Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation Story Archives - Page 2 of 5

Senate Bill Works To Stabilize Jail Funding

The legislature has grappled with the issue of jail funding for the past few years. Senate Bill 596 aims to modify the payment for housing and maintenance of inmates in the state’s correctional system.

The West Virginia Senate took up a bill Tuesday that would change how, and how much, counties pay for inmates they send to the state’s correctional system.

The legislature has grappled with the issue of jail funding for the past few years. Senate Bill 596 aims to modify the payment for housing and maintenance of inmates.

The amount counties and municipalities pay for every day of incarceration has been capped at $48.25 per inmate since 2018, but the State Budget Office stated earlier this year the per diem rate will increase to $54.48 in July.

The bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Jason Barrett, R-Berkeley, said SB596 will establish a pro-rata system to help counties pay the increased cost.

“We were able to figure out each county’s allotment of jailed nights, and then we were able to create a formula based on that pro rata share that each county will receive,” he said. “The first 80 percent of the nights that happened in the county would be billed at a 20 percent discount rate. From 80 percent to 100 percent, would be billed at the 100 percent of the current rate, and then if the county goes over their allotment of nights, there will be a 20 percent penalty for those nights.”

The rates for each county will be calculated by the commissioner of Corrections and Rehabilitation using census data and reviewed every 10 years. Barrett said through the 20 percent penalty, the bill would encourage counties to not only reduce their jail bill, but also develop alternative programs to help West Virginians.

“This way, we’re able to reduce the jail bills for counties, and also incentivize them to have really good day report centers, recovery resource centers, and utilize home confinement officers,” Barrett said. “We are incentivizing counties to not only reduce their jail bill, but to help people of West Virginia. If counties refuse to participate in those things, and they don’t make an effort to reduce their jail bill, in the amount of nights that folks are in jail in their county, then there will be a monetary penalty for that.”

The Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which has budgetary issues including a deferred maintenance cost of $200 million, has previously stated that the artificially low per diem payments do not cover the actual cost of incarceration.

In presenting the bill on the Senate floor, Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, highlighted a provision in the bill that would put county commissioners personally on the hook for unpaid jail bills.

“It would codify the common and case law principle that public officials may be held personally liable for clearly delineated constitutional and statutory duties,” Tarr said. “This section of code clearly provides that counties bear the responsibility for paying for inmate housing and care. When a county fails to pay for inmate housing, this bill would codify that liability on both an official level and the personal level.”

The bill passed 22 to 11, with one senator absent, and now heads to the House of Delegates for consideration.

ACLU-WV Petition Seeks Transparency For Alleged ‘Secret Prison Laws’

The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia has alleged the state Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation and Department of Homeland Security attempted to hide a set of legislative rules from public view.

The ACLU’s legal filing alleges Corrections and Rehabilitation provided a partial and inaccurate version of its Policy Directives Manual after it was requested by the organization in January.

It also alleges that after the ACLU requested access to the manual from the Secretary of State’s office, certain access was restricted after some time at the request of Homeland Security. The agency also allegedly requested a removal of the documents from the Secretary of State’s office, which was denied.

“What we were initially looking at, it’s unclear the extent to which that was accurate in the first place. But at this point, we don’t have access to the full document,” ACLU-WV Managing Attorney Aubrey Sparks said.

The manual is considered a legislative rule in West Virginia code. The ACLU petitioned the Kanawha County Circuit Court to order the agencies to provide a complete and accurate version of the policies, claiming the two agencies were creating “secret laws.”

dhs_mandamus_final_draft Download

Sparks said legislative rules act differently than internal policies or procedure guides.

“The issue here is that this is a legislative rule, which means that it has the full force of law, and yet it’s not accessible to the public,” Sparks said.

The request for the DCR documents comes after a 2021 report that ACLU-WV published with findings that West Virginia has some of the nation’s deadliest jails.

“We were interested in seeing how those jails are run, if that document, that legislative rule conferred any substantive rights on the people who were incarcerated that could be useful in trying to improve the conditions of the prisons and jails,” Sparks said.

