John Perry, who retired last year as director of planning for the Vermont Department of Corrections, said sending hard-core drug addicts directly to treatment instead of prison could save the state’s taxpayers roughly $4 million a year. StockXchng illustration.
Because using and possessing some drugs is illegal, drug addicts are often thrown in jail before they get treatment for their addiction — even if the only law they broke was using and possessing the drug.
On Wednesday morning, the House Appropriations Committee heard some simple advice from an expert: Stop doing that.
In fact, said John Perry, who retired last year as director of planning for the Vermont Department of Corrections, sending hard-core drug addicts directly to treatment instead of prison could save the state’s taxpayers roughly $4 million a year.
Perry briefed the lawmakers on a study he conducted for Maple Leaf Farm of Underhill, a private, nonprofit, residential treatment center for severe alcoholics and drug addicts. With 41 beds, Maple Leaf treats more than 800 men and women a year. Last year, Perry’s report said, 70 percent of them completed their treatments, which takes about a month.
Perry found that the addicts who were locked up before their treatment — even for only a couple of months — were far more likely to run afoul of the law later and be sent back to prison.
In fact, the percentage of Maple Leaf clients who had been incarcerated before their treatment were almost twice as likely to be incarcerated afterward as were the clients who had not experienced pre-treatment incarceration.
Only 38.9 percent of the addicts who went right into treatment without having been incarcerated for the three previous years were in the corrections system during the three years following their treatments. But 72.8 percent of the patients who had served time during the three years before going to Maple Leaf Farm ended up in jail within three years of finishing their treatments.
“The effect of incarceration,” Perry said, “overwhelms the treatment effect.”
Either the courts, the police and the prosecutors are doing an incredibly good job of prediction, and putting exactly the right people in jail, or prison is criminogenic.”
John Perry
By not incarcerating these addicts, Perry said, the state saves twice: First by not keeping them in jail to begin with; second by having to imprison fewer of them later thanks to the lower rate of recidivism.
Of course, the treatment costs money, but the incarceration saving more than pays for the treatment. Besides, Perry said, much of the treatment gets federal funds. The incarceration savings, he said, “come right out of the General Fund.”
The committee members seemed receptive to Perry’s recommendations, perhaps because they are looking for every opportunity to save money, or perhaps because Perry’s approach is consistent with Gov. Peter Shumlin’s goal of imprisoning fewer non-violent offenders.
In fact, Perry released his study in the context of the committee’s consideration of S.108, “the war on recidivism act.” Sponsored by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the bill is the vehicle for implementing one of Shumlin’s major policy proposals, one he regularly spoke about during last year’s campaign.
The bill, which passed the Senate last week and appears likely to be approved by the House, creates mechanisms under which some non-violent offenders can be “released on reintegration furlough” or sentenced to home confinement. It also establishes a “nonviolent misdemeanor sentence review committee to propose alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent, low-risk misdemeanor offenses.”
Similar policies have been followed in several other states, with some evidence that they help non-violent offenders escape the conditions that impelled them into criminal activity while at the same time saving money. Incarceration is expensive, costing $149 per day per inmate, according to Perry’s report.
Shumlin hopes to use some of the savings to finance more pre-school education in the state.
Perry said he was not at all surprised that his study demonstrated the efficacy of Maple Leaf Farm’s treatment programs.
“Treatment works,” he said. “We all know that.”
What surprised him, he said, was the strong correlation between lack of incarceration and the low rate of recidivism. To his knowledge, he said no other study in the country had demonstrated this connection.
It means, he told the committee somewhat wryly, that “either the courts, the police and the prosecutors are doing an incredibly good job of prediction, and putting exactly the right people in jail, or prison is criminogenic.”
That’s jargon, he later explained, but a real word. Just as a carcinogenic substance causes cancer, a criminogenic experience causes crime.
“Prison is criminogenic,” he said.
