Eastern District of California Blog

Ascend, Yoga, & Addiction

On Wednesday night, my yoga studio is hosting an instructional seminar by Lucas Miles.  His inspirational story credits yoga along with a rehab program as helping him kick a heroin addiction.  Video Interview.  A great example on how a program like Sacramento-based Ascend, which incorporates yoga along with life skills training, can help reduce recidivism.

Impressive Early Results For Ascend Rehabilitation Program

According to CBS Sacramento, the local Ascend rehabilitation program is showing impressive early results at reducing recidivism:

Taxpayers already pay at least $60,000 a year for each criminal who is locked up. When those convicts are released in California, more than six out of 10 end up behind bars.

But a first of its kind rehab class for criminals at the Hillsdale Career Center is teaching a new holistic way of thinking, behaving and living. Under that program, only 2 in 10 ex-convicts go back behind bars.

The convicted felons and repeat offenders are all learning important skills to turn their lives of crime around.

“When I relapsed, I ended up going full force,” said Robert Twofeathers. “I went back to the streets where I knew everything and could survive.

He says he’s been in federal prison and in and out of jail since he was 13 years old. But since enrolling in the Ascend Program in Sacramento, his goals have changed. Now he’s turning a life on the streets for street smarts.

“I’m in the process of getting my hand tattoos and my throat tattoos removed, and I’m going to school starting in summer for my EMT certificate and then the fire academy in the fall to become a fireman,” he said.

The program was developed by two criminal justice professors at Sacramento State, along with two criminal defense attorneys who teach the classes twice a week.

“They trust us, because we advocate for them, and we are able to teach them the law and how to navigate around it,” said program co-creator Christine Morse.

She says out of 100 criminals who have been through the program, 80 have not reoffended. That is a dramatic drop from the state average of 66 percent of criminals who find themselves back behind bars.

 

 

Ascend Alternative Sentencing Program Putting Lives Back On Track

Tuesday's Sacramento Bee ran a front-page piece on the Sacramento area Ascend alternative sentencing program run by local attorneys Toni Carbone and Christine Morse Galves.  Ascend reports promising early returns for its comprehensive rehabilitation program at far lower costs than incarceration.  The Bee's editorial board here encourages Sacramento County authorities to fund more programs like Ascend.  Why not the EDCA federal court?

SNR Spotlights Ascend Rehabiltation Program

Yesterday's Sacramento News & Review has a nice cover story on the local alternative sentencing program, Ascend.  See Ascend posts.  It's founded by attorneys Christine Galves and CJA panel attorney Toni Carbone. 

Here's a couple of snippets from the piece:

After a decades-long binge constructing superprisons and writing tough-on-crime laws, California’s incarceration bubble burst when the state could no longer keep up with demand. Brought to the brink of a federal takeover, desperate lawmakers dumped tens of thousands of low-level offenders on their counties under a cobbled-together plan called “realignment.”

Rehabilitation became the word and counties the reluctant apostles. For this burden, local Community Corrections Partnerships receive tens of millions of dollars, which they’re supposed to spend on bettering the state’s sky-high recidivism rate. But the taxpayers’ money comes with few strings and little oversight, and these CCPs, made up of local law-enforcement bosses, spend it on themselves.

Heading into this third year of realignment, Sacramento County’s slab of this state-carved pie will surpass $75 million. Not one crumb goes directly to outside programs, such as Ascend, a small criminal-rehab outfit that gives one-on-one attention to offenders.

Ascend and a handful of other true believers are fighting to change this, both inside and outside the system, but they’re up against a culture that’s learned too well from the state’s failed example. “If we’re really going to make a difference in some of these people’s lives, it’s going to require us to do things a little bit different, if not a lot,” argues County Supervisor Don Nottoli. “You can’t just lock them up and let them go and watch over them.”

* * *

During the first year under realignment, Sacramento realigned fewer offenders than 46 other counties, the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice reports. The county saw no public-safety gains by continuing to send a higher rate of lower-level drug and property offenders to state prison during that first year, and actually reported sharper increases in violent and property crimes than counties that realigned more offenders.

Failure on the recidivism front has, counterintuitively, allowed the CCP to rationalize keeping realignment moneys in-house for additional bodies and beds. The fewer people that get effectively rehabbed, the more of them there are to stuff into jails and supervise when released. This year, that includes $16.6 million for additional jail housing and $3.7 million for increased supervision.

“It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy!” chuckles Michael Carrington, who heads up a government and public-affairs consulting firm and staffed ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Rehabilitation Strike Team.

Sacramento County Supervisors Approve Funding For Ascend Rehab Program

Sacramento County supervisors today approved a contract of up to $180,000 for a new rehabilitation program for criminal offenders.

The award comes after almost two years of lobbying by the creators of the Ascend program to get funding. They've been running the program with volunteers so far.

The Sheriff's Department will place offenders released from jail and on electronic monitoring into the program, where they receive behavioral training and submit to drug testing and daily check ins.

Sacramento Bee, 1/8/13

"We Could Probably Do the Work For About A Tenth Of What It Costs Probation," Ascend Co-Founder

You would think in these cash-strapped times, Sacramento County would be jumping at cost-efficient ways to promote rehabilitation of low level criminal offenders.  But this post's title is a quote from an Ascend founder in yesterday's Sacramento Bee piece on criticism over Sacramento County's choice of spending on rehabilitation programs:

Since it started receiving lower level offenders from state prisons in October 2011, Sacramento County has been criticized for not spending enough money on rehabilitation, thus perpetuating the cycle of crime.

Now the county faces questions about where it spends its rehabilitation dollars.