According to the legal filing, the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitations claimed the initial request for the document was treated as a Freedom of Information Act request, with some of the records removed “pursuant to W. Va. Code § 29B-1-4(a)(19),” which states certain records relating to facilities, directives and operational procedures could be used “to escape a facility, or to cause injury to another inmate, resident, or to facility personnel” if they are released.

The ACLU argued in the filing that the public still had a right of access and that further access was withheld to documents which were not initially restricted.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting reached out to the DHS and DCR for comment. The DHS declined to comment, while the DCR has not yet provided a response as of the story’s publication.

Senate Moves To Remedy ‘Insufficient’ Bill From Last Year

The Senate passed a bill Thursday aimed at correcting a bill passed during last year’s legislative session. What was intended as a bill to help facilitate access to records ended up doing the exact opposite.

The West Virginia Senate passed a bill Thursday aimed at correcting a bill passed during last year’s legislative session. What was intended as a bill to help facilitate access to records ended up doing the exact opposite.

Sen. Charles Trump, R-Morgan, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Senate Bill 495 aims to do what 2022’s Senate Bill 441 failed to do.

“The bill addresses, generally, the confidentiality of records necessary for the secure and safe management of inmates and residents committed to state correctional facilities and juvenile facilities,” Trump said. “This bill, if enacted, will make it clear that records remain available as consistent with the Freedom of Information Act.”

Trump explained on the Senate floor Thursday morning that last year’s Senate Bill 441 left their chamber in what he called “pretty good shape,” but returned to the Senate from the House of Delegates on the last night of the 2022 session with amendments; amendments that removed references to the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

“The bill came back to us from the House on the last night of the session in a different form, and we concurred with the House amendment and passed the bill,” Trump said. “What I’ve been told since is that the Division of Homeland Security has been using our bill as a means to deny access to information. That was never our intention.“

Trump said that’s the opposite of the bill’s intent, and was originally designed to provide an extra mechanism for people to obtain records or information from correctional or juvenile facilities.

Trump said it was never his or the Senate’s intention to further restrict public access to information. He believes everything the government does should be accessible and transparent to the public.

“The general rule, my philosophy, is that government should be transparent at all levels,” Trump said. “It is, after all, a government that belongs to the people. The people are sovereign in our system, and they make the decisions, they inform us and tell us how they want us to represent them. But this government belongs to the people, and so the general rule should always be that the more information that’s available to the people, the better.”

Trump conceded that the new bill could have been avoided if he had acted last year, and offered his apologies to the body for having a law enacted in what he called an “insufficient form.”

“I would be less than candid if I didn’t admit or confess and say that I should have caught the change,” Trump said. “When it came back from the House last year, on the last day of the session, I missed it and consequently, the bill that got enacted was different from what we were hoping to achieve when we launched it to the House of Delegates last year. I’m hoping we’re gonna get that corrected this year.”

Senate Bill 495 now heads to the House of Delegates for its consideration.

Senate Finance Investigates Governor’s Donation To Marshall For New Baseball Stadium

The Senate Finance Committee wants to know how $10 million in CARES money ended up being donated by Gov. Jim Justice’s administration to Marshall University for its new baseball stadium.

The money was donated to the university from the governor’s Gifts, Grants and Donations Fund, and was transferred into that account days before the federal deadline to spend CARES funds.

Senate Finance Chair Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, questioned why a total of $28 million of CARES money was transferred to the gifts account in the first place, given the qualifying expense for the money was listed as the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

“I understand that we still have National Guard in our corrections facilities and we have 1,000 FTEs [full-time employees] unfilled in our corrections facilities and we have a request for a $200 million deferred maintenance to go to corrections,” Tarr said.

“We’re under that state of emergency right now, and when you transfer the last $28 million, which doesn’t come close to covering any of those corrections expenses, the governor decides to put it into a discretionary account and then start putting AstroTurf on baseball fields. I want to ask you what part of that is appropriate,” Tarr said to Berkeley Bentley, general counsel to Justice.

