Overcrowding and staff shortages at prisons, many of them rural, raise safety concerns

Overcrowding in federal prisons threatens the safety of staff and inmates, according to a new Government Accountability Office report on the Bureau of Prisons. Many prisons are in rural areas, employing many local residents. The report says BOP officials report an increased use of double and triple bunking, waiting lists for education and drug treatment programs, and increased inmate-to-staff ratios. Those factors lead to increased inmate misconduct, and increased safety risks.

Inmate population is growing faster than the BOP's capacity, Joe Davidson of The Washington Post reports. Prison population grew by 9.5 percent from 2006 to 2011, but the BOP's capacity only grew by 7 percent. "Nearly all BOP facilities had fewer correctional staff on board than needed," GAO said in the report. BOP staff shortages were in excess of 3,200. The inmate-to-staff ratio has decreased. "Fewer officers is not a strategy for success," Davidson writes. "The consequences can be real and bloody." Understaffing leads to an increased in inmate-on-worker assaults, with almost 1,700 assault on staff happening in 2010, according to GAO. (Read more)

In southwest Oregon, as subsidy cuts hit policing, citizens form a general posse and do it themselves

An old police car has been parked on the
highway through O'Brien since the
sheriff's budget has been cut. (AP)

"There's no room in the county jail for burglars and thieves. And the sheriff's department in a vast, rural corner of southwest Oregon has been reduced by budget cuts to three deputies on patrol eight hours a day, five days a week," reports Jeff Barnard of The Associated Press. "People in this traditionally self-reliant section of timber country aren't about to raise taxes to put more officers on the road." Instead, folks are "mounting flashing lights on their trucks and strapping pistols to their hips to guard communities themselves. Others have put together a virtual neighborhood watch, using Facebook to share tips and information. 'I believe in standing up for myself rather than waiting for the government to do something for me,' said Sam Nichols, who organized a posse of about a dozen fed-up residents who have started patrolling the rural community of O'Brien, which has about 750 residents.'" They call themselves Citizens Against Crime -- CAC, for short.

O'Brien sits in Josephine County, a county which recently lost $12 million in federal timber subsidies. The jail, sheriff's patrols, prosecutors, probation officers and juvenile programs have all been drastically cut. The jail can house 69 inmates -- so few that recently small-time offenders have been let loose only to be repeatedly picked up for new crimes. In O'Brien, "We all know each other, and we're all related," said Carol Dickson, who helped to start the CAC about three months ago and posts regularly. "People know who's doing this," she said of recent spate of property crime in the area. "They are getting tired of it. They are speaking up, and they are saying, 'Enough.'"

The local police think the citizens involved are smart about this venture, that it's not vigilantism and that everyone understand the dangers. But policing expert Dennis Kenney, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at New York University, says neighborhood watch efforts can turn into problems when volunteers "decide that instead of supplementing law enforcement, they are going to replace law enforcement." He told AP that "people drawn to this sort of thing are the kinds of personalities more likely to take it too far." However, Nichols says what his group is doing is "not vigilantism at all. If it was, we would have taken care of a couple of problems a long time ago. Because we knew who they were, and where they lived."

The group is earning its keep. Members have reported a wildfire and a break-in since their watch began. The police log in the Grants Pass Daily Courier shows five thefts or burglaries in O'Brien from January through July, but none since August. (Read more)

Federal criminal justice spending 'steadily declining;' How dependent is your local agency?

The U.S. Department of Justice has reduced funding for state and local criminal justice agencies by 43 percent over the last two years, according to a National Criminal Justice Association and Vera Institute of Justice report. Failure to resolve the national budget crisis could make things worse, the report says. This likely has a disproportionate impact on rural agencies who have less resources and oftentimes depend on federal money to operate.

Agencies "on the front lines of the justice system, including police," fear that cuts in spending would practically end federal criminal justice funding by 2021, reports Ted Gest of The Crime Report. Federal funding for state and local anti-crime efforts is "at a historically low level," the report said, with more than three-fourths of agencies surveyed saying their federal aid has been steadily declining. Fourteen percent of survey respondents said their federal grants have been cut by more than half. (Read more)

Ohio Democrats allege Murray and his coal company illegally forced employees to donate to Republicans

The Ohio Democratic Party asked federal and state prosecutors Monday to investigate whether the CEO of the largest privately owned coal company in the U.S. illegally coerced employees to contribute to Mitt Romney and other Republican candidates, Jim Provance of the Toledo Blade reports. ODP Chairman Chris Redfern asked that Murray Energy Corp. and Robert Murray, left, be investigated for extortion, money laundering and racketeering.