That assessment does not mean that either Perry or S. 108 does not recognize the necessity of imprisoning violent offenders or lawbreakers who commit other serious crimes. The bill limits the alternatives to incarceration to those judged to pose “a low risk to public safety or victim safety,” and lists 24 nonviolent offenses — ranging from cruelty to animals to assault of a correctional officer to boating under the influence of alcohol and drugs — for which offenders would not be eligible for home confinement or the other alternative sentences.
Based on Perry’s report, Maple Leaf Farms runs an effective program but does not perform miracles. Even many of the patients who complete their treatment find themselves back in the facility for a second and even a third go-round.
And as the results show, while the patients who were not incarcerated before their treatment are far more likely to stay out of trouble than those who were, more than a third of this relatively successful group later gets in trouble with the law.
Bill Young, Maple Leaf Farm’s executive director, said the facility takes on only non-violent patients who suffer from severe addiction. While Maple Leaf Farm began as a refuge for alcoholics, Young said most of its patients now are addicted to opiates, some to heroin, but of late even more to the painkiller OxyContin.
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While employed at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington Vermont, I witness individuals with no priors at all being incarcerated for less than a 10th of a gram of Marijuana.
People go to jail who really have no business being there.
This is what I’ve come to call the “Justice Vacume.”
You see John to reduce recidivism, you’ll loose jobs, and we woudn’t want that would we?
This is nothing new. Its been going on for more than fourty years and it provides a beefed up inmate population which in turn gives us the need to hire/fire more correctional officers and other staff.
Everybody knows that inmates become more “Criminalize” while in jail, rather than out or jail, or lets say a treatment center like Maple Leaf Farm.
This really isn’t “news.” We’ve known this for a long time.
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I would bet that Christian Noll cannot produce any credible evidence that offenders are locked up for simply possessing tiny amounts of marijuana. It is a popular myth, however.
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Thank you Jim,
The only way I could do that would be if I had access to all the records of those who were incarcerated at CRCF between 02/02/07 and 08/13/07. Good luck with that !
“Credible Evidence” is almost a relative and not literal term in this day and age and your attitude proves it.
I can only report back what I myself have witnessed. Zero Tranparency is something that exists whether you like it or not. I wouldn’t glote over it.
In all fairness; it COULD have been that staffers actually lied in collusion with thoses several inmates I’ve interviewed myself. But some of these staffers’ were officers I actually never had any problems with and trusted. There was a “Rap Sheet” I saw on one inmate and others who were only incarcerated for less than a week.
When I say “Incarcerated” I mean for at least one 24/ hour period and usually more. So to rule out the “detox” inmates from the ones who were actually there for more than a week or so.
It’s attitudes like Mr. Candon’s (amongst other things) which have motivated me to publish my findings into a book.
So I guess I should really thank him in a weird way.
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“The general assembly finds: From 1996 to 2006, Vermont’s prison population doubled. To accommodate this increase, spending on corrections increased 129% from $48 million in fiscal year 1996 to $130 million in fiscal year 2008. Yet during this time, Vermont’s crime rate remained stable”
This trend is consistent across the country. This is the trend of The Prison Industrial Complex. Capitalism relies on indefinite growth, Incarceration is a huge business not just for private prisons but for all the companies that provide products and services for the industry. These private companies are supported by hedge funds which support lobbyists to push for tougher laws on “crime” so they can protect their assets.
This industry is also a major employer.. About 770,000 people worked in the corrections sector in 2008. Compared to U.S. auto manufacturing sector in 2008 there were 880,000 workers. This doesn’t include all the jobs of the companies that provide products and services.
The question must be asked. Does a Capitalist Punitive Structure make us safer and improve our society?
Roughly a 2% increase in the US prison/detention population represents another 40,000 inmates. A 1-2% increase in the prison population comes out to another $2.6 billion in spending annually.
Grass Roots Leadership – “Hundreds of prisons, jails, and detention centers in this country are owned and run by for-profit corporations. For these companies, every prisoner is a profit center, every crime a business opportunity, and rehabilitation is bad for business.” and I add not just for the private prisons but for anyone who has a vested interest in this industry.
