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| New Az. Admissions Plan Saved $1.2M |
| By The Tucson Citizen |
| Published: 09/26/2005 |
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The cash-strapped Arizona Department of Corrections has saved $1.2 million in the last year by developing a more efficient way of admitting some inmates, the department says. The new intake system also gets inmates with short sentences on a fast track to rehabilitation, Corrections Director Dora Schriro told victims' advocates and corrections officers at a summit in Tucson this week that. In the past, all inmates were taken to the Alhambra prison north of Phoenix for a five-day intake process to determine the prison and unit where the inmate would be placed. Now, inmates with sentences of six months or less - one-third of all inmates - spend three days in intake then immediately are placed in restorative justice programs designed to teach them how to live responsibly in the community. The faster intake process gets short-timers to low-level units and frees up higher security prison beds for higher risk inmates, which saves money, Schriro told those attending the summit. Schriro's restorative justice program - "parallel universe" - prepares inmates for crime-free lives, said Steve Ickes, director of the department's programs division. In the program, inmates must conduct themselves as they would once released. "For those who think it's a soft-on-crime program, wake up, because it's not," Ickes said. Since 96 percent of all inmates eventually return to the streets, Schriro said, it's the department's duty to teach them to be accountable to the community and crime victims and be responsible. The department is trying to do a better job of identifying inmates' needs to better handle life on the outside. Public safety also improves by getting high-risk inmates to the most secure prisons. The 2003 crisis in which two officers were taken hostage at the Lewis prison in Buckeye might not have occurred had inmates Ricky Wassenaar and Steven Coy been in a higher security unit, Schriro said. Before, five weeks typically would lapse between a parole violation arrest and appearance before the clemency board. Now, instead of just bunking the inmate until the appearance, staffers work with the inmate to correct problems. |
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