The complaint claims Murray contributed $720,000 to Ohio candidates and millions to federal candidates through the company's political action committee, including Romney, U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel and Gov. John Kasich. The Blade said it could not reach Murray Energy's attorney for comment. The complaint also alleges Murray and the company forced employees to contribute to the company's political action committee through automatic payroll deductions and required attendance at fundraisers.

Murray hosted a rally for Romney on Aug. 14 at his company's Century Mine in Beallsville in southeast Ohio. Romney was surrounded by miners as he spoke. Some of those miners later told a West Virginia radio talk show host that Murray closed the mine for the day and required miners to attend the rally without pay. The company said there was no requirement. (Read more)

Republican and Democratic platforms differ on gun control, other criminal justice issues

The Democratic National Convention adopted the party platform yesterday, suggesting additional gun control by a call for "an honest, open national conversation about firearms." The Republican platform opposes any new gun control.

Ted Gest of The Crime Report reports the Democratic platform proposes new funding to "help keep cops on the street and support our police, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians," something they say Republicans and Mitt Romney "have opposed and even ridiculed."

The parties agree on prisoner rehabilitation, with Democrats touting the Obama administration's the creation of the Federal Interagency Reentry Council in 2011 to address prisoner re-entry. The party also "made a point of backing work by government at all levels to 'combat and prevent drug crime and drug and alcohol abuse,'" Gest reports. It's worth noting that party nominees do not formally embrace these platforms. (Read more)

Sentencing of former Upper Big Branch Mine boss delayed again as he aids probe of blast that killed 29

A judge has again postponed sentencing of a former superintendent at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia because prosecutors said the delay would help their ongoing criminal investigation of the April 5, 2010, explosion that killed 29 coal miners.

L.A. Times photo

Former superintendent Gay May, left, is "cooperating in an ongoing investigation and the parties need additional time to fully develop the extent of his cooperation," Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Ruby said this week, reports Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette. Ruby said the additional time would allow "significant further development of the investigation." District Judge Irene Berger rescheduled the sentencing hearing for January.

In a plea deal, May admitted that he plotted with others to conceal hazards at Upper Big Branch on numerous occasions that compromised workers' safety. He also admitted that he participated in a "scheme to provide advance warning of government inspectors and then hide or correct violations before federal agents could make it into working sections of the mine," Ward reports.

Marijuana's resistance to drought makes it an easier target for police this year

The drought is making marijuana crops a lot easier to spot, reports The Courier-Journal of Louisville. Indiana State Police got an early start to the annual marijuana eradication season this week, Sgt. Jerry Goodin told reporter Charlie White that the browning of drought-stricken corn makes the resilient green pot plants interspersed between them “stick out like a sore thumb.” (C-J photo by White)

In Kentucky, State Police Lt. Brent Roper said his agency started cutting outdoor marijuana plants last month. The drought hasn't affected the number of crops they've seized this year, he said, but "It does help when the corn starts browning," which is happening even in some of the state's moderate-drought areas. Roper's agency destroyed more than 120,000 plants through the end of July this year, compared with about 91,000 in the same period last year. Indiana and Kentucky continue to be among the top states for outdoor pot seizures, according to federal statistics. (Read more)

Real truth about crime: Breathe easy, you're safer than you think

A lot of what you think about crime, writes John Roman of the Urban Institute, is just not true. Too much television, too many headlines and too much thinking it was better when you were little have made feel unsafe. "Fact: if you are under 40, on average you are safer now than you have ever been," Roman reports. Suburbs are safer than cities, yes, but "The trend is better for cities than suburbs. At the peak of the crime wave in 1991 there were 138 homicides in Prince George's County and 479 in Washington, D.C. Last year, there were 82 homicides in PG (down 40 percent) and 132 in DC (down almost 75 percent)."

Roman notes that the public also likes to believe that "there are two typical types of offenders: One is the brilliant loner psychopath who commits serial crimes and can’t be caught without the aid of large task forces, luck, and equally brilliant loner detectives. Fact: most criminals are far less educated, poorer, and sicker than the average American. Type two is the ruthless, soulless gang-banger who can only be contained (but never defeated) by armies of police. Fact: gang members are typically teenagers, generally in a gang for about a year before voluntarily leaving, and commit as many crimes against their fellow gang members as others. "

In taking apart the statistics, Roman has found astonishing facts that fly in the face of a lot of our perceived fears: "The FBI estimates that in 2008 a total of 155 children were kidnapped by strangers, thus a child is about 5 times more likely to drown than be kidnapped (and) of the almost 15,000 homicides in 2010, perhaps one percent were victims of a serial killer." (Read more)

Mayor's courts of Ohio are a relic unlikely to change, since they fatten small-town coffers

They've been called "Boss Hogg backwood justice," and the more specific "rap sheet" against local mayor’s courts in rural Ohio says some judges spend public funds on holiday parties and flower arrangements, fail to properly account for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and use speed-trap traffic fines to prop up village budgets, Justin Conley and Rebecca McKinsey report for the Columbus Dispatch. Despite longstanding criticism, they write, "No one seems willing or able to make changes" to fix what's wrong with the courts, which dispense justice to tens of thousands of Ohioans and demand fines totaling millions of dollars every year.