One of the few positive impacts of this recession is that states such as Vermont are starting to change the incarceration system starting with alternatives to incarcerating non-violent offenders.
One of my main concerns about S.108 is Vermont’s two “community work camps” as it states they are researching their effect on reducing recidivism. If the incarcerated were working for their own living not in terms of money but growing their own food making their own clothes etc. this I could see as a transition to true Restorative Justice practices. I know this isn’t the case, and again this is where the homogenization of CAPITALIST “ethics” is compromising the evolution of societies betterment. I have visited Maple Leaf Farm and their methodology is uses a holistic approach. This in my view is the future, a “punitive” system of a society that recognizes each individual has something to offer, not as an asset when lock-down. Everyone needs healing some more than others, if we don’t address the ROOT CAUSE of people’s detrimental behaviors there is no hope for real reform.
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Simha, you express some cogent and articulate thoughts. If you are on Facebook, may I urge you to go to the Facebook page for “CURE Vermont”? As you will see, CURE (Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants) is a national organization that used to have a chapter in Vermont, which became moribund and — with my involvement as chairman as well as what the Beatles called “a little help from my friends” — is now being resurrected.
When you get to the Facebook page, feel free to click “like.” Feel even freer to click “subscribe” — either via RSS or SMS. Hope to see you there! Gordon
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The current gyrations we’re having to go through now are due to the fact that there’s nothing inherently criminal about using drugs. We’re slowly coming to the realization that it’s absurd to imprison people whose only crime is to possess and/or use a substance to which some folks have a moral objection. Laws are already on the books to protect society from theft, assault, fraud, etc…. so why is it we continue to think it’s okay to criminalize behavior that MIGHT lead to actual crime? The result is ridiculous: our having to figure out justifications for circumventing our own laws.
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“Sending hard-core drug addicts directly to treatment instead of prison could save the state’s tax payers roughly 4 million a year.”
Mr. Margolis thank you for covering this topic. However I’m compelled to inform you that isn’t anything new.
With all due respect, this was something I’ve documented all the way back in 1988 in my undergraduate junior year of criminal justice studies. It was no secret then either. Maybe in another ten or twenty years from now, another “Expert” will tell us the same thing as “News.”
Simha, Thank you. Your numbers seem to be correct. The state’s own annual report says that from 1996 to 2006 Vermont’s incarcerated population grew from 1057 to 2063 inmates. We’re currently around 2,350 inmates.
So watch it rise and wonder why!
I found it notable that from 1922 until 1979 our state never had more than 500 incarcerated inmates total. Then it exploded.
The state’s report has lots of data and I am happy to see that a state with as little transparency as Vermont, at least has some of the information documented somewhere. As far as its total accuracy, who’s to say what data is included and not. I’ve had some statistical questions in the past that the state has not provided answers to for some reason.
If you read the report carefully you may notice a bias “under tone” pervades in a most misleading way. The report over excentuates prison populations “leveling off” or “dropping off” certain years, yet with overall trend overwhelmingly rising at an alarming rate.
Everything Simha mentions with regard to corrections becoming an “Industrial Complex” is correct. You’re worth more to the state in jail, than you are free.
In fact years of research point to the sad conclusion that those government entities which we pay to protect our peace and security, such as the police and corrections, ARE IN FACT INHIBITING IT…
This is happening with more and more frequency and vigor.
I call this the “Justice Vacume.” I’ve actually experienced this myself on several occasions. Once was when the former superintendent of the of the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington, Vermont, tried to get a completely inibriated inmate to falsely implicate ME as the source of his contraband, while working as a correctional officer and while providing proximity security to the superintendant himself. He did this right in front of my own eyes several times. Think about that.
One of my most unfortunate findings in the past was that at times it is veteran staff, OR individuals who’ve spent 20-30 years in their profession that are in a way, a part of the problem. You’ll think “well they’ve retired after an illustrius career, they must know what they’re talking about” right?
While I’m no “writer” nor claim to be, I’ve had to self publish a book on my experineces while working for the Vermont Department of Corrections.
