Judge allows thousands to join child support lawsuit, By Bill Rankin, January 3, 2012, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Thousands of parents facing possible jail time for failing to pay child support can join a lawsuit that says lawyers should be appointed to represent them if unable to afford counsel, a judge has ruled. In a Dec. 30 order, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter granted class-action status to a suit filed last year against the state by five parents who had been jailed for child-support debt. Georgia is one of the few states nationwide that does not provide lawyers for indigent parents facing civil contempt in child-support proceedings. The state already struggles, because of budget shortfalls, to provide lawyers to indigent people charged with criminal offenses. The lawsuit contends Georgia is creating modern-day debtor’s prisons for those jailed when they have no ability to pay because they have lost jobs or are disabled and unable to find work…”

Growing prison populations hinder budget cuts, By Kevin Johnson, October 20, 2011, USA Today: “The rising number of prisoners serving costly life terms across the country is complicating state officials’ efforts to make dramatic cuts to large prison budgets, lawmakers and criminal justice officials said. From 1984 to 2008, the number of offenders serving life terms quadrupled, from 34,000 to roughly 140,000, according to the most recent count by The Sentencing Project, which advocates alternatives to incarceration. One of the fastest-growing subgroups are inmates serving life without the possibility of parole. Those numbers have jumped from 12,453 in 1992 to 41,095 in 2008 and represent the most costly inmates to house as the aging inmates require increased medical care…”

Medicaid expansion seen covering nearly all state prisoners, By Christine Vestal, October 18, 2011, Stateline.org: “The federal health law’s controversial Medicaid expansion is expected to add billions to states’ already overburdened Medicaid budgets. But it also offers a rarely discussed cost-cutting opportunity for state corrections agencies. Starting in 2014, virtually all state prison inmates could be eligible for Medicaid coverage of hospital stays-at the expense of the federal government. In most states, Medicaid is not an option for prison inmates. But a little known federal rule allows coverage for Medicaid-eligible inmates who leave a prison and check into a private or community hospital. Technically, those who stay in the hospital for 24 hours or more are no longer considered prison inmates for the duration of their stay…”

Texas juvenile justice reforms working, group says, By Allan Turner, October 4, 2011, Houston Chronicle: “Reforms instituted in the wake of 2007 allegations of widespread sexual abuse of minors in Texas Youth Commission facilities have led to dramatic improvements in the way the state deals with young offenders, according to a national juvenile justice study released Tuesday. Authors of the Annie E. Casey Foundation study, No Place for Kids: The Case for Reducing Juvenile Incarceration, reported Texas’ number of incarcerated minors dropped from 4,800 in August 2006 to 1,800 in August 2010 - without an increase in the state’s crime rate or juvenile arrests…”

• Legislators: State could save millions if prison officials seek Medicaid funding for inmates, By Sebastian Kitchen, September 19, 2011, Montgomery Advertiser: “Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Alabama, who have not agreed on much in recent months, are questioning why the state prison system is not seeking reimbursement for medical treatment of Medicaid-eligible prisoners — a change they believe could save the state millions during tough economic times. The prison commissioner in Mississippi, Christopher Epps, told the Montgomery Advertiser his state has saved $10 million through the program since implementing it in 2009 and that Mississippi has fewer inmates than Alabama. State legislators have pushed corrections officials and the administrations of Gov. Robert Bentley and former Gov. Bob Riley to adopt the program, in which a vendor qualifies eligible inmates for Medicaid reimbursements…”
• State delays implementation of Medicaid overhaul until Nov. 1, By Beth Musgrave, September 20, 2011, Lexington Herald-Leader: “After hearing concerns from Kentucky hospitals, the state announced this week that it will delay implementing an overhaul of the state’s Medicaid program until Nov. 1. The state announced in July that it was hiring three companies to manage care for 560,000 people on the health insurance program for the poor and disabled. The controversial move is expected to save the state $375 million over the next three years. Managed care was scheduled to begin Oct. 1 in Kentucky…”
• Feds give Utah’s Medicaid overhaul mixed reviews, By Kirsten Stewart, September 19, 2011, Salt Lake Tribune: “Utah’s plan for reforming Medicaid is getting mixed reviews from the Obama administration. Like many states, Utah is looking to redesign its Medicaid program to contain costs. A blueprint submitted in July for federal approval calls for moving Medicaid patients into managed care networks that would pay providers to keep patients healthy, instead of for more tests and treatment. The meat of the proposal - its payment reforms - has been well received, said Utah Medicaid Director Michael Hales. But officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have indicated they don’t support a controversial provision that would impose higher co-payments and deductibles on pregnant women and children enrolled in the low-income insurance program…”