Bentley told the committee that as special federal revenue, the money could only be transferred into a special revenue account.

“When the state reimburses itself, there is no direction under federal law or state law that directs where that money goes. It could not go into the governor’s civil contingent fund, rather it had to go to a special revenue account, and the most likely candidate was the gifts and grants fund,” Bentley replied.

“And ultimately a baseball field,” Tarr said.

Earlier this week, the Senate Finance Committee heard directly from the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation about their $200 million deferred maintenance costs, including at least $27 million worth of locks that need to be replaced across the system.

Bentley told the committee that the transfer was made to officially spend the CARES money by the Sept. 30 deadline, and avoid returning the money to the federal government. Once the qualifying expense was paid, he said the state can use those funds for any legal purpose.

“We spent $1.25 billion. We did that, and we transferred it out. It’s no longer CARES, but the money is still available for any lawful purpose,” Bentley said. “The money was transferred over to pay the invoices we hadn’t received yet, not timely, what have you, but it’s also available for any other purpose that is legal under state law, no longer subject to the CARES Act requirements.”

Tarr also called on State Auditor JB McCuskey to discuss the process around the fund transfer. Under questioning from Tarr, McCuskey categorized the requested transfer of funds as “unusual.”

“We were working with cities and counties a lot to try to make sure that they were able to obligate their funds legally to ensure that the money that was given to us was spent on things that were legal,” McCuskey said. “Our office processes thousands of transfer requests a week probably … but this was a large number. And I was unfamiliar with the fund, but prior to that request, and you know, pretty obviously the name of it, it pops out pretty quickly.”

When asked why his office approved such a large and unusual transfer request, McCuskey said the governor’s office provided detailed opinions on the legitimacy of the transfer from global accounting firm BDO and the law firm Bailey Glasser.

“We can’t supplant our legal opinion of what their appropriations are if there’s a rational basis for them, and it was close,” McCuskey said. “We decided at the end of the day, it was better to make sure that effectuated what the governor’s office wanted, but to keep a record and an accounting of what happened and why.”

The meeting ended with the Senate Finance Committee agreeing to request more information on the COVID-19 money transfer from the Office of the Inspector General, as well as the Department of the Treasury.

Senate Finance Committee Quantifies Department Of Corrections Issues

Senators spent the first hour of what became a three hour Finance Committee meeting Tuesday night focusing on the budget of the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which oversees the state’s prisons and jails.

The Senate Finance Committee met Tuesday night to hear budget presentations from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education.

Senators spent the first hour of what became a three hour meeting focusing on the budget of the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which oversees the state’s prisons and jails.

Corrections have struggled since the pandemic to maintain employees, with more than 1,000 vacancies for correctional officers in the system and a state of emergency requiring National Guard intervention. During the presentation, it was reported that the National Guard’s role filling administrative positions to free up correctional officers is costing $500,000 per week, and will lead to a $6 million budgetary shortfall for the division this year.

In response to questioning, William Marshall, commissioner of the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told Sen. Eric Nelson, R-Kanawha, it would take a pay raise of at least $10,000 for all correctional officers to make the position more attractive to future candidates.

“Easy math 4,000 [officers], $10,000 across the board. That’s a $40 million annual base builder,” Nelson said. “Pension benefits can be anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent of compensation. If we were to potentially look at this correctly, would you agree that this is a $40 to $60 million base builder that we need to consider going forward?”

“You’re talking about not only base salary, but retirement?” Marshall replied. “Yes, I think a retirement plan would be very, very attractive. It’s hard. A lot of our officers we talked to, it’s hard to do that job forever.”

Marshall discussed the difficulty in retaining correctional officers not only because of the inherent risk of the job, but also because of competition from other correctional systems.

“We not only lose corrections officers to the federal system, but we also lose corrections officers to our bordering states as well,” Marshall said. “We lose a number of them to Maryland in the Eastern Panhandle quite often. They had a promotion about a year and a half ago, two years ago, with a $5,000 signing bonus and a $50,000 to $55,000 start pay.”

