by Patrice Brymner

The Criminal Justice Policy Coalition has recently undertaken a comprehensive research project focusing on county corrections. The project is designed to research, analyze, and disseminate relevant information on the state of county corrections in order to provide community education and call for change in areas needing improvement.

County corrections is an area of unique opportunity and challenge. County-level autonomy in Massachusetts allows disparity in policies and practices, but also creates opportunities for innovation in programming, hiring, and training. Sheriffs, as elected officials, are subject to accountability in a way that the Department of Correction (state prison) is not. Political pressure by an uninformed constituency can lead to negative changes. However, educated voters can pressure their sheriffs to replicate the innovative and successful policies and programs instituted in other counties.

Research and community education on county corrections can help to bring positive changes to an area currently given little public attention. Although an estimated 12,000 or so inmates are held in county correctional facilities at an estimated average cost of $35,000 per inmate each year, the public hears little about county corrections, outside of election years. The public has little access to county data-even basic information, such as spending, population size, facility conditions, available programming, and administrative policies. Budget numbers for county corrections are difficult to track, but CJPC estimates a total annual cost of around $400 million, statewide. Beyond basics, public discourse is lacking regarding facility culture for inmates and work conditions for staff, hiring and training policies, policies regarding treatment of inmates by staff, and treatment of inmates by other inmates.

Throughout 2005, CJPC plans to compile and publish data on what is and is not working in the 14 counties, using approximately 40 criteria, including per-inmate spending, inmate programming, work conditions, and recidivism rates. Beyond a comprehensive report, CJPC will publish a series of articles profiling specific sheriffs, highlighting experiences of former inmates in selected counties, and reporting on various approaches in a given area, such as use of day reporting and pre-release programming in select counties. We also hope to hold a series of public forums to open a dialogue among voters, citizen groups, and sheriffs.

If you have a particular interest in county corrections or in this project, we would like to hear from you. Please contact me at 978-897-1775.

Our thanks to all of you who have helped to make this year's annual membership drive a major success! Memberships and renewals have increased 50% from last year. In addition, the number of members contributing beyond the $25 membership level is twice what it was last year, and income from donations, excluding the $20,000 matching grant that we received, is up 150%.

Though we have yet to match the entire value of the challenge grant, its donors are sufficiently impressed that, beyond doubling the income received to date, they have agreed to continue to match all donations made before February 20th. At the end of this matching period, we will email the results of the fundraising campaign to all contributing members, and make a paper version available on request to those members without email.

If you have not yet joined, now is the time to become a member. If you have already contributed for 2005, please consider increasing the size of your gift. With your help, the CJPC will have an opportunity to engage an executive director and re-establish an office this year. Use the envelope enclosed or, if you receive the newsletter online, contribute by visiting our website (www.cjpc.org ) and clicking on our secure connection to Wainwright Bank. Thank you in advance for your support.

Patrice Brymner
The benefits and cost-effectiveness of jail and arrest diversion in Massachusetts are becoming clearer. In a recent report, the police/clinician partnership model used by the Framingham Jail Diversion Program (JDP) was shown to be successful in preventing unnecessary arrests and alleviating pressure on police in incidents involving mental illness and/or substance abuse.

JDP, a privately funded partnership between the Framingham Police Department and Advocates Psychiatric Emergency Services, has been in operation since April 2003. According to the program's website, "police and crisis workers cross- train one another, then literally ride together, to ensure that people with mental illness who are touched by the criminal justice system are directed to needed services - not to pointless and expensive utilization of police and Court resources." The program does this by placing fully-trained crisis clinicians inside the police station 40 hours a week. Additionally, police dispatchers and supervisors are linked to clinicians 24 hours a day.

CJPC is seeking someone to help with the website, posting articles and maintaining the page. CJPC expects to redesign the website in the coming year.  Pay is flexible. Currency in gratitude from several hundred people around the commonwealth guaranteed.  Please send an email to [email protected] .   Thanks.

by CJPC staff

On behalf of the Lifers' Group at Old Colony Correctional Center, Steven McGruder has written a proposal documenting the importance of family visits for rehabilitation and reintegration. His report cites social science research, state statutes and federal regulations to show broad awareness of the crucial value of family for building a safe society. However, he points out that visitation becomes problematic when security is enforced in ways that discourage family support.