• Medicaid change delayed, By Dale Wetzel (AP), September 16, 2011, Jamestown Sun: “A chronically delayed new computer software system to handle North Dakota’s Medicaid bills, which was to be finished in nine months, will not be working until mid-2013, an executive told state legislators Thursday. The project was originally scheduled to be finished two years ago. Last summer, a vice president for the software’s developer, Affiliated Computer Services Inc., promised it would be functioning by June 2012. ACS is a unit of Xerox Corp…”
• Utah explores extending Medicaid to inmates, By Kirsten Stewart, September 15, 2011, Salt Lake Tribune: “Utah health officials are exploring expanding the state’s Medicaid program to cover inmates’ hospital stays and doctors’ office visits. Inmates have traditionally been barred from the state-federal health insurance program, which caters to the poor and disabled. Currently, the Department of Corrections contracts directly with the University of Utah’s hospital and clinics for procedures that cannot be handled at the prison infirmary, and the state picks up the tab. Moving inmates onto Medicaid would shift most of the funding burden onto the federal government, explained state Medicaid director Michael Hales on Thursday at an advisory board meeting. In the past, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has been loathe to shoulder what has long been a state obligation, said Hales. But the agency has recently signaled a willingness to bend the rules…”
• Calif. Medicaid expansion: A lifeline for ex-convicts, By Sarah Varney, September 13, 2011, National Public Radio: “California has embarked on an ambitious expansion of its Medicaid program, three years ahead of the federal expansion that the health law requires in 2014. At least half a million people are expected to gain coverage - mostly poor adults who never qualified under the old rules because they didn’t have kids at home. Among those who stand to benefit right now are ex-offenders. Inmates often leave California prisons with no consistent place to get medical care. But that’s changing…”

Unable to pay child support, poor parents land behind bars, By Mike Brunker, September 12, 2011, MSNBC.com: “It may not be a crime to be poor, but it can land you behind bars if you also are behind on your child-support payments. Thousands of so-called ‘deadbeat’ parents are jailed each year in the U.S. after failing to pay court-ordered child support - the vast majority of them for withholding or hiding money out of spite or a feeling that they’ve been unfairly gouged by the courts. But in what might seem like an un-American plot twist from a Charles Dickens’ novel, advocates for the poor say, some parents are wrongly being locked away without any regard for their ability to pay - sometimes without the benefit of legal representation…”

• House OKs tighter rules on food aid for criminals, By Karen Bouffard, September 8, 2011, Detroit News: “The state House tightened rules for Bridge Card users Wednesday, giving Michigan State Police powers to help root criminals from the welfare system. The legislation passed Wednesday would set up an automated program to compare lists of public assistance recipients with lists of people with outstanding warrants and bar anyone with a warrant from getting public assistance. It also prohibits people who are jailed from receiving food stamps or other assistance, bans dispensing cash from Bridge Cards at ATMs in casinos and bars the cards from being used to buy alcohol, tobacco or lottery tickets…”
• State House passes new restrictions on Bridge Cards; bills go to Senate, By Kathleen Gray, September 8, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “New restrictions on the use of Michigan’s Bridge Cards, which operate like a debit card for food and cash assistance to low-income residents, were passed without debate Wednesday in the House. Jail inmates would no longer be able to use the cards, nor could they be used to get cash from ATM machines in casinos or to buy alcohol, lottery tickets or tobacco products. Approximately 1.3 million bridge cards are in circulation in the state. The amounts the state loads onto the cards are determined by the level of income and family size of recipients…”

