Says Community Corrections Programs Should Be Abolished
posted August 30, 2006
The Regular Hamilton County Grand Jury in a final report says the county workhouse is far from a workhouse.
The panel said, "We believe that child day care centers require more from their charges than is required of the inmates. This facility appears to be a place where convicted criminals can go to heal up, rest up, and fatten up, at taxpayer expense, before being released back into society."
The Grand Jury also said that Community Corrections Programs are not working and should be abolished.
The report says they are "nothing more than 'feel-good programs' for the elected officials and the judiciary. The elected officials fund and support these programs so that they can pretend to be addressing the issue of jail overcrowding, and ignoring the fact that a new Jail is needed."
The panel also ripped the judicial system, saying the Grand Jury members continue to see repeat offenders and that cases drag on for years in the court.
The Grand Jury said, "We are completely frustrated and dismayed by our current judicial system. It appears to us that the system enables – almost allows – defendants to become repeat offenders because of the inordinate length of time it takes for adjudication of most cases – plus no meaningful punishment for their crimes. A majority of defendants have multiple cases pending at various levels of the Court system --- and, for some strange reason, they are allowed out on bond so they can return to their life of crime and pick up even more charges. It should be very obvious by now that so many of them have only a criminal mindset and have no intention of “going straight”. Why should they? They have very little to fear from the courts. Evidently they have to commit many, many, many crimes over several years, or commit a very serious heinous crime, before a sentence of any length or severity is even considered, much less administered. They have absolutely no regard for our criminal laws, or the laws of society, and continue to flaunt that disregard in our faces by continuing to break the laws at will.
"We agree with past Grand Juries that until they are punished more severely in Criminal Court than they would be in General Sessions Court, many will continue to use the Grand Jury and the entire process as a means of 'buying time' to avoid or delay the final decision on their cases."
Here is the full report:
Honorable Doug Meyer, Judge
Criminal Court, Division I
Hamilton County, Tennessee
Dear Judge Meyer,
We members of the Regular Grand Jury for May – August 2006 are proud to have fulfilled our civic responsibility by serving in this important capacity. This has been an extremely educational and enlightening experience. We strongly urge all citizens to serve on the Grand Jury when given the opportunity.
It has been a privilege and honor to serve this Court, Judge Meyer, as your final Grand Jury before your retirement from the bench. With admiration and respect for your many years as both City Court Judge and Criminal Court Judge, we wish you a very happy and healthy retirement.
During our 4-month Grand Jury service, we have gained a greater insight into our judicial and corrections systems. As we continue with this Final Report to the Court, you will see that we do not have a very favorable impression of either. We do not fault the personnel, but we do fault many of the defendant-friendly laws and the current systems that we consider to be completely off-base.
We did gain a better appreciation and understanding of law enforcement and the problems they face in the constant uphill battle against crime and criminals. We commend them for their dangerous and frustrating efforts to protect all of us. It is obvious that, no matter how many times they arrest an individual, they will usually encounter that same criminal on the streets again within a very short period of time. It’s a wonder to us that anyone decides to remain a police officer for very long.
In addition to the hundreds of criminal cases we heard this term, many of which dealt with the same defendants over and over, we also visited several Hamilton County penal facilities. We now offer our observations and comments on those within our charge. We realize that many of the same concerns have been raised by past Grand Juries, but we feel that they continue to merit serious consideration by all concerned citizens and officials of Hamilton County and Chattanooga. The comments in this report represent the majority of the members of this Grand Jury and are not the opinions or accounts of individual members.
Before commenting on CCA Silverdale and the Community Corrections Program, we want to say that we understand that all penal facilities are mandated by law as to how to house and care for their prisoners. The following comments are not intended to fault the staffs for following regulations.