Responding to statements by the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union (MCOFU), the author suggests that violence subsided in the 1980's not because of punitive measures, but because policies in effect at that time supported rehabilitation. He further expresses disagreement with the MCOFU's stance, "that the 'conversion of a criminal into a model citizen ' is the wrong goal, and is somehow at odds with the goal of 'defending public safety.' On the contrary, we concur strongly with a long tradition of research showing that rehabilitation is the most effective tool in defending public safety. In other words, far from being at odds, these two goals are complementary to one another."

by CJPC staff

The bulletin board in the visiting area of the Massachusetts prison I visit is crowded with notices whose ominous wording rings out and sets an unmistakable tone. Prominently featured on these notices are words like 'prohibited,' 'not allowed,' 'strictly forbidden.' Visitors 'must' do certain things; they 'must not' do others. Signs sparsely but severely posted elsewhere on the walls remind the unwary family member of impending prison terms and fines for any encroachment of prison rules.

Notably absent are words that might put the visitor at ease-words like 'welcome,' or messages suggesting that their efforts are 'appreciated.' Ironically, the one small placard that features the word 'loved ones' urges visitors not to support their family member, but to report any drug use they see to the internal security police.

In a Dark Time: A Prisoner's Struggle for Healing and Change, by Dwight Harrison and Susannah Sheffer, tells the story of a man who was convicted of armed robbery and attempted murder and served almost 17 years in Massachusetts prisons. His years of incarceration, 1978-1995, span a time during which the philosophy of prison underwent a dramatic shift from rehabilitative to punitive. The book reveals this prisoner struggling to resist that shift and to find the tools for his own rehabilitation in a system that was increasingly in opposition to it. It offers a close look at the effect of programs that, in many cases, have since been eliminated-college classes and an inmate-run AIDS education program, for example. The book also offers insight into the effects of segregation and isolation and tells the story of how a superintendent was able to achieve cooperation, in a surprising way, from a prisoner who had presented a seemingly intractable discipline problem.

For complete ordering information, including information about bulk discounts for groups, visit www.stonelionpress.com , or write Stone Lion Press, PO Box 1050, Amherst, MA 01004.

by CJPC staff

Governor Mitt Romney's proposed Fiscal Year 2006 budget (bill number H.1) is expected to be released on January 26th, followed shortly by the House and Senate versions. The Budget is an annual preoccupation of the government for much of the spring and on occasion becomes a vehicle for non- budgetary legislation.

As it has for the past 23 years, the Massachusetts Human Services Coalition will be publishing The Peoples Budget for Fiscal Year 2005 in mid-February. This document is an analysis of the health and human services components of the FY2005 state budget, with data going back to FY01; it is a tool for the many organizations and individuals who advocate for improvements in these areas. This year, there will be several sections relating to criminal justice issues: the public defenders budgets, the Parole Board, the Criminal History Systems Board (which maintains CORI and SORI records), the Department of Corrections, and County corrections' budgets. These sections are being prepared by individuals working through the CJPC. Part of the commentary will be information regarding critical aspects of these agencies and/or departments that will be addressed legislatively.

The entire Peoples Budget for FY05 will be placed online by the Mass Human Services Coalition on their website www.cutnomore.org. We will include the criminal justice sections in the February newsletter; they will be posted on our website during the first week of February.

For the third year, CJPC will be serving as Coordinator of the Criminal Justice Workshop, one of ten workshops comprising the Legislative Clearinghouse, presented annually by the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers and the Massachusetts Human Services Coalition.

The event, which is co-sponsored by CJPC, will take place on Friday, February 25th, from 9:00 to 1:30 at the State House in Boston. For more information, please see our flier, which is posted online at http://cjpc.org/ev_legal_cl_flier.htm , or contact Dorothy Weitzman at [email protected].