While I agree with Mr. Perry, his claims to the House Appropriations Committee are as old as the hills. I’ll reiterate that this isn’t news at all.
“The Vermont Department of Corrections is a broken system, in that its a front based response system, and needs to become a back based preventative one.” Burlington Police Chief Mike Schirling 12/04/08; Ward Six NPA
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If people are interested in this subject and want to understand it a little deeper, read the 2 linked blog posts. I recommend following the links within the second post. This is an issue that won’t just go away unless We the citizens get educated, get involved and start dialogue with in our communities and our states.
A few more Statistics: The US has less than 5% of the world’s Total Population and about 25% of the world’s incarcerated population! (STOP and think about that) The world’s total incarcerated population is around 9 million, the US incarcerated population is around 2.5 million!
Another comparison the total population of the US is about 300 Million with 2.5 Million people behind bars, India Total population is about 1.2 Billion they have around 300 thousand people behind bars. Are Americans just more criminal?
http://www.vtcommons.org/blog/2011/04/12/haven-vermont-prison-industrial-complex
http://www.vtcommons.org/blog/2011/04/19/haven-vermont-follow-me-down-rabbit-hole
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Over a decade ago I went through treatment at Maple Leaf Farms as well as another out of state drug treatment facility. Having been clean and sober for well past 8 years I have some opinions about that facility that I think are underrepresented in most articles about treatment vs incarceration.
During my experience at Maple Leaf, treatment only lasted 2 weeks (14 days) including detox. This article mentioned treatment lasting “almost a month” but even the poeple I am involved with currently who have need of this program say the same, a 2 week treatment program is the maximum they have been participated in. The only exception to that I have encountered was a woman who was already there when I showed up, she was court ordered into the program, and she did stay 28 days. Hopefully, Maple Leaf has changed to a 28 day program since I was there, because truthfully, 14 days was barely enough time to detox from opiates before I was back home to the same friends I had before, doing the same things I did before, with the same people as before.
It was not until I went to an out of state treatment facility that would keep me 30 days that turned into 41 (I was discharged when the counselors thought I was ready, not when a calender said I was done) and then went straight to a halfway house 2000 miles away. That is what it took for me to get clean…
It really seems like once you get into the corrections system, you are not getting out. Do a little jail time for some weed, your cell mate is a junkie, the guy next to you murdered someone, what are you going to talk about?? Once your out usually you are on probation or parole for 3 or 5 years. If it was a drug offense, more often than not you are court ordered to attend an I.O.P. (intensive outpatiant program) 3 afternoons a week, and required to meet with your parole/probation officer weekly and maybe attend counseling once a week as well.
One of the “conditions of release” that most inmates must agree to is that they have no contact with people using drugs or alcohol. The irony of this is that is exactly what you are doing while at IOP, or waiting for your appointment with a P.O., or even sitting at your counselors office, you are surrounded by people who have been or currently are using, the very psople you have been ordered to and agreed to stay away from. In addition to forcing you to be around people who are using, all of this programs and appointments are only offered during normal business hours. This immidiately limits the ability of the parolee to find a job other than either part-time or a minimum wage position at a fast food restaurant.
Just this morning I had to warn one of my employees that if his probation officer continued to make his appointments in the middle of the day I would no longer be able to schedule him for those days, effectively making him a part time employee. This would not only affect his paycheck but also his eligibility for health insurance through his employer. All this does is shift the burdon to the state and the taxpayers and increasing the chances that he will reoffend.
I believe treatment is the right choice for most non-violent offenders charged with posession or other drug related crimes, but we need to take a serious look at the effectiveness of our current in house treatment programs and whether or not we are intentionally setting these people up for failure by not having probation/parole officers working evenings and offering outpatient drug treatment at times that allow these people to hold down full time jobs offering a liveable wage.
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Lawrence, please go to the Facebook page for “CURE Vermont.” When you get there, feel free to click “like.” Feel even freer to click “subscribe” — either via RSS or SMS. Hope to see you there! Gordon