Montana Prison Reform – Helenawinds

The Scourge of The Montana Department of Corrections- Sanctions and Revocations

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According to the above chart, The State of Montana has the most criminal elements in the founding NATO countries- OR – Montana has the most corrupt, power hungry and politically motivated judges, prosecutors and Department of Corrections in the founding NATO countries.

Montana citizens don't appear to be so different from people from other areas. Here are some interesting facts about people from Montana. Actor Bill Pullman taught film and photography at Montana State University before becoming a full-time actor, and currently owns a ranch near Whitehall. Academy Award-winning director Brad Bird was born and raised in Kalispell. Carroll O'Connor, who played Archie Bunker on the sitcom "All in the Family," attended the University of Montana. Aviator Charles Lindbergh was a mechanic at the Billings Municipal Airport (now Billings Logan International Airport). Country singer Charley Pride played minor league baseball for both the Helena Smelterites and the Missoula Timberjacks. Actor Christopher Lloyd owned a ranch in the Bitterroot Valley for a number of years, on which he spent much of his time. Late-night talk show host David Letterman lives for much of the year on his ranch near Choteau. Actor Dennis Quaid owned a ranch in Paradise Valley, where he spends a significant amount of time. Daredevil Evel Knievel was from Butte. Gemini 7 astronaut and Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman lives in Big Horn County. Academy Award-winning actor Gary Cooper was born in Helena and spent much of his teenage years there before graduating from Gallatin County High School in Bozeman. Space Shuttle astronaut and physicist Loren Acton was born in Lewistown and attended Montana State University, where he is currently a professor of solar physics. There are actually too many notables from Montana to mention, so I am saying the people from Montana don't seem to be as dangerous as the statistics indicate. Perhaps the other theory, corrupt, power hungry and politically motivated judges, prosecutors and Department of Corrections seems more probable.

34% of the prison population in the State of Montana is due to sanctions and revocations of probation and parole resulting from technical violations. Missing an appointment with a supervising officer can result in a return to prison. 25% of the revocations and sanctions are due to very serious violation or new crime. (The above statisics obtained from the Council of State Governments Justice Center.) The Department of Corrections population report, 10/2/2019, reveals there are 2723 inmates incarcerated at the Men and Women’s Prisons. 925 of these inmates are revocations and sanctions. 25% of the 925 revocations and sanctions are due to very serious violation or new crime and these people should be revoked and sanctioned. 694 people in prison are there for a technical violation because meeting their supervision requirements is almost impossible.

The State of Montana is a vast and rural area. For people living on the edge of poverty and trying to rebuild their lives, the costs and logistics of community supervision can be crippling. In Montana, home to 13 federally recognized tribes on seven reservations with few services on site, people may have to travel 60 miles to check in with their probation officer or take a necessary class. Without the means to travel 60 miles on secondary roads during severe weather and lacking cell phone coverage and internet services, these people cannot meet supervision requirements. And yet we continue to incarcerate these people at staggering numbers and overwhelming amounts of money.

It costs tax payers in the State of Montana about $35,000.00 per year to incarcerate one person. Montana has 694 prisoners incarcerated for technical violations i.e. failure to complete a class or failure to check in with a supervising officer when logistically they simply cannot meet the requirement. 694 prisoners X $35,000.00 = $24,300,000. That is twenty four million, three hundred thousand dollars.

The Montana Board of Pardons and Parole holds all their very important parole board hearings through video conferencing. They do not meet face to face with inmates requesting parole. Very important careers such as teachers, nurses, physician assistants are obtained through online classes. Telemedicine and telehealth is transforming medical care in rural areas. Are we ready Montana to transform the lives of people on probation and parole and help them succeed with their supervision requirements or do we just not care?

Twenty four million, three hundred thousand dollars would go a long way in helping individuals to succeed with supervision requirements.  We can use that money to set up video conferencing between impoverished probationers and their supervising officer.  These video conferencing centers can be set up in tribal offices, law enforcement centers, or state offices.  Required classes can be done through internet video conferencing while the probationer is online participating with the class.

