The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

When it was put into practice, Corrections Director A.T.
Wall determined that the only way to keep the 17-year-olds safe was to hold them at the most secure section of the prison - the so-called Supermax. The problem that has arisen, youth advocates say, is that it costs about the same amount to keep a prisoner at the high-security Supermax (about $100,000 a year) as it does to keep one at the Training School.

That, asserts Elizabeth Burke Bryant, who led a Rhode Island Youth Justice Coalition press conference outside the Supermax on Wednesday, "evaporates the cost savings that was the premise for this plan."

As a result, she told reporters, the coalition will try to convince policymakers in the governor's office, DCYF, the Department of Corrections and the General Assembly to get the new procedure reversed and return all but the most serious and violent 17-year-old offenders back to the juvenile justice system and the State Training School.

"We have hope that this will be turned around," Burke Bryant said, "we know that our policymakers will listen and hopefully make a decision. This is a huge policy change for Rhode Island and it was done on the false premise that there would be a cost savings. Young people do not belong in high security. We will do whatever it takes to ultimately turn this around."

That may be easier said than done.

Spokesmen for both Gov. Donald Carcieri and House Speaker William Murphy told The Times Wednesday that the program needs to be given more time to determine whether it can be done in a way that will achieve cost savings.
Asked how the state got itself into a situation where it took an admittedly drastic step to save money, only to find that it might not save any money after all, each side pointed at the other.

"It was the governor's proposal," said Larry Berman, spokesman for the House leadership. "They brought testimony that it would save money and the House Finance Committee went along."

As for the possibility of a reversal, Berman said, "This is only the second week in July. We have to wait and see if it is going to save money. When the budget is proposed next year, if they want to revise it," the administration can recommend doing so. But, he added, "Where it stands, there are no plans at present to revise it."

"A.T. Wall doesn't have to put kids in protective custody," Berman said.

Berman pointed out that Wall came before the House Finance Committee to discuss the corrections department budget and never mentioned there would be extra costs involved in incarcerating 17-year-olds at the ACI.

Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal noted that, "the recommendation in the governor's budget was one side of a two-sided proposal."

"The governor also proposed to reduce the inmate population at the ACI, that would have allowed the Department of Corrections to find a less expensive way to hold 17-year-olds," Neal said, but those proposed reforms never won General Assembly approval. "Once they chose not to enact the reforms to reduce the inmate population, it became much more difficult than anticipated" to accommodate the 17-year-olds at the ACI.

But when asked about making changes anytime soon, Neal's response was close to Berman's.

"We are at the beginning of a process to evaluate what can be done given the results of the legislative session," he said, adding that it will take time "before we will know how much savings can be achieved. It is much more responsible to know what the facts are before plotting a course of action."

Asked about Burke Bryant's contention that 17-year-old offenders are technically children and are by law entitled to education and other benefits not readily available at the Super Max, Neal said, "the entire intention from the beginning was to go through a process by which we developed all systems necessary" for dealing with the young prisoners while at the same time saving money for taxpayers.
That is what is being done now, Neal said.

Greg Pare, spokesman for Senate President Joseph Montalbano, said the Senate passed a plan proposed by West Warwick Sen. Stephen Alves to divert young offenders away from the Training School and into community treatment slots that are available and funded.

That plan was applauded by Burke Bryant and other advocates such as Brother Michael Reis of Tides Family Services.

While Rhode Island was passing the law to put 17-year-olds in the adult justice system, Connecticut was going about returning its 16 and 17-year-olds to the juvenile justice system after several years of being one of only three states that treated them as adults.

Abby Anderson, senior policy associate for the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, said that after a two year study they determined that "incorporating 16- and 17-year-old youth into the juvenile justice system will not only promote public safety in Connecticut by fostering positive youth development but it will also, in the long run, cost state taxpayers less than handling this distinct category of youth in the adult criminal justice system.

"This is going to generate violence in our society," warned Teny Gross, of the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence, "and therefore the costs and destruction. This stands out as the top bad policy for this past legislative session."

Child Advocate Jametta Alston asserted that, "the policies that passed showed that the people who developed them didn't think the children that would fit into this category mattered. These children matter. These children are important. These children have families and lives and dreams and hopes that will be shattered and broken when you place them in facilities like this," she said pointing to the Super Max. "Because this facility is not designed to give children a new hope, a new future, a new beginning."

"The issue has always been about money," said Steven Brown of the R.I. Affiliate of the ACLU, "to our knowledge, nobody promoting this proposal has ever suggested that this represents good or progressive public policy or that there is something good about slapping all 17-year-olds with a criminal record that cold follow and haunt them for years after the offense is dealt with.

"It is not worth sacrificing juveniles on the basis of phantom savings," Brown said.

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