House Bill 2879, currently in the House’s Finance Committee, would provide existing correctional employees with three or more years of employment, a $6000 retention bonus and establish a $3000 sign-on bonus for new employees.

Marshall, with help from Executive Officer for the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation Brad Douglas, explained to the senators that the state’s newest correctional facility, Lakin Correctional Center in Mason County, is already 20 years old. The oldest facility, Huttonsville Correctional Center in Randolph County, was built in 1938.

Marshall was appointed commissioner by Gov. Jim Justice two weeks ago.

Jeff Sandy, cabinet secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, fielded questions from Sen. Jason Barrett, R-Berkeley, about why there’s only $29 million in the governor’s budget to address the $200 million Corrections needs for deferred maintenance. Brian Arthur, assistant director of fiscal operations for administrative services, clarified that the $29 million is made up of $2 million that Corrections regularly receives for deferred maintenance, and a one-time allocation of $27 million to address a specific need.

“Senator, just so you’ll know, that $27 million is the locks which were broken as of late July of last year. So that does not replace every lock in corrections across the state,” Sandy said.

“What did your office request of the governor for deferred maintenance?” Barrett asked, seeking clarification.

“We have itemized what jobs need to be done: roofs, locks, etc. And the governor’s office makes the decision on what they feel the state could afford,” Sandy said.

“But you outlined that there’s $200 million in deferred maintenance?” Barrett continued.

“We have for six years sir,” Sandy said.

W.Va. Leaders Address Correctional Staff Reluctance, Prisoner Access To COVID-19 Vaccine

More than half of the correctional employees in West Virginia have opted out of taking the COVID-19 vaccine, despite being prioritized by state health officials.

They work with more than 9,800 incarcerated people who have not been prioritized in the state’s vaccine rollout plan, against a backdrop of several recent and ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks in state jails and prisons.

“I was disappointed that so many people were refusing the initial vaccine, whether through misinformation or fear,” said Matthew Brock, president of CWA Local 2055, the union representing state correctional employees. “It’s hard for me to understand. We’re hoping to increase awareness and allay people’s fears.”

More than 1,200 of the state’s 3,300 correctional employees have opted to get the vaccine so far, according to the state Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, or roughly 36% of the agency’s staff.

The first group of DCR employees to voluntarily receive the first dose of the two-part vaccine included Brock, who added that he’s been impressed with his employer’s rollout.

“I had a small bit of tenderness at the injection site, like any other vaccine, you know, just if you touched it, it was sore,” Brock said. “But no aching in the arm, no other side effects.”

DCR leaders did not respond to requests for an interview. DCR spokesman Lawrence Messina wrote in an email that the agency is working with state leaders on a campaign to educate employees “on the safety, effectiveness and importance of the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Their work includes surveying staff.

“DCR staff have the same array of views as the general public,” Messina wrote. “Questions and issues raised run the gamut. The survey mentioned previously will help pinpoint the most prominent views and help identify the facts and information that can address and resolve them.”

On its website for COVID-19 vaccine information, including a section for frequently asked questions, the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources reports the vaccine’s safety and importance, saying it’s “designed to work with our immune systems so the body will be ready to fight the virus if we are exposed to the virus.”

All correctional facilities have offered at least one vaccination event since Dec. 22, according to Messina. The division is planning on holding a second round of vaccination events for staff the week of Jan. 17. Employees who already have received the first shot will have access to the second half of the COVID-19 vaccine then, too.

Vaccinating The Incarcerated

Advocates for criminal justice reform throughout West Virginia say they’re glad the state has prioritized correctional employees for the COVID-19 vaccine. Now, they add, it’s time to loop in the state’s incarcerated population.

“Vaccinating incarcerated people is paramount,” said Greg Whittington, criminal law reform campaign director for the West Virginia ACLU. “Those folks can’t get out.”

Incarcerated West Virginians are covered by the second part of the state’s two-phase vaccine allocation plan, according to Messina, which broadly encompasses the general population.

