MEMORANDUM
TO: Residents of the Division of Correction
RE:
On July 17, 1991, the Committee for Responsible Corrections Policy, a network of persons with an interest in Criminal Justice held a meeting with Randy Corcoran, Warden of the Pre-Release System. Commissioner Lanham was invited and was scheduled to appear, but, on that day, hostages were being held in the Penitentiary, things were critical, and he had to cancel his appearance to be on-site working with the State Police and Penitentiary staff.
The reason I have not written a memo about the meeting before this is that the news for lifers and other long-term people was not very good and the Mr. Corcoran did not provide information that most people did not already know.
Nevertheless, here is an account of what happened at the meeting anyway: About 20 people attended. According to Corcoran, Mr. Lanham is against building the way out of the prison mess as much as he was. This was raised as a preliminary point because so many people were concerned about all the prisons being built around the State, including the Allegany County 2500-bed prison and the little prisons at Hagerstown and on the grounds of the House of Correction.
Corcoran first introduced himself. He graduated from Towson State, worked a little at Bethlehem Steel, then went to City Jail first as a volunteer, then CO, classification counselor, work release program head, deputy warden, security chief and finally, was named to be the Head of the Pre-Release System. He was the one who initiated the boot camp program. He told us that 30-35 people are on Electronic Home Detention right now, and placed a lot of emphasis on the Community Adult Rehabilitation Centers (CARCs), which were authorized by the legislature several years ago, but he admitted nothing much came of them.
Corcoran mentioned that there was a mismatch in bed space. For example, there are a lot of work release jobs on the Eastern Shore, but almost everybody is from Baltimore City. This is when the issue of lifers came up. Some beds are occupied for as long as seven years. He said other people need "reintegrative services" for about 3-4 months and aren't getting them. The Metropolitan Service Center in Baltimore (originally planned to be built on the site of the present Penitentiary) looks like it will be delayed.
Randy Corcoran's view is that, the way things look, lifers will never get out, yet they're taking up space in work release. As an administrator, he wants it such that lifers never make it down to his level if there's no hope in sight that they will never make it out. Not that he doesn't want them, but the backlog creates a management problem. He added that the two lifers who escaped a while back were on a bus with 9 others who didn't go anywhere, but that the escapees got all the bad publicity about people being dangerous and the Pre-Release System being inefficient.
He said that more programs are needed in the camps, but that they "got bombed" (his words) by State economic problems. There are few teachers and minimal GED and/or job readiness programs in Pre-Release. Corcoran also wants a better ratio of staff to inmates, but that would mean more jobs at a time when all over the rest of the system, things are being cut back.
He said that "classification counselors" are now known as "Case Management staff". He said the boot camp was not integral to PRS but an alternative. He went on to say that the Division of Parole and Probation had its own problems and that creates processing and movement problems in his area.
Corcoran explained that the PRU for women at Franklintown and Calverton Roads was the first of its kind and last of its kind. Spending on the level is not likely to happen like that again. Other PRUs are closed for renovations and will be open in a few months. He mentioned JPRU itself is built "like a Sears warehouse", meaning, cheaply and without any architectural frills or niceties.
During the question and answer session, he said there were not enough counselors to find jobs for work release people, and that they were changing CO positions to counselor positions. In other words, "robbing Peter to pay Paul".
Bill O'Reilly, a retired accountant who is on the Governor's Commission on Public Safety, asked Corcoran that if over the next 10 years $2-4 billion of the State debt was slated for corrections, why no drug treatment programs, counselors, etc. Corcoran really didn't have an answer.
Corcoran said at one point that the point system is moving people to Pre-Release, yet over the last five years, only 1 or 2 lifers got parole. He said the system is not coming to grips with its overall policy as opposed to its piecemeal policy. Corcoran advised against using volunteers for "heavy duty" jobs of the State. He gave examples of people coming back late or spending afternoons with girlfriends where decisions had to be made that should be left to full-time employees knowledgeable about policy. He talked about job monitoring, placements and then "ins and outs", "tricks of the trade" and complications when dealing with employers.
Florence Welch, informal coordinator of the group, summed up the major concerns of the prison system at the end of the meeting with five concerns: 1) privatization, 2) job preparation and training, 3) the trend toward the Marion (the maximum security federal prison in Illinois) model of building (e.g., Supermax), 4) counselors, their abilities and training, and 5) library services.
Sincerely,
Nancy Moran
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