Supervising officers travel to these rural areas to do home checks, and assist in arrests, sanctions and revocations.  Perhaps supervising officers could travel to these rural areas quarterly to meet with the individuals they have been communicating with through video conferencing, not to revoke and arrest them but to assist them in succeeding.  I would point out that a chaperone should be included with the officers traveling together so there isn't anymore "he-said" but I digress here.

If a sanction is required maybe community service or house confinement with permission to go to work and medical appointments. Not prison. Use the money for success, not failure. Despite the prison sanctions and revocations of the Montana Department of Corrections, I just don’t believe Montana has the worst criminal elements in the founding NATO countries. However, we may have the most corrupt Department of Corrections, judges and prosecutors in the founding NATO countries. The chart seems to indicate that.

Oh The Tangled Webs We Weave – Montana Board of Pardons and Parole

Montana Headlines: Montana’s new parole board is granting inmates’ release sooner after major changes made in 2017… according to data released by the Criminal Justice Oversight Council. The quicker parole process owes to changes made during the 2017 Legislature.

The Montana Board of Pardons and Parole transitioned from a seven member volunteer board to a five member board at a cost of one half million dollars a year to the tax payers of Montana. Board member Annette Carter made some very rosy statistics and data to the Criminal Justice Oversight Council. Shall we see what the real data is?

Data under the previous volunteer board:
January, 2017: The Board made final dispositions on 246 matters. The Board granted 59 paroles. This is a 24% parole rate.

February, 2017: The Board made final dispositions on 252 matters. The Board granted 61 paroles. This is a 24% parole rate.

March, 2017: The Board made final dispositions on 285 matters. The Board granted 81 paroles. This is a 28% parole rate.

The average parole rate under the old volunteer board for January, February and March 2017 is 25%.

Data under the new one half million dollar a year board:
January, 2018: The Board made final dispositions on 278 matters. The Board granted 70 paroles. This is a 25% parole rate.

February, 2018: The Board made final dispositions on 284 matters. The Board granted 77 paroles. This is a 27% parole rate.

March, 2018: The Board made final dispositions on 331 matters. The Board granted 88 paroles. This is a 27% parole rate.

The average parole rate under the new one half million dollar a year board for January, February and March 2018 is 26%.

For one half million dollars a year the State of Montana is getting a 1% increase in paroles granted.

There was broad bipartisan legislative support for the changes to the parole board. The bill passed 97-3 in the House and 47-3 in the Senate. Only six people were against the huge financial expenditures for a 1% increase in granted paroles.

I am not seeing the rosy picture Annette Carter presented to the Criminal Justice Oversight Committee. Data can be skewed in many ways to present brilliant work and great results. Wording of the data can skew the true meaning. The data provided to the Oversight Committee was for the one month of April 2018. The Board simply schedules in the month of April everyone they know they are going to parole. That would surely skew the great results of the Board.

Oh the tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive. Look at all the data before pronouncing the brilliant success of the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole. The new board achieved a 1% increase in parole over the old board.

Implosion Of The Montana Department of Corrections

In January, 2018 the Montana Law and Justice Interim Committee met in Helena. The meeting was particularly interesting in that a glaring deficiency was apparent. Unless Governor Steve Bullock and Department of Corrections Director Reginald Michael are truly behind the Committee it will fail and, unfortunately, it has been designed to fail. The implosion of the Montana Department of Corrections began in 2014 and continues today. Governor Bullock and previous Corrections Director Mike Batista and Bureau Chief Ron Alsbury are fully responsible.

Montana’s prisons are over capacity. The prison population increased 11 percent between FY2008 and FY2015 and is projected to continue to grow 13
percent by FY2023, requiring at least $51 million in new spending for contract prison beds.

Corrections in Montana is big business.  Really big business.  Private Corrections in Montana is really big business.  State run corrections in Montana is really big business.

By Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy

January 25, 2017

Governor Bullock is term limited from being Governor for another term in Montana.  His sights are set on a national campaign.  National political campaigns are not funded by individual felons from Montana.  They are funded by big business.  This is where the implosion began and how it continues today.

