Legislation News & Report (TM) 

TheWeekInCongress.com (TM)

Managing America: Crime

TheWeekInCongress.com (TM)

Week Ending May 18, 2006

H.R.1593 To reauthorize the grant program for reentry of offenders into the community in the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, to improve reentry planning and implementation, and for other purposes.

The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, a 1968 law, is reauthorized with the goal of reducing recidivism, increasing public safety and helping local governments to better address the growing population of ex-offenders returning to their communities, the bill report explains. 650,000 people are released from State and federal prisons each year. Through grant programs the bill aims on developing and supporting programs that provide alternatives to incarceration, expand available substance abuse treatment, strengthen families of the ex-offenders and expand comprehensive re-entry services. Employment services, drug treatment and mental health services are included. The bill comes at a time when recidivism is high with two-thirds of the offenders re-arrested for new crimes in about three years from their release.

Research provided that while crime rates have fallen over the past ten years prison and jail populations have increased. In 2003, more than 2 million people were incarcerated in Federal or State prisons and local jails. Four million are on probation or parole. And Federal prison populations have risen from 25,000 prisoners in 1984 to 175,000 prisoners. The population of women in prison is particularly increasing. Juvenile imprisonment releases 100,000 youth yearly with a 55 to 75 percent recidivism rate.

The bill points out that the primary increase is due to the 1984 Sentencing Reform Act that brought longer sentences and mandatory minimum sentences.

Although the increase in prisoners would seem to be the reason for a decrease in crime, the cost of imprisonment rose from $9 billion in 1982 to over $50 billion today. The bill’s purpose then would include reducing prison populations to save money but also to ensure that prisoners released remain free as law-abiding, productive citizens.

Existing re-entry demonstration projects are reauthorized for adults and juvenile offenders but strengthening of and coordination between service providers, substance abuse agencies and criminal justice agencies is called for to include mentors, post-release housing and transitional housing, healthcare services and drug treatment services. Collaboration of all relevant services aims to improve education, training and life skills, promoting family relationships and identifying barriers to collaboration with child welfare agencies, expanding family-based treatment, pre-release assessments and monitoring of the services.

GRANTS

Grants will be prioritized based on applicants that have State support, coordination and oversight, partnerships with community-based organizations, that provide consultation with crime victims and can analyze regulatory hurdles to a prisoner’s reintegration into society. Annual and five to ten year performance outcomes are required. A center is established to collect data on progress and recommend best practices and provide technical assistance.

NEW PROGRAMS

States are required to provide aftercare services to be eligible for residential substance abuse grants that will provide full service aftercare. Also created are State and local Re-entry courts to monitor offenders and provide them with access to comprehensive re-entry services.

Also new is a grant program to create comprehensive and continuous re-entry task forces that will develop community re-entry plans prior to release and to supervise and assess the offender while still incarcerated.

Educational opportunities would be evaluated and improved in the areas of academic and vocational education.

A comprehensive Federal prisoner re-entry program is ordered that will include incentives for prisoners to participate. The US Attorney general is directed to reexamine and modify any and all policies and procedures relating to transition from Federal prison to the community. Included in the plan would be assistance in obtaining identification documents such as Social Security cards, driver’s license and birth certificates prior to release. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is directed to provide pre-release planning procedures to ensure eligibility for Federal and State benefits on release and to support parent-child relationships as well. The BOP may also place the offender in a halfway house up to 12 months prior to planned release.

Once back in the community, employment is important and the Attorney general is ordered to implement programs to increase hiring prisoners and to educate employers of the existing benefits for hiring former prisoners. The bill also requires minimum access to healthcare, and medicines after the prisoner is released

A new pilot program to permit release of certain non-violent offenders age 60 and over, with conditions, is authorized to help reduce prison overcrowding and medical care expenses.

DRUG TREATMENT AND MENTORING

Grants for demonstration projects to reduce alcohol and drug use by long-term abusers while in prison through completion of parole or probation. Drug demand is countered with grants to local groups partnering to develop on request treatment programs. Similar grant program aims at state and local governments experiencing a meteoric rise in drug-related incarceration to improve availability of treatment in prison or jail. Pharmaceutical drug treatment such as methadone, is also authorized and naltraxone is to be evaluated for effectiveness in treating heroin addiction.

JOB TRAINING AND MENTORING

Grants are available to provide technology career training as are grants to non-profit organizations for providing mentoring and other transitional services. The Bureau of prisons is ordered within 90 days to modify mentoring policies to ensure offenders are still mentored after release.

STUDIES

The National Institute of Justice will research re-entry issues.

The Attorney General (AG) may award grants to States to study and “evaluate parole and post-supervision procedures, the effectiveness of procedures for resolving violations of parole and supervision conditions, and what standards or procedures could be adopted to improve public safety.” The AG is also ordered to “study and develop best practices for communication and coordination between State criminal justice agencies and child welfare agencies to improve the safety and support of children of incarcerated parents, and to maintain the parent-child relationship when the parent is incarcerated.”

COURTS

Federal judges may not specify detaining a prisoner to a community correction facility and makes clear it it s the BOP that has sole and exclusive authority to designate which facility a prisoner will serve the sentence and when and if a transfer to another facility is in order.

Grants would be made available by the AG to State and local prosecutors to develop and implement qualified drug treatment programs as alternatives to imprisonment under a re-entry court initiative.. The offender would be subject to imprisonment if it is determined he/she has not completed the treatment program. Completion can mean the case is dismissed. Family-based abuse treatment programs may also receive grants to provide an alternative to incarceration of non-violent offenders. A prison-based, family-based treatment program is also authorized. The Federal share of drug treatment efforts must not exceed 75%.

Sponsor:  Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Il-7^th)

Vote: Proposed but not yet considered in the House.

Cost to the taxpayers: “CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 1593 would cost about $400 million over the 2008-2012 period”

Earmark Certification:   “In accordance with clause 9 of rule XXI of the Rules of the House of Representatives, H.R. 1593 does not contain any congressional earmarks, limited tax benefits, or limited tariff benefits as defined in clause 9(d), 9(e), or 9(f) of Rule XXI“

{## All Rights Reserved. © 2007 TheWeekInCongress.com(TM)

No reproduction, language translation or distribution without written permission from TheWeekInCongress.com.(TM)