• Bloomberg to use own funds in plan to aid minority youth, By Michael Barbaro and Fernanda Santos, August 3, 2011, New York Times: “The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in a blunt acknowledgment that thousands of young black and Latino men are cut off from New York’s civic, educational and economic life, plans to spend nearly $130 million on far-reaching measures to improve their circumstances. The program, the most ambitious policy push of Mr. Bloomberg’s third term, would overhaul how the government interacts with a population of about 315,000 New Yorkers who are disproportionately undereducated, incarcerated and unemployed…”
• Can George Soros, Michael Bloomberg save New York’s troubled young men?, By Ron Scherer, August 4, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to improve the lives of young black and Hispanic males. On Thursday, Mr. Bloomberg announced that the city, combined with his own philanthropy and that of billionaire George Soros, would spend $127.5 million over three years to try to cut down on some of the factors that result in higher rates of poverty, incarceration, and unemployment among young minority men…”
• A hand up, not a handout, for young black and Latino men, Editorial, August 4, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “Blacks and Latinos took the brunt of America’s Great Recession. Their wealth gap with whites is now at a record high. And with large cutbacks in government social programs, there’s a greater need than ever for private giving to help these two groups. That’s the reasoning behind a $130 million initiative in New York City by two billionaires, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and financier George Soros, to target young male minorities with innovative approaches to helping them succeed - as workers and as fathers. Each man is giving $30 million to the public-private project. (Mr. Soros already funds many such programs in other cities.) Known as the Young Men’s Initiative, the three-year project is just the latest of dozens of programs started in recent years to focus on young African-American and Latino males - groups with dreadful rates of poverty, education, and employment…”

Thousands of federal prisoners convicted of crack cocaine crimes eligible for early release, Associated Press, June 30, 2011, Washington Post: “As many as 12,000 people in federal prison for crack-related crimes can get their sentences reduced as a result of a new law that brought the penalties for the drug more closely in line with those for powdered cocaine, a government commission decided Thursday. The decision by the U.S. Sentencing Commission applies to approximately 1 in 17 inmates in the federal system. Congress last year substantially lowered the sentences for crack-related crimes such as possession and trafficking, changing a 1980s law that was criticized as racially discriminatory because it came down extra hard on a drug common in poor, black neighborhoods. The question before the commission Thursday was whether people already locked up under the old law should benefit retroactively from the changes. The six-member commission unanimously decided in their favor…”

Conn. to help inmates pare child-support bills, By Pat Eaton-Robb (AP), May 1, 2011, Denver Post: “Julaquis Minnifield was sitting in his prison cell last summer when he received a notice from the state of Connecticut that he owed more than $13,000 in back child support for his 8-year-old son. Minnifield went to prison knowing he must pay $55 a week in child support under an order obtained by his former girlfriend but said he had no idea the debt was accruing while he was behind bars. He expects to owe more than $15,000 by the time he is released next year. ‘What chance do I have to pay if I’m incarcerated? The longer I sit here, the higher the debt goes,’ Minnifield, a 31-year-old Waterbury man, said in an interview at the Carol Robinson Correctional institution in Enfield, where he is serving a 2-year sentence for drug possession. It’s a challenge faced by incarcerated parents across the country, the vast majority of them fathers. Just because they are in prison does not mean they won’t have to pay child support or repay the state for welfare paid to their families in lieu of child support. Experts say the debt can make overwhelmed parents less likely to pay when they are released, and potentially damage relationships with their children…”