C.C.A. SILVERDALE
This facility was very clean and well maintained, and at $36.03 per inmate, it seems to be a bargain. However, to call this facility a workhouse is more of a stretch than our collective imagination is capable of. The majority of those working were the CCA employees. We believe that child day care centers require more from their charges than is required of the inmates. This facility appears to be a place where convicted criminals can go to heal up, rest up, and fatten up, at taxpayer expense, before being released back into society. We noticed that the life of the prisoners is much milder and more tolerable than we expected. To only be out of bed and ready for breakfast and inspection does not seem adequate while repaying your debt to society. The inmates should be forbidden from going back to bed after the morning head count. Their mattress should be folded up on the bed until 9 PM. During the day, if they aren’t working, they can sit around on the floor if necessary. They are there to serve a criminal sentence, to do time, and it should not be easy time. If it were true that taking away one’s freedom is enough of a deterrent to prevent crime, why are there so many repeat offenders? We believe that these inmates should have a vocation while incarcerated – this is supposed to be, after all, a “workhouse”, not an assisted living facility. Detention facilities should not be nice places and inmates should have few rights. When individualism and personal rights win out over the well being of society, then we all lose.
COMMUNITY CORRECTIONS PROGRAM
We feel sure that these programs are being operated in accordance with the laws governing them, and we feel sure that the employees of the programs are doing the best that they can. However, we also feel that the “Community Corrections Programs” are nothing more than “feel-good programs” for the elected officials and the judiciary. The elected officials fund and support these programs so that they can pretend to be addressing the issue of Jail overcrowding, and ignoring the fact that a new Jail is needed.
The judiciary, by utilizing these programs for sentencing, can say they have done what the law requires, the rights of the accused or convicted have been upheld, and punishment has been administered. In fact, all that has been done is to tell a person who has already demonstrated a lack of regard for the law to go to their room and stay there. When they decide not to obey, they cannot even be charged with escape. The process must then start over, wasting precious resources of manpower, time and money.
In our opinion, these alternative sentencing programs should be discontinued, with the facilities and funding made available to the Juvenile Justice Center and Hamilton Co. Jail to meet their constantly growing needs.
OBSERVATIONS & COMMENTS
From the beginning to the end of our term on this Grand Jury, several questions were always present in our minds --- “Where is the punishment?”; “What is the deterrent?”; “Why aren’t these people locked up?”; “What exactly does Corrections mean?”. As we end our Grand Jury service, we are STILL asking those same questions.
After 4 months of often intense, sometimes boring, testimony – and, more often than not, in regard to the same defendants – along with our observations of the facilities and enlightenment about court proceedings, we have formed the following opinions and assessments. We realize that many may not agree with us, but as we said, these are what we consider to be well-founded assessments based on our Grand Jury experience. We understand that we are not the first Grand Jury to feel this way --- just the first to focus the entire Final Report on these concerns.
JUDICIAL: We are completely frustrated and dismayed by our current judicial system. It appears to us that the system enables – almost allows – defendants to become repeat offenders because of the inordinate length of time it takes for adjudication of most cases – plus no meaningful punishment for their crimes. A majority of defendants have multiple cases pending at various levels of the Court system --- and, for some strange reason, they are allowed out on bond so they can return to their life of crime and pick up even more charges. It should be very obvious by now that so many of them have only a criminal mindset and have no intention of “going straight”. Why should they? They have very little to fear from the courts. Evidently they have to commit many, many, many crimes over several years, or commit a very serious heinous crime, before a sentence of any length or severity is even considered, much less administered. They have absolutely no regard for our criminal laws, or the laws of society, and continue to flaunt that disregard in our faces by continuing to break the laws at will. We agree with past Grand Juries that until they are punished more severely in Criminal Court than they would be in General Sessions Court, many will continue to use the Grand Jury and the entire process as a means of “buying time” to avoid or delay the final decision on their cases.
We Grand Jurors join with Law Enforcement in disgust and frustration at the lack of meaningful sentencing handed down in our courts. We certainly encourage citizens to contact their legislators to demand that more of the ridiculous sentencing laws be revised to reflect harsher and longer sentences --- and sentences that mean what they say. If we have to build more prisons because of that, then so be it. At some point in time, the consideration and rights of victims, law-abiding citizens and society as a whole must take precedence over the rights of the criminals. We feel that NOW is that time.
