|
|
| More state felons held in local jails |
| By The Louisville Courier-Journal |
| Published: 07/10/2006 |
|
SOMERSET, KY - Thirty percent of Kentucky's 20,585 state felons -- those sentenced to a year or more -- are being held in county jails. That is four times the rate in Indiana, five times the national average and a higher percentage than any other state except Louisiana. And the consequences are grave, both for the inmates and the communities to which they will eventually be returned, according to a blistering new report by University of Kentucky law professor Robert Lawson, the author of Kentucky's penal code. Jails generally are not designed, equipped, staffed or funded to provide the kind of rehabilitation programs that offer "anything more than a faint hope of helping inmates after incarceration," Lawson writes. Offering little more space than an animal shelter gives a large dog, he says, jails "are more of a storage bin or human warehouse than a penal institution in pursuit of corrections." The report also asserts that many counties intentionally overcrowd their jails to get additional money from the state -- enabling some of them to make a profit. Prison and jail officials dispute Lawson's conclusions, saying he underestimates the value of keeping felons in jails closer to home -- and the millions of hours of community service they perform for local governments, schools and parks. But Lawson's 71-page report, "Turning Jails into Prison -- Collateral Damage from Kentucky's War on Crime," describes the incarceration of long-term prisoners in county jails as the worst consequence of a prison boom in Kentucky, where the prison population has multiplied sevenfold since 1970. Lawson and other experts who have read the report, including Public Advocate Ernie Lewis, who heads the state public defender system, say the situation should prompt public concern because without rehabilitation and education, inmates held in jails are more likely to commit new crimes when released. Lawson based his findings on visits to jails in nine counties, which he compared with three prisons. His conclusions mirror, in part, two other recent reports on county jails: The state auditor's office in February reported that housing felons in jails "exacerbates or causes overcrowding in 53 of the state's 73 full-service and regional jails" and may lead to lawsuits and liability issues. A consultant's report in December for the state Corrections Department found that 25 percent of inmates in a sample of 25 jails had to sleep on the floor because of overcrowding and that there are "troubling variations" in programs for them. |
MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
|
Comments:
No comments have been posted for this article.
Login to let us know what you think