• Study: Prisons failing to deter repeat criminals in 41 states, By Kevin Johnson, April 12, 2011, USA Today: “The number of inmates returning to state prisons within three years of release has remained steady for more than a decade, a strong indicator that prison systems are failing to deter criminals from re-offending, a new study has concluded. In one of the most comprehensive reports of its kind, the Pew Center on the States found that slightly more than four in 10 offenders return to prison within three years, a collective rate that has remained largely unchanged in years, despite huge increases in prison spending that now costs states $52 billion annually. National recidivism, or return, rates are holding steady even as state officials have launched programs to help prisoners re-enter society and as the recent financial crisis has forced states to cut their budgets and re-evaluate the types of offenders who should return to prison…”
• Study praises efforts in Missouri, Kansas to cut prison recidivism, By Mark Morris, April 12, 2011, Kansas City Star: “A new study on former prisoners who reoffend and return to prison gives Missouri high marks for a ‘dramatic’ decline in recidivism over the last six years. According to the Pew Center on the States, 46 percent of Missouri offenders released in fiscal year 2004 returned to prison within two years, for either a new crime or for a ‘technical’ violation of their parole or probation. However, that figure had dropped nearly 9 percentage points, to 37.5 percent, for offenders released in fiscal 2008, according to state figures…”
• Va. returning prisoners to jail at lower-than-average rate, study shows, By Michael S. Rosenwald, April 13, 2011, Washington Post: “Sixteen years after banning parole, Virginia has defied the nation’s unshakably high recidivism level, returning a lower rate of prisoners to incarceration than many other states, according to the first state-by-state comparison of recidivism. Although the state’s recidivism levels have edged up slightly since 2000, Virginia’s 28.3 percent recidivism rate for prisoners in the three years after their release in 2004 is well below the nation’s 43.3 percent rate during the same period, according to the Pew Center on the States study…”
• Four in 10 offenders released from prison return, survey finds, By Jessie Halladay, April 12, 2011, Louisville Courier-Journal: “Four in 10 offenders released from prisons across the nation are back behind bars within three years, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States, the first ever state-by-state survey on inmate recidivism. According to state corrections data collected by Pew, 43 percent of prisoners released in 2004 and 45 percent of those released in 1999 were reincarcerated within three years, despite falling crime rates and rising corrections budgets…”

States help ex-inmates find jobs, By Steven Greenhouse, January 24, 2011, New York Times: “Faced with yawning budget gaps and high unemployment, California, Michigan, New York and several other states are attacking both problems with a surprising strategy: helping ex-convicts find jobs to keep them from ending up back in prison. The approach is backed by prisoner advocates as well as liberal and conservative government officials, who say it pays off in cold, hard numbers. Michigan, for example, spends $35,000 a year to keep someone in prison - more than the cost of educating a University of Michigan student. Through vigorous job placement programs and prudent use of parole, state officials say they have cut the prison population by 7,500, or about 15 percent, over the last four years, yielding more than $200 million in annual savings. Michigan spends $56 million a year on various re-entry programs, including substance abuse treatment and job training…”

For poor, bail system can be an obstacle to freedom, By John Eligon, January 9, 2011, New York Times: “Before George Zouvelos agrees to post someone’s bail, a customer must put up cash, sign a 20-page contract and initial 86 separate paragraphs. Those paragraphs are chock-full of fees: $250 if the defendant misses a weekly check-in; as much as $375 an hour for obscure tasks like bail consulting and research; and unspecified amounts if Mr. Zouvelos, a bail bondsman based in Manhattan, farms out tasks like obtaining court documents or delivering release papers to jail. Then there are the thousands of dollars that Mr. Zouvelos can charge if he decides to revoke a bond and return a defendant to jail, as he did 89 times during a four-month period last year. The common perception of how the bail-bond system operates is fairly straightforward: A bondsman bails a defendant out of jail. If that defendant misses a court appearance, the bondsman can ’surrender’ him - chase him down and haul him back to jail. The reality is more troubling…”

Oklahoma lawmakers study fallout of high incarceration rate, Associated Press, September 14, 2010, The Oklahoman: “Oklahoma’s strict criminal sentences, especially for women, create hardships for the children of inmates and perpetuate a cycle that often results in the children behind bars themselves, experts warned lawmakers Tuesday. Several child advocates and a criminal justice expert testified before the House Human Services Committee that Oklahoma’s children are paying the price for the state’s tough-on-crime sentencing policies…”

