By Christian Palmer
Arizona Capitol Times
PHOENIX, Ariz. — Arizona prisoners might soon have to do without an available comfort and a popular item of trade as lawmakers are expected to consider whether to ban inmate tobacco possession in state prisons.
The proposal has come at the request of the Arizona Department of Corrections and has been introduced by Rep. Bill Konopnicki. The Safford Republican said the motive is not to crack down on prisoners, but to help the state deal with escalating costs of inmate health care.
“These people are under the care of the state of Arizona and we want to manage them as efficiently as we can,” said Konopnicki, who expects the bill to generate a great deal of controversy, similar to previous resistance when lawmakers outlawed inmate weightlifting in the interest of guard safety. “It’s not a punishment; it’s a management tool. “
Dangerous inmates assigned to segregated maximum-security units are already prevented from smoking, but general population inmates are allowed to light up or chew tobacco in designated areas.
Right now, 40,000 men and women are housed by ADOC in 10 state prison complexes and several privately-contracted facilities inside and outside of Arizona.
And the prospect of sending close-quartered inmates into nicotine withdrawal does not bother Michael Duran, a former prison guard and current vice president of the Arizona Correctional Peace Officers’ Association, a union representing 4,000 prison employees.
Many inmates are “weaned” from tobacco by serving smoke-free stints in county jails during their trials and also during weeks-long stretches in inmate intake centers where they are kept before being transferred to prisons, he said.
Duran also said he is concerned with high costs of inmate health care. But he said a tobacco ban would help increase officer and inmate safety by removing the popular bartering item and gambling wager from prison confines.
“Basically it is a tool they can use for bad purposes,” Duran said, adding that prisoners frequently commit assaults or other infractions in exchange for cigarettes or to settle debts. “It would eliminate a lot of bad things going on. They use them for trade and barter. “
While Konopnicki said he regards the bill (H2004) as a logical means to improve the health of inmates and cut costs during a budget crunch, Donna Leone Hamm, executive director of Middle Ground Prison Reform, said she finds no evidence it is an “authentic approach” to help prisoners or the bottom line.
Real help would come in the form of improved preventative treatment for inmates succumbing to hepatitis, tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS, she said, adding that she believes prison health care is minimally applied to save money and buy time for inmates’ release.
Hamm said she would support the legislation if state employees, AHCCCS users and legislators themselves were also prohibited from smoking since they all use publicly-funded health care.
“Make it applicable to everyone who smokes and has to be paid for by taxpayer money when they get sick,” she said.
The Joint Legislative Budget Committee reported the department’s fiscal 2009 budget for inmate health care and related costs will be $87 million.
Bill Lamoreaux, a department spokesman, said statistics indicating tobacco-associated health care costs or tobacco sales from prison commissaries were not immediately available.
Copyright 2009 Dolan Media Newswires