West Virginia recently began offering doses to the public after Gov. Jim Justice announced on Dec. 30 that shots would be made available to West Virginians 80 years old and older. Justice shared more detailed plans for vaccinating seniors on Wednesday.

Health workers administered more than 90,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to West Virginians by Sunday, according to data from the state DHHR. Recipients include elderly residents and essential workers.

The state has announced no plans to vaccinate the elderly in West Virginia correctional facilities at this time. State health officer Ayne Amjad said Friday that prisoners will get vaccinated as the state’s allocations allow.

“But as the governor [has] mentioned, we have not had a lot of deaths from the population of inmates,” Amjad said. “There, if you’re really sick with COVID-19, they actually transfer you out of the facility. And that’s probably why they’re doing so well there. So they have a really robust medical staff taking care of any patients there.”

DCR has confirmed five deaths from COVID-19 among the state’s incarcerated population and one death among correctional employees. Another 10 people, all incarcerated, have died during the pandemic, with DCR waiting on more information to confirm whether their deaths were COVID-19-related.

“We have a huge aging population of convicted people in the state of West Virginia,” Whittington said. “In lieu of not letting people go, then I hope and pray that they would start extending more vaccines to those folks who aren’t getting out.”

Brock from the union also said he thinks vaccines should go to high-risk people in jails and prisons as needed.

“Any inmates that fall into the high-risk categories should be included in the appeal should be included in the vaccine rollout, due to age or preexisting conditions,” Brock said. “I’m not sure about how many vaccines we have available, but any vaccinations we can get into the facilities would help our role, would help reduce the spread, be it inmate or staff.”

Overcrowding, Long-Term Effects

For the last year, Quenton King at the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy has been tracking overcrowding in regional jails, which as of Sunday held roughly 58 percent of the state’s incarcerated population.

In a study on local jail spending and debt, King reports regional jail populations have increased by 81% from 2009 to 2019. King also reports jails have been over capacity for eight out of the last 11 years.

Most recently, data from correctional officials showed on Sunday that nine out of the state’s 10 regional jails had more people than their prescribed bed counts.

DCR reported on Sunday that more than 950 people in regional jails were in quarantine, which DCR’s COVID-19 policy calls for when there are “incarcerated individuals who are known to have been exposed to the virus.”

“Even though they say that you can quarantine in cells, you really can’t,” King said. “It’s not like each person in a 500-capacity jail can have their own quarantine cell. It’s not how it works.”

More recently, King has been tracking COVID-19 outbreaks in jails and prisons. The DCR has reported less than 100 active cases of COVID-19 three times since Nov. 14.

As state leaders commend DCR for its low number of reported deaths from COVID-19, the agency is reporting more recoveries each week, relying on guidelines from the CDC that “people with mild to moderate COVID-19 remain infectious no longer than 10 days after their symptoms began.”

Meanwhile, national health experts are beginning to take a closer look at the longer-term effects of COVID-19, many of which are still uncertain.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins told NPR they’re studying whether COVID-19 might lead to brain damage, and how many people that could impact. Another study of patients at Jin Yan-tan Hospital in China documents accounts of fatigue, insomnia and diminished lung function, according to a recap from the New York Times on Friday.

“I don’t think anyone is talking or even asking how incarcerated people will feel after they have recovered,” King said.

For Whittington at the ACLU, who advocates on behalf of the formerly incarcerated and is formerly incarcerated himself, this holds even more consequences for people coming out of jails and prisons, who rely on physical labor for an income.

“We’re talking about people that when they do return, they often have jobs that require them to do physical labor, or require them to work outside,” Whittington said. “And COVID-19, being a respiratory disease, attacks the lungs, and the people that can least afford their health to be damaged are the people that are the most likely to have the health damage through COVID-19.”

More than 2,600 DCR employees and incarcerated West Virginians are recorded as having recovered from the coronavirus, according to DCR data on Sunday. That includes more than 950 people in the state’s regional jails, more than 1,100 in state-run prisons and more than 580 employees.

Emily Allen is a Report for America corps member.