The county's efforts to change criminal behavior have focused on day reporting centers. Offenders released from prison report to one of three centers daily and receive behavioral training and other services. The centers serve 580 offenders at an annual cost of $6.2 million.

Since the first center opened in July 2010, 130 people have graduated from the program, just a fraction of the 7,000 high-risk offenders considered eligible.

"That's unacceptable," said Supervisor Susan Peters. "It doesn't work for public safety in Sacramento County."

Supervisor Phil Serna also expressed concern. "This warrants more questions about how we are spending these dollars and whether we are spending them effectively," Serna said.

* * *

Sacramento County expects to spend $30 million this year, with most of the money going to jail and other supervision costs.

Meyer said the centers can't serve more people because the behavioral training classes can hold only so many people and remain effective. A contractor, Strategies for Change, receives $200,000 a year to teach the classes.

The biggest cost for the centers is salary and benefits for 39 county employees. Most of them are probation officers who provide supervision and case management for offenders taking classes at the centers.

* * *

Peters and other Sacramento County supervisors say they want other organizations to handle some services for the new offenders under county responsibility.

One of those is Ascend, which has been certified by Sacramento Superior Court to provide behavioral training to offenders. The program is run by two criminal defense attorneys and has received praise from criminologists, law-school professors and an assistant chief federal defender in U.S. District Court.

The attorneys have lobbied for county funding for nearly two years without success.

"We could probably do the work for about a tenth of what it costs the Probation Department," said Christine Galves, one of the program's founders. "It's ridiculous."

See also my other Ascend posts:  10/18/11 "Billions Behind Bars" and 10/18/12 "Sac County Supervisors Ignore Rehabilitation Programs".

Sacramento County Supervisors Ignore Rehabilitation Programs In Approving Plan For Low-Level Offenders

Sacramento County supervisors approved a plan to handle criminal offenders Tuesday, although a majority of them said they don't like its continued emphasis on incarceration over treatment.

 * * *

The Sheriff's Department will receive $20 million, about $17 million of which will go to jail costs. The remainder of the money will go to the Probation Department.

Supervisors said they would like to see funding go to community-based organizations working to help offenders reform.

Several speakers told supervisors they should find funding for Ascend, a relatively new rehabilitation program run by two criminal defense attorneys, who have also been funding the program largely out of their own pockets.

"I think it's one of the most important programs around," said Norman Skonovd, a criminologist who teaches at California State University, Chico, and a former employee at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Other criminal defense attorneys [including EDCA Chief Assistant Federal Defender Linda Harter], who volunteer for Ascend, said the fledgling program provides stricter and more effective treatment than the Probation Department.

Sacramento Bee, 10/17/12; [added Sacramento N&R, 11/1/12].

Bee Proposes Sacramento County Reduce Money Losing Federal Inmates

 A Sacramento Bee editorial today proposes that Sacramento County reduce the number of federal inmates it houses at its main jail to save money. 

The feds pay $100 per day per inmate while it costs the county $112 per day per inmate.  In other words, every day the County loses $12 for every federal inmate at the jail.  In light of California's realignment plan, the county has to find somewhere to place 1,100 state inmates.  Existing proposals include using space freed when a state contract expires, screening pretrial detainees for release, and increased use of home detention (though inexplicably nothing for the Ascend alternative sentencing program, see my 10/18 post, "How about some pocket change for rehabilitation?").  

The Bee recommends another "obvious solution" not among the existing proposals:  "reduce the number of federal inmates.  The contract is flexible, requiring no minimum numbers.  Why not go back to levels of a decade ago to free up to 200 or more beds?" 

With "Billions Behind Bars," How About Some Pocket Change For Rehabilitation?

With Fresno Jail beginning early releases again after its newly-opened floor filled up in only two weeks, Fresno Bee, 10/17/11, it seems fitting that CNBC's "Billions Behind Bars" premiers tonight at 9 p.m. PT/ET.  This original documentary focuses on the enormous costs that results from our country having the highest incarceration rate in the world and the huge profits made by the private corrections industry.  CNBC also interviews a "tough-talking [Texas] judge in this law-and-order state who’s actually trying to keep offenders out of prison and save taxpayer money through an innovative and apparently successful rehabilitation program. Since the Community Corrections Continuum of Care Court program began in 2009, 87% of the participants have met all the requirements and have gone on to graduate from the program."

Why is California behind the times?  While the Sacramento Sheriff and Chief Probation Officer squabble to get a bigger piece of the pie and retain more positions, see my 10/14/11 post, why is everyone ignoring the Ascend Program proposal that seeks less than 10% of the County's realignment funds for rehabilitation?  Ascend is designed to reduce recidivism through a comprehensive program of counseling and life skills training.  While available now in Sacramento County only for persons able to pay the $500 monthly costs of the program, Sacramento Bee, 7/11/11, making the program available to more of those who can't afford to pay is expected to save taxpayer money over time through lower incarceration costs and less crime.   With jail costing $88 per day and Ascend at less than $20/day, proposed expansions of the Ascend program for low-level offenders could save the county between $500,000 and $3 million over the next 9 months alone.  [Added: "Prison Realignment: Go Directly To Jail," Sacramento News & Review, 10/20/11].

Last week, the Community Corrections Partnership Committee voted 4-3 to recommend that the Sheriff get $9 million, Probation $4.1 million, and Ascend $0 of the $13.1 million in state realignment funds.   Sacramento Bee, 10/14/11.  The Board of Supervisors will vote on the Committee's recommendation November 1.  Here's hoping the Sacramento Board of Supervisors take the "Billions Behind Bars" lessons to heart and drop some spare change towards rehabilitation.