The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Inmates at the HCCC may earn a small reduction in their sentence by participating appropriately in education, treatment or work programs. For each education, treatment or work program in which an inmate participates, he or she can earn a reduction in his sentence of 2.5 days each month. This reduction is called 129D earned-good-time. Thus, an inmate who participates appropriately in an education, treatment or work program can earn up to 7.5 days of earned-good time for each month in which he
appropriately participates in school, work or treatment programs. This
practice for 129D earned-good-time program is authorized law to provide inmates with an important incentive to participate in rehabilitative
programs: they can obtain their liberty more quickly. The practice of
awarding earned-good-time also benefits the prison administrators and the public at large by reducing the number of persons in prison and by reducing
the associated costs incarceration. Thus, this program is beneficial to
all parties.

Original 2003 Policy

When the Violence Prevention Program was created at the Hampden County Correctional Center in August 2003, inmates participated in six classes over a two-month period. Thus, inmates who participated appropriately in these classes would be awarded 2.5 days of earned-good-time for each of the two months of appropriate participation in this program (or total of five days
of earned-good-time for the two months). During 2003 and much of 2004,
approximately 1,200 inmates received 2.5 days earned-good-time off of their sentence for each month of appropriate participation in the Violence Prevention Program.

Arbitrary Change In Policy

However, in 2004 Guy Prairie was appointed to be the new supervisor
of the Violence Prevention Program at the HCCC. Almost immediately he
ordered his reluctant staff to award to inmates only half of the 129 earned-good-time that had been awarded since the beginning of the Violence Prevention Program. Mr. Prairie demanded that his staff provide no more than 2.5 days of earned good and only to those inmates who actually completed the program in its entirety. Mr. Guy Prairie made this change in policy and practice arbitrarily and without direct reference to the specific law for 129D earned-good-time awards. There is no evidence that he consulted with the HCCC superintendents about this change in policy before its implementation. Further, there is no documentation that Guy Prairie ever received written authorization from the superintendents for implementation of this new policy for the reduction of earned-good-time awards.

Cruel Consequences To Inmates and Families

This reduction in the total amount of earned-good-time has had serious consequences for inmates, for their families, for prison administrators and for taxpayers. Since early 2004, the reduction in earned-good-time awards has affected approximately 1,600 inmates each year. Collectively, these 1,600 inmates lost 3,195 days of earned-good-time that they would have received had they participated in the same program in 2003
and early 2004. The estimated cost of incarcerating each inmate for one
day is 70 dollars. Thus, this new reduction in earn-good-time awards has cost the taxpayers approximately 223,650 each year in additional expense of
incarceration.

Further, this reduction in earned-good-time has cost the families of these inmates to remain separated longer and needlessly from their loved
ones. Employers must wait longer for their talented employees to be
released from prison and return to gainful and productive employment. Naturally the inmates were disappointed in this reduction in 129D earned-good-time awards but they were powerless to prevent it.

Unfair Situations

This reduction in earned-time-awards creates situations that are obviously unfair. There have many situations in which inmates participated appropriately to the best of their ability in most of the Violence Prevention Program classes. However, many of these inmates are obstructed from completing the Violence Prevention Program (and thus are denied their 129D earned-good-time award) due to circumstances beyond their control. Many inmates have been transferred to a minimum-security facility such as the Pre-Release Center before they could complete the sixth and final class of the Violence Prevention Program. Other inmates missed out on the final classes of the Violence Prevention Program when they suddenly were required to work in the kitchen or to perform some other work obligation at times that conflict with their schedule for the Violence Prevention Program.

Cold Hearted Intentions

One of the Violence Prevention Program staff persons (who has asked to remain anonymous in this report to ensure his job security) reported: "Mr. Prairie simply wanted to get tough with inmates by denying them earned-good-time awards. He wanted to show his supervisors, Basil Tsagaris and Thomas Rovelli, that he was anti-inmate in his philosophical orientation as a prison administrator. Guy Prairie did not want to be perceived by his supervisors as an 'inmate lover' who gives out earned-good-time awards with excessive generosity."

Illegal Policy

This reduction in earned-good-time awards is illegal because it is not consistent with the word or intent of the law by which earned-good-time awards had been authorized. There is no provision in the law that authorizes a prison administrator arbitrarily to reduce earned-good-time awards simply so that he could ingratiate himself in the good favor of his supervisors who want to get tough with inmates.

Hypocrisy Revealed

The reduction in earned-good-time awards represents more than an illegal and inappropriate abuse of power by a prison administrator. This reduction reveals the hypocrisy of prison administrators who claim publicly that they want to reduce both the number of inmates in prison and the associated costs of incarceration. By this illegal reduction of 129D earned-good-time awards, Guy Prairie and the prison administrators demonstrate that in truth they are eager to keep prison costs high and to keep inmates in prison and apart from their families as long as possible. In doing so, they ensure the growth of the prison industry and their own job security, at the expense to taxpayers and inmates alike.