INDIANAPOLIS – Sheriffs and local jailers may see more money to help keep numbers in check in their lock-ups, as lawmakers pursue an ambitious plan to clear low-level offenders from state prisons.
The House agreed this week to free up almost $90 million over the next two years for communities that offer treatment programs designed to reduce recidivism. If it survives the session, the measure also will forbid judges from sentencing the lowest level felons – most convicted of drug and theft crimes – to state prisons as of Jan. 1, 2016.
“The money goes directly where we want it. We want to make sure it’s not used simply to build jails,” said House Judiciary Chairman Greg Steuerwald, R-Avon, author of the bill.
The effort has support from groups that represent sheriffs and parole officers, who’ve endorsed the idea of shoring up treatment for those whose crimes are driven by addiction or mental illness.
Local law enforcement has clamored for more money in anticipation of new rules that are part of a major overhaul of Indiana’s criminal laws. Those rules could divert 4,500 or more offenders out of state prisons each year and back into local jails and community corrections facilities.
“There’s nothing in our (state) jail standards that say I have to help an inmate get better, so if we’ve been interested in doing something for our communities, we pretty much had to figure it ourselves,” said Daviess County Sheriff Jerry Harbstreit, president of the Indiana Sheriffs Association.
Indiana already spends about $40 million a year on local community correction programs that include home detention and work-release programs for low level offenders.
But the state's recidivism rate is high, ranging from 48 to 62 percent over the last decade, so legislators have been looking for something to interrupt that cycle.
Steuerwald said tying state money to treatment is modeled on a Texas initiative. After seeing prison costs spiral due to tougher penalties, especially for drugs, Texas sunk more than $230 million into community programs focused on addiction and mental health treatment. It saw results: Texas closed a prison in 2011, and state prison officials report $3 billion in savings.
In Indiana, climbing prison numbers triggered a move toward sentencing reform three years ago. The state’s prison population went from 19,000 in 2000 to more than 28,000 a decade later – a 47 percent jump. Prison costs, now at about $680 million, rose almost $200 million during the same time.
Harbstreit is convinced that keeping low-level offenders out of state prisons can work - with money targeted for treatment, intense supervision and job opportunities for former prisoners.
With a federal grant, Harbstreit started an intensive drug treatment program in his own jail when the 250-bed facility could no longer hold all of the low-level offenders. He now sees far fewer re-offenders, and the jail houses about 150 people on an average day. While the federal dollars have run out, Harbstreit keeps the program going with local money and a bank of volunteers.
He could use the state support, he said. He argues that the money is a good investment, though he’s had to convince some citizens in his community of that.
“Some people say, ‘I don’t think they deserve anything but bread and water,’” he said. “But I tell them, 'They’re your neighbors. If we help them, we’re really helping our community.'"
Steuerwald’s measure to replicate that success still faces opposition.
Officials with the Indiana Department of Correction aren’t convinced that the new sentencing guidelines will drive down their costs and free up the money that Steuerwald wants to direct into local treatment programs.
In a budget proposed by Gov. Mike Pence, the department asked for $51 million to expand prisons at Miami Correctional Facility near Peru and the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility near Sullivan. Officials anticipate housing more high-security prisoners since lawmakers have also lengthened sentences for the worst offenders.
But the Republican-led House stripped out the department's request before moving its budget over to the Senate this week.
That decision has the support of Senate leaders who were instrumental in overhauling the criminal sentencing laws.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, has already talked to officials in the Division of Mental Health and Addiction about overseeing grants for local programs designed to reduce recidivism.
Kenley said he’s not sure yet what will happen to the Corrections request for more money to expand prisons.
Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Brent Steele, R-Bedford, is dead set against putting more money into prisons. He’s pressing hard for the money to go communities that will take on more low-level offenders.
“As a state, we don’t like unfunded mandates handed down to us by the federal government,” he said. “And it’s our goal to make sure we don’t do same thing to the locals.”