CORRECTIONS: Like the Judiciary, we understand that Corrections is also regulated by ridiculous laws that mandate the way they deal with prisoners, and we do not necessarily fault the personnel involved. To us, the care and housing of prisoners seems to be more of a concern than WHY they are there in the first place. These people committed crimes and victimized all of us in some way. They are usually not just some poor old folks who happen to be down on their luck --- they are criminals, and many of them are much worse than others. Perhaps we are mistaken, but corrections officers are not supposed to be social workers, yet it seems to us that is what is expected of them. Correctional facilities are doing what they are required to do in housing, feeding, medical care, mental health & psychiatric care, drug & alcohol abuse programs, educational programs, self-help & life skills programs, religious & counseling services, etc. of the prisoners. However, we feel that prisoners – remember, that is what they are – should be afforded basic and humane care only, without all of the extras currently prescribed by the feel-good, criminal-friendly laws.
Again, we ask “Where is the punishment?”. Other than the short-term “loss of freedom”, most prisoners probably have a better life in prison than they do otherwise. We are sure they eat better and get much better medical care than when they are on the streets. Their “loss of freedom” doesn’t appear to bother them as much as we would like to think, or as much as it certainly would the rest of us. Quite frankly, in this case, we think the term “corrections” seems as ridiculous as many of the laws that regulate them. If there were any “correcting” going on, more criminals would change their behavior in order to avoid ever returning to the various penal facilities. Until prison time is harsh and uncomfortable enough to make them think twice before committing their next crime, we cannot see any hope for improvement in the enormous number of repeat offenders and the high recidivism rate. We think that the money and efforts used in the many programs for prisoners should be redistributed to serve the needs of our young people, in order to help prevent them from ever committing crimes or going to prison.
LAW ENFORCEMENT: Once again, the numerous repeat offenders victimize society by requiring that so many police officers spend countless hours in the various courts where
their criminal cases are pending --- with those cases passed to a later date much too often, thus requiring the officers to return to court AGAIN & AGAIN on the same cases. It appears to us that many officers are in Court or Grand Jury nearly all of the time. When do they get to do their jobs or get any rest? As citizens of this community, we are concerned when so many officers are tied up in Court and Grand Jury proceedings, to the point where there may be too few left on duty to safely patrol our streets or work other criminal cases. Because their presence in Court or Grand Jury is required, attention to their duties often has to take second place --- and that is not the way it should be. It must certainly create manpower supervision problems for the police, as well as a safety & security problem for all.
As stated in the last Grand Jury report, we agree that the entire judicial system should be streamlined and designed to better serve the law and law-abiding citizens of our community, rather than the criminals and their attorneys.
OTHER: We concur with recommendations made by previous Grand Juries in their Final Reports. We hope that close attention will be paid to them at some time, by someone. Details of those comments can be found in the many past Grand Jury reports.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to thank the following people for their assistance and support during our term:
Amy Northern, Edna Camp, Gwen Tidwell and the staff of the Criminal Court Clerk’s Office; Jamie Brown and Peggy Hudson of the District Attorney’s Office; Court Liaison Officers SGT Brenda Hafley and SGT Lee Robbs of the Chattanooga Police Department; the Officers of the Sheriff’s Dept. Civil Process Division; and the Courts Building Security Officers and personnel.
Sheriff’s Deputy Morris Bice, our courteous escort and driver to our facility visits.
Administration and staff members who conducted our tours through the Jail, Silverdale, Juvenile Justice Center and Community Corrections. We appreciate their time and very informative facility tours.
John Wilson and his online news website Chattanoogan.com for publishing the Grand Jury reports in their entirety. As a result, everyone in the community with computer access can read the comments of that term’s sitting Grand Jury.
Law enforcement for their tireless and dangerous efforts on behalf of our community. To those injured on duty, we wish you a successful recovery. To the many officers who are now, or have been, deployed in the military, we salute and thank you for your service to our country.
Wiatt Wehunt for taking the official notes for our Grand Jury and Karen Roach for filling in as Foreman ProTem when Mrs. Crabtree had to be gone one week.
Assistant D.A.’s Bill West and John Lee, and Foreman Marsha Crabtree, for their guidance and helpful explanations during our sessions this term.
Respectfully submitted by the
HAMILTON CO. REGULAR GRAND JURY
______________________________
Marsha Crabtree, Foreman
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