A proposal that taps into prisoners’ wages to expand a program meant to prepare them as they rejoin society won Senate passage on April 25.
The measure, H2298, takes 5 percent of prisoners’ pay to be used for the expanded program.
The bill is estimated to generate some $650,000 a year and will enable some 650 inmates to participate in a transition program, according to Arizona Department of Corrections, which strongly backs the measure.
ADOC officials have said the transition project, along with programs that allow inmates to work and study, has been successful to a certain degree in reducing recidivism.
The measure, authored by Rep. Bill Konopnicki, R-5, received bipartisan support, although nearly half of Republican senators present voted against it on the floor.
“The governor does not give any indication on what she will do with bills but I would hope that she would sign this bill because it is supported by ADOC and has bipartisan support,” he said.
Bill goes back to House
Approved by a vote of 21-8, H2298 now goes back to the House, where its sponsor can either accept or refuse changes made to it by the Senate.
The 30-member body had amended H2298 so it no longer carries a provision allowing a victim to object to an inmate’s early release. Another amendment removed the portion that requires prisoners to be provided with services designed to lower recidivism rates. The change retained current statute, which is permissive, using the word “may” instead of “shall.”
“Both changes to the bill were not cleared by me before they were put on the bill, but having said that, I will likely concur with the changes,” Konopnicki said in an e-mail.
Explaining his “yes” vote, Senate Majority Whip John Huppenthal said it is programs like these, part of broader policies tackling the issue of crime, that helped dramatically bring down violence in New York in the 1990s.
In fact, this dramatic reduction of violent crimes has been the subject of numerous studies.
“I can’t say that this is necessarily part of the solution, but it has the look and feel of it,” he said of the bill, emphasizing that Arizona has one of the highest incarceration rates in the nation. It also faces an increase in violent crime rate among adults, although violent crime rate among juveniles has fallen, he said.
Huppenthal later said looking at the incarceration and crime rate in Arizona, current policy does not appear, on the surface, to be working very well. He urged lawmakers to keep an open mind.
Sen. Chuck Gray, R-19, one of eight Republicans who voted against the bill, summed up his opposition to the measure this way:
“The bill has good provisions in there. But one (reason I don’t support) is that it requires all the prisoners to pay for a program that only a few of the prisoners are able to participate in. And secondly, it allows prisoners out of jail three months early and they need to serve their full time,” he said.
Prison reform groups split on issue
While both agree on the need for similar programs, two groups advocating prison reform have found themselves split on the issue.
Donna Hamm of the Tempe-based Middle Ground Prison Reform believes that the bill reaches too few prisoners. In addition, it only includes those who are likely to succeed when they get out of prison, leaving out those she thinks need the program most.
Echoing Chuck Gray, Hamm also said prisoners, once they have earned their wages, have a “property interest, an ownership so to speak, in those wages, and they cannot be forfeited without due, just compensation.”
But Caroline Isaacs, program director of American Friends Service Committee, supported the bill and warned that if the state’s prison population continues to explode, it may bankrupt the state.
Instead of spending a huge chunk of the budget on incarceration, Isaacs suggested a different approach to tackling the issue of crime. She cited studies that showed that current strategy — locking up more and more people — might not be the best tool to deal with the problem.
“What we are currently doing is not working,” Konopnicki said. “We have to make changes. If we continue with the current practices, we will need at least $1 billion to build new prisons and an additional $2 billion for operations.”
The challenge, according to Konopnicki, is to look for strategies that ensure public safety but also reduce the number of people in prison.
“It is possible,” he said, “but will require a change from the lock-them and keep-them there (strategy).”