and Omaha, at a cost of $261 million.

In an interview with NET News last week, Gov. Dave Heineman expressed continued reluctance to build. “I don’t think the people of Nebraska really want to build a new prison unless it’s absolutely necessary. And I believe there are still ways to avoid that because that’s a $250 million expenditure that’ll reduce the amount of funding we can put into education and job creation, and then the ongoing expenses,” Heineman said.

Gov.-elect Pete Ricketts, who takes office Jan. 8, has said he doesn’t want to start with construction to address prison overcrowding, either. In an interview with NET News last week, Ricketts said,“We’re going to be working on it right away, but again, I’m not convinced that a prison is the answer we’re going to go to.

“I think it’s going to be looking at a lot of the other things we’re doing, systematically: supervised release and probation officers. It costs about a tenth as much to hire a probation officer as it does to incarcerate somebody. So those are the kind of things we want to take a look at – things other states have done that have proven effective – to be able to address our prison population,” Ricketts added.

At Monday’s news conference, Omaha Sen. Heath Mello, a member of the prison investigation committee and chairman of the Legislature Appropriations Committee, was noncommittal when asked if he’d push for new prisons in next year’s budget. “I haven’t come to that decision yet in regards to whether or not I will put in a separate appropriations bill request regarding any capital construction,” Mello said.

Lathrop has said the decision by Heineman’s administration not to follow a recommendation to build more prisons in 2006 led to overcrowding and pressure to release inmates too early. But Lathrop demurred when asked if not building new prisons now was repeating the mistake he suggested was made eight years ago.

“We had nothing out of the ordinary and no other policy that was going to bring into question the predictions that were made in that master facilities report in 2006,” Lathrop said. By contrast, Lathrop added, now there are recommendations by the so-called Justice Reinvestment group, a committee working with the Council of State Governments or CSG, for sentencing reform and other ideas that could reduce prison populations.

Mello acknowledged some of those recommendations could take a while to have an effect. “It will take obviously through the session for us to pass some of these fundamental reforms that are part of the CSG proposal. Then when those proposals get passed, then we would see -- in theory -- the recommendation and the results of the recommendations that CSG put forward that will start that flat-lining initially and then a decline in the prison population,” Mello said.

But Mello said other reforms recommended by CSG could have an immediate effect. “There are a variety of other components that will have an immediate impact, based on people who are coming into Corrections due to parole violations and probation violations, that otherwise doesn’t need legislation to impact that population right away,” he said.

Sen. Les Seiler of Hastings said another idea to help could come from a study about to be released on using part of the former regional center in that city for expanded mental health treatment for inmates. “To get people mental health treatment, alcohol addiction, drug abuse treatment before they are either jammed out, or before they are placed in parole and released out to the public -- that I believe is a real step in cutting down recidivism and the number of people that have to be kept in the state penitentiary. So that would lower the population,” Seiler said.

Seiler admitted with 18 new state senators due to take office in January, following through on the recommendations could be a challenge. “It’s like walking through the woods and stepping into a covey of quail. They go in every direction. And I think we may find that to be true to start with,” he said. But Seiler added he is impressed with the quality of the new senators he’s met, and expects they’ll get on top of the learning curve pretty quickly.