CHAPTER FOUR
Causes of Prison Overcrowding
Prison overcrowding is not a new problem in Connecticut. It is an issue that has consistently confronted the criminal justice system and the General Assembly since 1981. But, Connecticut has yet to find long-term solutions to managing the increasing inmate population within existing prison and jail resources.
The prison system has experienced some relief throughout the past 20 years from the addition of thousands of new beds and new and increased community correction resources. It has also operated in a crisis mode -- for several years during the early 1990s, DOC operated over 110 percent capacity.
Most of the causes of prison overcrowding occur outside the administration and jurisdiction of the Department of Correction. Indeed, the factors causing a crime that results in a prison term range from a lack of education or employment opportunities, family and social pressures, and poverty to drug and alcohol use and abuse, exposure to others involved in criminal activity, and mental illness. These complex issues and problems cannot be addressed by a single state agency. DOC, however, takes over when there are no other social service or criminal justice options to manage the offender in the community, and punishment and public safety become the overriding objectives.
The availability of comprehensive offender data from the Department of Correction, Board of Parole, and judicial branch allowed the program review committee staff to complete the analysis that identified the factors contributing to and impacting prison overcrowding. These factors are described below.
Factors Impacting Prison Overcrowding
First, since 1981, the number of offenders in prison or jail continues to increase despite decreases in both crime rates and the number of persons arrested. The growth in the inmate population can be attributed to several factors:
Second, convicted inmates are remaining incarcerated for a greater portion of their court-imposed prison sentence. There are three primary reasons for this trend. First, the shift from indeterminate to determinate sentencing in 1981 caused the average minimum prison terms, especially for low level and non-violent offenses, to increase. Criminal justice administrators and policymakers had projected prison terms would eventually moderate. They expected the courts would find a fair and equitable average sentence for each type of crime that balanced the state's need to punish and rehabilitate with the victim and the public's demand for retribution. This did not occur in Connecticut, and the average sentence lengths remained higher than expected and sentences for certain crimes (i.e., drunk driving, drugs, property, and violation of probation) have continued to increase. Even a slight increase in sentence lengths has an impact on the incarcerated population.
Second, "good time" was reduced and then eliminated for offenders sentenced on or after October 1994. The Department of Correction has no control over the number of inmates admitted by the court or returned by the parole board -- its "front door" is controlled by other agencies. Without the authority to grant "good time" credits, it lost its ability to balance the population by controlling its "back door" -- reducing sentence length to discharge inmates.
Finally, the 1995 "truth in sentencing" reform instituted time-served standards that required inmates to serve a greater percentage of their sentence in prison. As discussed earlier in the report, convicted offenders must serve 100 percent of their sentence in prison or under supervision by DOC or the parole board in the community. To be eligible for early release (i.e., transitional supervision or parole), an inmate must serve at least 50 percent of their sentence or 85 percent if convicted of a serious, violent offense.
The Department of Correction is just beginning to experience the cumulative effect of these changes in sentencing. The full impact was delayed for two to three years because of the increased length of sentences imposed by the court and larger percentage of time served before early release or discharge due to the statutory requirements.
Third, the "tough on crime" policy has allowed the criminal justice system to narrow its use of discretion and take a more conservative and less controversial approach toward punishing convicted offenders. The General Assembly, the public, and the media have increasingly supported a more punitive response to convicted offenders. "Tough on crime" attitudes have forced a change in criminal justice practices. Politically, this narrow focus on punishment has made alternative sanctions and community-based supervision less appealing options for the court, DOC, and the parole board.
The "tough on crime" and "truth in sentencing" policies only work as intended if there are prison beds always available to house inmates with long prison terms and offenders who violate a community supervision program. The correction department has a limited number of prison beds that have not been effectively used to fully implement these policies. In part, the lack of beds is because of the dramatic drop in the use of community-based, early release programs.
The program review committee concludes, by establishing 50 and 85 percent time-served standards in state law, the legislature has defined the punishment portion of a prison term. Once an inmate has served the required percentage of time, the state's interest in punishing him or her has been served. The needs of the state and the criminal justice system must then shift from punishment to transitioning the inmate back to the community.
The stated goal of the "tough on crime" policy is to protect public safety. Public safety, however, can be achieved through means other than incarcerating offenders. Based on the analysis presented in Chapter 3, the majority of convicted offenders are sent to prison for five years or less. Given that, it appears public safety would best be served by the supervision of those inmates as they transition back into the community.
Fourth, the Department of Correction lacks both a sufficient number of beds to house the total inmate population and an adequate system of high security beds to manage its high-risk population. This is a result of poor planning and the decision to build dormitory rather than celled facilities during the prison expansion project, which was completed in 1994.
The department's building projects have been in response to an immediate need for beds. Building a prison can take up to five years, but DOC and the Office of Policy and Management can only accurately project out for population growth one or two years. In the past, any gains in beds has been offset by unanticipated and persistent increases in the inmate population.
For the past two years, the department has been operating at over 95 percent capacity; optimally it should operate at 90 percent capacity. To alleviate the overcrowding, DOC has transferred almost 500 inmates to out-of-state prisons and used temporary beds in its facilities.
The department's classification system, which is used to determine an inmate's security and programming needs, is compromised because there are not enough beds to support placement decisions. The placement or transfer of an inmate to a facility is, therefore, influenced by the availability or lack of a bed.
Fifth, the system is hampered by inaccurate population projections and the lack of a needs analysis of the total offender population, but in particular of the inmate population. The correction department cannot adequately plan for new facilities without an accurate projection of the total offender population. The current methods of projecting population growth and planning for new prison beds will not permit the department to build its way out of an overcrowding crisis.
Policy and sentencing changes and criminal justice funding decisions have also not been based on a comprehensive analysis of the offender population. This has resulted in conflicting policy directives, vague and contradictory sentencing laws, and community correction programs that have only been marginally successful in easing overcrowding and reducing recidivism. Shifts in policy and procedure or changes in funding for other state systems such as mental health and substance abuse services and welfare benefits impact the prison population. These changes have also not been factored into criminal justice planning.