State may close 2 prisons to cut costs

After cutting loose more than 8,000 offenders from probation in the past two months, the state Department of Corrections is considering an even more drastic cost-reduction measure: closing at least one prison.

Faced with the need to slash millions of dollars from their respective budgets, the Department of Corrections (DOC) and the state Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration are awaiting a report from the governor's Office of Financial Management that is expected to recommend shuttering one adult and one juvenile prison, a move that would result in massive job cuts and the shuttling of hundreds of inmates to other facilities.

"It's like a 'Sophie's Choice' situation," said DOC Secretary Eldon Vail. "Something has to be shut down."

Vail said consultants working on the report have visited the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, the Monroe Correctional Complex, McNeil Island Corrections Center, Ahtanum View Corrections Center and Pine Lodge Corrections Center for Women in recent weeks to see where cuts can be made. The visits don't necessarily mean those prisons are being considered for closure, he said.

The DOC budget for the 2009-2011 biennium is nearly $1.8 billion, a roughly $130 million (or 6.7 percent) reduction from the previous two-year period, said agency spokesman Chad Lewis.

Dan Robertson, deputy assistant secretary of the Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration (JRA), the juvenile equivalent of DOC which is overseen by the Department of Social and Health Services, said the JRA saw its budget cut by nearly $23 million (9.7 percent) for this biennium to $213 million. He expects that the report will recommend closing one of two medium/maximum-security facilities — Green Hill School in Chehalis or Maple Lane School near Centralia — which could save the state an estimated $12 million.

Closing any facility would result in staff layoffs and the transfer of inmates to other prisons, Vail and Robertson said. However, neither knew how many jobs could potentially be lost.

The DOC and its juvenile-corrections counterpart have been cutting their respective budgets for months through layoffs, by releasing offenders from probation and even by releasing some inmates from custody.

Since July 1, about 8,200 adult offenders deemed to be low risk to reoffend and nonviolent have been cut loose from community custody, this state's version of probation. Before July, when a new law addressing probation was implemented, the state was supervising about 27,000 offenders outside of prison, Vail said.

The cost-cutting Senate Bill 5288 ordered the reduction in the number of offenders on probation by dropping most low-risk felons and misdemeanor offenders from the program. Sex offenders and violent felons will remain under DOC supervision after their release from prison.

Almost 300 prison jobs and 60 community-corrections positions were cut as a result. An additional 200 community-corrections jobs are expected to be slashed by the end of the year, Vail said.

Governor's turnabout

The slashing of probation services is a complete change from Gov. Chris Gregoire's stance three years ago when she ordered tightened supervision of convicted felons who violated the terms of their prison release. The governor's move came after the 2006 deaths of three Seattle-area police officers were blamed on offenders under DOC supervision.

Lewis, of the DOC, said cuts resulting from the Senate bill will not impact the supervision of violent offenders on probation.

At the JRA, 85 juvenile offenders have been cut from parole over the past three months, leaving about 444 still under supervision, Robertson said.

Robertson said that because of budget cuts about 34 percent of the nearly 700 youths currently incarcerated will not be placed on parole after they serve their terms.

Robertson said this change will likely impact recidivism rates, which he said had been showing promise after the agency revamped its juvenile parole program to include mandatory family counseling.

"If these cuts go through they'll further deteriorate public safety," said Tim Welch, spokesman for Washington Federation of State Employees, the union that represents community-corrections officers and administrative staff. "It will probably take a tragedy for the governor and Legislature to realize the grave impact of these cuts."

Tracey Thompson, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 117, which represents 5,800 DOC employees at 13 prisons, said any closures of prisons or wings inside prisons would be shortsighted.

"Our biggest concern is about closing units and facilities when we're looking at forecasts that will say that the prison population will start increasing in the next two or three years," Thompson said, citing figures released by the Washington State Caseload Forecast Council.

The council, which researches potential caseloads in corrections, human-services and public education, actually expects that prison populations will slightly drop between now and early 2011, then begin to slowly grow again, a committee staff member said.

The forecast is based on the average imprisonment rate divided by the projected state population, which is expected to grow.

McNeil Island in play?

While it's unclear which prison could be recommended for closure, Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, has long supported a plan to close the McNeil Island Correctional Complex, a medium-security island prison in Pierce County. Hargrove, who chairs the Human Services and Corrections Committee, said he will be briefed on the closure recommendations, but he doesn't know when.

"We have a very inefficient prison [McNeil Island] and I'm willing to take a look at the consultants' work," Hargrove said. "I'm not sure what the recommendations are at this point. We need to look at making our corrections system more efficient in this budget crisis."

Thompson and other opponents of closure of the McNeil Island prison say that it would push additional costs to the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), which runs the state's mental-health treatment program for civilly committed sex offenders on a portion of the island. DOC runs vital services for the island, including ferry and fire services. If the prison is closed, DSHS would have to pick up the tab for those services because there is no proposal to close the sex-offender treatment facility.

Washington isn't the only cash-strapped state trying to save money by slashing prison costs.

In California, there are proposals to release 40,000 inmates, trim $250 million from its prison rehabilitation program and lay off hundreds of corrections workers, according to The Associated Press.

In Oregon, the tough economy has resulted in a delay in implementing a voter initiative mandating stiffer sentences for drug and property crimes, said Jeanine Hohn, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Corrections. Another change includes allowing some inmates to receive up to 30 percent off their sentences for good behavior, she added.

"Six million [dollars] has been taken out of our budget for the '09-11 biennium; certainly it is a chunk of money," Hohn said. "We haven't had to do layoffs yet, but that doesn't mean we won't have to."

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com