Report talks about convictions not recidivism, so are they including failure to register convictions as sex crimes?10-25-2011 Iowa:
The number of people convicted in Iowa for sex crimes has grown for each of the last five years, driving up the already growing cost to taxpayers of monitoring and imprisonment.
A draft of a new state report shows prisons are also housing sex offenders for longer periods of time and parole caseloads are growing significantly. By 2021, some 2,600 sex offenders are expected to be serving “special sentences” under a stringent state law passed in 2005, meaning they will be supervised after their prison release for 10 years or life depending on the seriousness of their crimes.
“The special sentence, particularly lifetime supervision, will increase the parole caseload by 78 percent in 10 years,” the draft report released this month by Iowa’s Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning found.
The additional cost of monitoring the offenders will total at least $34.54 million during that span, according to the report.
Members of the Iowa Sex Offender Research Council will meet Wednesday at the Statehouse to discuss the new report.
The council has urged state leaders to explore more effective and less expensive ways of monitoring sex offenders.
“We’re trying to figure out policy-wise what makes the most sense to do now,” said Sally Kreamer, who heads the 5th Judicial District correctional services. “Caseloads are only going to get larger and larger. If we don’t figure out some strategy soon, I’ll have to come back to my board and say, ‘What is it that you don’t want us to do anymore?’ ”
The Legislature agreed last year to allow corrections officials to use risk assessments to decide which offenders should be subject to electronic monitoring after they have been released from prison. That move saved thousands of dollars without causing any increased public safety issues, Kreamer said.
She said research shows Iowa has been more successful than others in monitoring those at highest risk and curbing recidivism.
Now, however, officials are running out of ideas on how to deal with the cost of housing more sex offenders in prison and monitoring hundreds more on parole throughout the state.
“Were trying to brainstorm and figure out what to do,” Kreamer said. “But it’s really hard to find good ideas.”
The number of sex offenders in Iowa prisons reached 542 this year, up from 507 in 2007. Those sent back to prison for parole violations this year numbered 68, compared with four in 2007.
Iowa is one of more than 20 states that created special sentences in the past decade to track sex offenders after their release from prison using corrections officers and technology such as GPS monitors. The move came in response to public outrage over the highly publicized murder of Jetseta Gage, 10, of Cedar Rapids in 2005 by a sex offender.
A 2009 investigation by The Des Moines Register found the flood of new sex offenders under supervision would cost taxpayers a minimum of $168 million over 20 years, or about $8.4 million a year.
The new study tallied only the minimum monitoring that would be required under the 2005 law and excluded the probation officer salaries the Register considered.
State Sen. Bob Dvorsky, a Democrat from Coralville, said it’s difficult to say whether the Legislature will take up any suggested policy changes this year, an election year. State leaders face a another tight state budget and other priorities, such as Gov. Terry Branstad’s plans for K-12 education reform.
But the new state report and other research nationally suggests more savings might be found by assessing and treating juvenile offenders, who make up a growing part of Iowa’s sex offender population.
“There is more latitude in the juvenile area because they respond more easily to treatment,” said Dvorsky, a member of the sex offender council. “There are ways that maybe we can work with them and get them out of the system if they are identified quickly.” ..Source.. by LEE ROOD
