The plan is to purchase a new database to store offender information and about 1,200 laptops for parole officers and their supervisors.
By Lee Logan
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Most Missourians on probation or parole must pay a $30 monthly charge. By law, the “intervention fees” are set aside to help pay for rehabilitation services, including drug and alcohol treatment.
But now, state officials want to use nearly half of the $27.5 million collected since April 2006 to pay for computer equipment and software for prison workers.
Some advocates for those on parole or probation say that’s wrong.
“I guess somebody is saying, ‘Gee, look at all that money,’” said Carleen Reck, who directs the Criminal Justice Ministry at the Society of St. Vincent DePaul. “They want to use it for things and not people.”
Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Hauswirth said the computer projects would improve ex-offender treatment.
“We collected more with the intervention fee than we anticipated,” Hauswirth said, arguing that the surplus was a unique opportunity to take care of a one-time expense.
Gov. Matt Blunt’s budget proposal for next year includes nearly $13 million from the so-called inmate revolving fund for two technology projects at the Department of Corrections.
The fund was established after Blunt’s initial budget reduced the amount of money going to rehabilitation. Legislators thought parolees should help pay for their own care.
The intervention fee makes up most of the inmate revolving fund. Parolees are exempt from the fee for 90 days after release, and they are exempt completely if their household income falls below the federal poverty line.
According to state law, money from the inmate fund “shall be used ... to support offenders in education programs, drug treatment programs, residential treatment facilities, other community-based sanctions, electronic monitoring, or in work or educational release programs.”
Rep. Belinda Harris, D-Hills-boro, opposes the computer spending plan, saying people lose trust in government when a fee earmarked for one purpose is used for another: “If we say it’s going to do a certain thing, then we’d better do that.”
Hauswirth said the computer funding was consistent with the law because the projects would clear up inefficiencies at the department, increasing the quality of service for ex-offenders.
The plan is to purchase a new database to store offender information and about 1,200 laptops for parole officers and their supervisors.
Much of the inmate fund goes toward dozens of private clinics that provide treatment for substance abuse, anger management and mental health. Some of the money also helps pay for parolees to stay in halfway houses or release centers that allow parolees to work, but also require them to come back to the facility.
Curtis Lomax, an ex-con, spent 23 years in state prison on robbery and drug charges. He says he was addicted to crack, marijuana and alcohol. He credits a rehab program for helping him quit his drug use.
Now Lomax, 48, has a culinary arts certificate and works as a cook at a Mexican restaurant.
“I’m out here trying to keep some honest money in my pocket,” he said. “I wouldn’t be where I am now without that help.”
Tim Gorman, a supervisor at Preferred Family in St. Louis, where Lomax received treatment, said his clinic could use more funding. Sometimes the clinic is forced to curtail admissions and set up waiting lists, he said.
“We either are seeing people and we’re not getting reimbursed, or we put a hold on things for a while,” he said.
Heidi Moore, a former parole officer who now works with St. Vincent DePaul, said the funding crunch also led to inaccurate diagnoses.
For example, parolees must be assessed to see if they need drug treatment. If the person needs treatment, the assessment fee is waived and the state covers the treatment. If not, the person must pay - up to $65 - for the assessment.
When she was a parole officer, Moore said, she recommended treatment for several people who didn’t need it. One of those included someone who had never tested positive for drugs.
“I was saying a guy needs treatment when he didn’t, because he couldn’t pay for an assessment,” Moore said. “It would make so much more sense to use the intervention fee for those assessments.”
Under the current plan, most of the computer funding, about $10.5 million, would be spent on updating the corrections department’s database that holds offender information.
The current “green screen” system dates to the 1980s, and Hauswirth said tech support wasn’t available for it. “If this thing goes down, we may lose all of our data,” he said.
Another $2.5 million would be spent on about 1,200 laptops for parole officers and their supervisors. Hauswirth said the laptops would help officers enter and retrieve information about a parolee more quickly.
Rep. Therese Sander, R-Moberly, said the current computer system “just eats up the time (officers) need to be spending supervising the parolees.”
Sander gave the analogy of a food bank that needs a new truck. The food bank can buy all the food it wants, she said, but without a truck, the food can’t be delivered.
Rep. Jim Lembke, R-Lemay, said that the inmate fund included plenty of money to cover the computer projects and that infrastructure was a “big part” of parole officers’ jobs.
Lembke, who serves on the House Budget Committee, said that if rehabilitation programs needed more funding, lawmakers would be happy to oblige because the money came from parolees’ fees.
Copyright 2008 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.