In July 2014 Director Mike Batista and Bureau Chief Ron Alsbury began discussing reorganization of the Adult Community Corrections Division and changes to the sanctions grid.  The sanctions grid determines the probation/parole status of offenders and what punishments are exacted for violations, including minor and technical infractions.  The following grid was established.  Click on link below to view grid.

sj3-sanctions-flow-chart

October 9, 2014 Department of Corrections personnel received an email from Dave Armstrong, Administrator of Alternatives Inc, a private contract pre-release center, which is known as Alpha House for men and Passages for women. "So besides Cr'ing (conditional release) everyone in jail, what else?  What should we expect from the P&P grid, will be asked to hang onto drug and alcohol users?"

Probation/Parole offenders that are under normal supervision are sanctioned to jail by court authority.  Probation/Parole offenders on conditional release, under the new grid, will be sanctioned by probation/parole officers to private contract facilities without having to file with the court.  There is no money in corrections for offenders sitting in jail. There is big money for offenders sanctioned to private facilities.  Under the P&P grid all sanctions for conditional release will be made to private contract facilities without the need for interventions and court action. Put everyone sitting in jail on conditional release then probation/parole does not need to go through interventions they simply go straight to private incarceration. The plan is now in place for big business.

September 16, 2014 at a DOC meeting it was revealed that one DOC employee had a meeting with Mike Thatcher, CEO of Butte Pre-release, where it was revealed that Governor Bullock had called Mike Thatcher to his office and Governor Bullock told him to keep his mouth shut about DOC issues and to back off during the legislative session.  Without revealing his plan to Mike Thatcher Governor Bullock did not want Thatcher to disrupt his plans to increase private contractor beds to increase population in private facilities.  The plan for big business.

September 30, 2104 at a meeting with DOC personnel, concerns were expressed that the contract with PEW Charitable Trust and Dennis Schranz was "shady and would bite us in the ass."  Concern was also expressed that there was no procurement for the PEW contract and that personnel and contractors would be watching for the contract to be posted to a department or state website.  The PEW Charitable Trust is a consulting firm that was hired to assist the Montana Law and Justice Interim Committee to plan and reform criminal justice and sentencing.  The Pew Charitable Trust was hired to reduce the need for more private contract beds while Governor Bullock, Mike Batista and Ron Alsbury's plan was to increase private contract beds by sanctioning probation/parolees to conditional release, bypassing interventions and sanctioning offenders directly to contract beds.

The Law and Justice Interim Committee is being directed by The Pew Charitable Trust with a contract that was not put through the State of Montana procurement process.  The intent of the Committee is to reduce jail, prison and private contract incarceration.  Unbeknownst to the Law and Justice Committee, the Governor and the Director of the Montana Department of Corrections are acting in a complete opposite direction.  Big business requires the incarceration of individuals and Governor Bullock needs the backing of big business.  This includes corrections agencies both public and private, employees and their big business unions, health care, construction, food, utilities, clothing, phone companies, judges, prosecutors, public defenders, police and their unions, commissary and the list goes on for big business.  

The Law and Justice Interim Committee meets and listens to attractive people with agenda's purporting the good work they are doing to reduce jail, prison and private incarceration.  They tour facilities and have inmates smile at them for the good work they are attempting to do.  The real question they need to ask is how many probation/parolees are conditionally released from jails and then sanctioned to private contract facilities and prisons because under the P&P grid those on conditional release do not need to go through the intervention and court process.  They are sanctioned to incarceration because the probation and parole officers no longer have to file with the court to sanction them.  The incarceration rates continue to rise because Governor Bullock's plan undermines the work of the Committee and they don't have a clue what is really happening.

Governor Bullock needs big business to finance his national campaign.  The next question is where does the new Montana Director of Corrections Reginald Michael stand?  He was hand picked by Governor Bullock. Does he stand with Governor Bullock and the Montana Department of Corrections undermining the work of the Committee or does he stand with the Law and Justice Interim Committee?