• More people released from jail face homelessness: Report, By Jim Rankin, August 10, 2010, Toronto Star: “On a sticky day in June, Eric Cromwell changed into the clothes he’d worn when he was arrested two months earlier on an assault charge and walked out of the Toronto West Detention Centre on Disco Rd. He was given a TTC token but possessed little else. He did have a bachelor apartment where his rent is automatically deducted from his welfare cheque, but that’s where the latest trouble had occurred. There’d been an incident with a neighbour and conditions placed on him forbid him from going anywhere near home. He’d been in and out of jail a number of times, and on this occasion, as had been the case before, he had no home to go to. But he knew where to go. He took public transit to the Maxwell Meighen shelter at Queen and Sherbourne Sts. ‘Down here, to me, it’s like home,’ says Cromwell, 32. ‘I know where to go. I know where to get food. I know how to survive.’ Each year, more people - mostly men - are leaving Toronto jails with nowhere to call home and no plan or supports to keep them from heading back to jail, according to a report by the John Howard Society of Toronto…”
• Inmates stuck in cycle of jail and homelessness, By Joe Friesen, August 9, 2010, The Globe and Mail: “The path to prison often begins in homelessness, and the path back to freedom tends to leave former inmates homeless once again. It’s a vicious cycle of failed reintegration that leads to recidivism, according to a new report from the John Howard Society of Toronto. The report found that more than one in five inmates in the Toronto area were homeless when they were arrested. And there was little sign their prospects for integration were smoothed by their time in jail. One-third of inmates said they planned on living in a homeless shelter when they were released, and a further 12 per cent said they had no idea where they would go. The report, Homeless and Jailed: Jailed and Homeless, based on interviews with 363 people in jail, highlights the difficulties many former prisoners face when they are returned to the community. It concludes that current incarceration policies are adding to the problem of homelessness in Toronto…”

Study finds high rate of imprisonment among dropouts, By Sam Dillon, October 8, 2009, New York Times: “On any given day, about one in every 10 young male high school dropouts is in jail or juvenile detention, compared with one in 35 young male high school graduates, according to a new study of the effects of dropping out of school in an America where demand for low-skill workers is plunging. The picture is even bleaker for African-Americans, with nearly one in four young black male dropouts incarcerated or otherwise institutionalized on an average day, the study said. That compares with about one in 14 young, male, white, Asian or Hispanic dropouts. Researchers at Northeastern University used census and other government data to carry out the study, which tracks the employment, workplace, parenting and criminal justice experiences of young high school dropouts…”

At least 23 states spend less on prisons, By John Gramlich, August 11, 2009, Stateline.org: “A $1 billion cost-cutting plan announced last week by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) will translate into layoffs for more than a thousand state prison workers. In Oregon, a voter-approved plan to hand longer prison sentences to those who commit property crimes was delayed by state lawmakers who said they could not pay for it. Tennessee’s department of corrections has sought to save money by offering inmates less milk and meat in their daily meals. And in Kansas - which has received national attention in recent years for shifting resources from locking up prisoners to rehabilitating them - the state eliminated 85 percent of the slots in its substance-abuse treatment program for inmates, citing budget constraints…”

Mentally ill offenders strain juvenile system, By Solomon Moore, August 9, 2009, New York Times: “The teenager in the padded smock sat in his solitary confinement cell here in this state’s most secure juvenile prison and screamed obscenities. The youth, Donald, a 16-year-old, his eyes glassy from lack of sleep and a daily regimen of mood stabilizers, was serving a minimum of six months for breaking and entering. Although he had received diagnoses for psychiatric illnesses, including bipolar disorder, a judge decided that Donald would get better care in the state correctional system than he could get anywhere in his county. That was two years ago. Donald’s confinement has been repeatedly extended because of his violent outbursts…”

In prisoners’ wake, a tide of troubled kids, By Erik Eckholm, July 4, 2009, New York Times: “Herbert Rashad Scott, whose parents were in and out of prison throughout his childhood, vowed to break his family’s cycle of self-destruction.  The circumstances were not promising. Mr. Scott, 20, was awaiting sentencing for drug possession and robbery, but he was allowed supervised release from jail in May to attend a job preparation class — a chance to turn his life around…”