[Vision2020] Child Protective Services

Mon Mar 7 18:58:52 PST 2011

Well, the Idaho Department of Corrections budget has been cut:

http://www.idoc.idaho.gov/facts/fact_sheets/YearEndBrief.July09.pdf

"Idaho has cut $27 million dollars from its 2009 and 2010 corrections
budget, a 14 percent reduction. As a result, the department laid off 44
positions, and ordered 4 days of furloughs for prison security staff and 10
days of furloughs for all other

employees."

See also:

http://www.idoc.idaho.gov/press_releases/Feb2010version2.pdf

"The Department has sustained millions of dollars in budget cuts since the
recession began. Through November 2009, the Department lost 10.4% in general
fund dollars for personnel and 8.7% in operating funds.

The impacts are significant. The graphic to the right illustrates the 93
positions either eliminated or unfilled. All staff are taking furlough hours
for a total of 80,000 hours, equivalent to another 39 positions in lost
productivity.

The Department can't close a prison for a day, or stop checking on parolees;
ours is a 24/7 public safety commitment.

Staffing ratios in prisons were bare bones before the furloughs and budget
cuts. Furloughs increase the problem. At the minimum security facility south
of Boise there are an average of 17 officers responsible for 656 inmates on
any given shift."

This attitude of "cut prison costs" is upsetting to me because it leads to
repugnant decisions like contracting out staffing to for-profit private
companies like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).  As we've seen time
& time & time again, costs always increase when private for-profit companies
are brought in to save money (as has happened with the UI & its AlliedBarton
contract), accountability suffers, and we wind up with situations like those
at the Idaho Correctional Center (ICC) that have forced the ACLU to file
suit to protect those in custody.

It also leads to the insane situation around the state of opening up the
jail doors to convicted sexual offenders to get themselves to "therapy" and
back to jail again without supervision.

I don't disagree that sentencing for some non-violent offenders is too
harsh, but we also repeatedly see cases where the sentencing isn't harsh
enough, a trend that's increased as the Idaho Department of Corrections has
struggled to cope with budget cuts on top of public pressure to always cut
costs on top of never being adequately funded to begin with (because people
don't give a rip about convicts).

And, I'm not saying that IDOC needs the money more than CPS or education!  I
worked for the Department of Health & Welfare and am well aware of the
impossible conditions our CPS & children's mental health workers face every
single day.  I value education - and appropriate funding for education - as
much as anyone else & obviously more than many in this state.

However, it's simplistic and misguided to target IDOC, IMHO.  No one is
interested in my suggestions because I'm a bleeding heart liberal, but there
are ways to deal with what's going on with the budget in Idaho.  The problem
is that the Republican controlled executive & legislative branches aren't
interested in solutions that will gore their financial backers, pure &
simple, IMO.

JMHO,

Saundra Lund

Moscow, ID

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
nothing.

~ Edmund Burke

***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2011 through life plus
70 years, Saundra Lund.  Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce outside
the Vision 2020 forum without the express written permission of the
author.*****

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of Reggie Holmquist
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 11:46 AM
To: Art Deco
Cc: Vision 2020
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Child Protective Services

I'm going to agree with Roger(!) here.  Cuts should come from prisons.
Sentences can be shortened because most of them are currently too harsh.
Harsher sentences came about as a result of lobbying (mostly by "concerned
parents" groups) in the 80s.  Nowadays, the US holds a quarter of the
world's prison population, but only 5% of the world's total population.  The
fact that 35-40% of Idaho prison costs are unadjustable (because they are
contracted out) is also unacceptable.  A private industry complex should not
have been created to carry out what should be a state function (for myriad
reasons).

Idaho prisons should be receiving cuts, not increases (and CCA contracts
should be eliminated ASAP).  CPS should not be receiving cuts.  Education
should not be receiving cuts.  The school-to-prison pipeline needs to be
destroyed.

-Reggie

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Art Deco <deco at moscow.com> wrote:

Roger,

What magic formula do you propose to determine the probability of
reoffending of any given convicted pedophile?  Do you have any idea what the
estimated recidivism rates are?  Or that the younger the victims and the
more victims are fairly clear indices of potential reoffending?

w.

----- Original Message ----- 

From: lfalen <mailto:lfalen at turbonet.com>  

To: ttrail at moscow.com 

Cc: vision2020 at moscow.com 

Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 10:42 AM

Subject: [Vision2020] Child Protective Services

Tom
I went to a 4-H training session in Lewiston Saturday.  One of the subjects
was child protection. The amount of abuse that occurs in relation to
children is shocking. I do not know where things stand on the budget, but I
would encourage everyone to make sure that there are no cuts in Child
Protective Services. This is a area that needs attention. There are  other
areas that can be legitimately cut. One would be the prision budget. It
costs a lot of money to keep people in prision. Except for those that are a
danger to society and should never be released, it is questionable to keep
people locked up for a long period of time. It may be fine for a short
sentence as punishment, but there should be better ways to deal with those
that are not a physical treat to society. 
Again Child Protective Services needs to stay fully funded.

Roger

=======================================================
 List services made available by First Step Internet, 
 serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
               http://www.fsr.net                       
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================

=======================================================
 List services made available by First Step Internet,
 serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
              http://www.fsr.net
         mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================

-- 
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what
the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be
replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another
theory which states that this has already happened. 

Douglas Adams

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20110307/844dfd73/attachment-0001.html 