The state doesn’t require the mayors or magistrates in the courts to have law degrees, and is hardly paying attention to them, write Conley and McKinsey, fellows in Ohio University’s Statehouse News Bureau. The state Supreme Court doesn't go after the officials when they violate the law by failing to provide information to the high court, and "The state auditor’s office, which has found repeated instances of misspending and other problems, says it doesn’t have enforcement power to take corrective action." Former state Sen. Kevin Coughlin, a Cuyahoga Falls Republican, said he thinks mayor's courts "have no place in a modern society where you have to have complete integrity in your judicial system.”

The senior justice of the Supreme Court, Paul E. Pfeifer, is the most vocal critic of mayor's courts. “People . . . come out of there feeling like they just participated in a bad spaghetti western,” he said, “where the cabinet maker or coffin maker takes off his apron, sits on a bench with a gavel and metes out justice.” Like many critics, Pfeifer said mayor’s courts are often more about fattening a community’s bottom line than protecting its residents. Some collect far more from mayor’s courts than from all local taxes combined.

There were 318 mayor’s courts in Ohio in 2011, and 76 percent of them were in villages with fewer than 5,000 residents. Supporters, many with ties to small communities, say mayor’s courts are convenient, easy to navigate and inexpensive. “For every one that may not be up to snuff, there are a hundred that do an excellent job,” Magistrate Charles "Kip" Kelsey told the Dispatch. “The fact that Louisiana and Ohio are the only two states that have these mayor’s courts — are we then backward? Or maybe we’re forward. I like to think that maybe we’re progressive." New York and West Virginia have similar courts. (Read more)

Death of community newspaper reporter found dead in Va. home after fire being probed as homicide

The death of a community newspaper reporter in Virginia is being investigating by local authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a homicide, reports Melissa Boughton of the Winchester Star. The paper's Sarah Greenhalgh, right, was found dead in a bedroom after her rented home in Upperville was burned, according to a press release from the Fauquier County Sheriff's Office.

Authorities on the scene called the fire "suspicious," Boughton reports, but Lt. James Hartman would not reveal what evidence led to this conclusion. He also would not say whether Greenhalgh was killed from injuries sustained in the fire. Authorities have preliminary autopsy results, but won't release them because they fear it will jeopardize the case.

Greenhalgh had worked on an investigative story that Hartman told the paper included several "persons of interest," with whom police are speaking. Authorities have seized her cell phone, personal computer, work computer and several work files. But the motive could be personal, not professional.

The FBI and local authorities have searched the home of a Gainesville, Va. man, who has not been identified, in connection to the case, Boughton reports. He was allowed to return to his home after the search. Neighbors of the man told authorities they saw him and Greenhalgh arguing in the parking lot of his apartment complex Sunday night. The last post on Greenhalgh's Facebook mentions that she would be sleeping with the windows open and is believed to have referenced the Gainesville man as "batsh-- crazy boy (expletive deleted)." Greenhalgh had told several co-workers she had met numerous people through online dating sites and talked about the Gainsville man several times. (Read more)

Trash-cams spotting rural dumpers; one stream is known for fly fishing and abandoned recliners

A man is caught dumping trash at an illegal site
by a hidden camera purchased by the
Juneau Parks and Recreation Department

It's not a new problem but it's an ugly one. And tranquil, open, lush rural landscapes take the biggest hit when people think they've got nowhere else to put their trash. In Southeast Alaska, law enforcement has had just about enough. So they installed hidden cameras on roads with the most popular dumpsites, reports Kyle Hopkins of the Anchorage Daily News. One of those roads, Hopkins writes, "winds through an area north of Juneau known for world-class fly fishing and abandoned recliners." Bob Dilley, lead community services officer for the Juneau Police Department, explained that officers "get tired of digging through piles hoping to find a scrap of paper with somebody's name on it." Post-trash-cams: A five-arrest spring.

Illegally dumping more than a square foot of litter is a minor offense in the Southeast Alaska city and borough, punishable by a $200 fine. Hopkins, whose story is a primer on how to do this kind of community reporting, writes: "The people cited so far look like any cross section of Alaskans. Guys in ball caps and hoodies driving big pickups. A man in a Land Rover. An SUV full of young women. The Daily News, through a public records request, obtained footage involving all the closed littering cases originating between April 9 and May 15. All five people shown in the footage had paid their fines as of June 12, according to the Juneau Police Department. Littering falls under Anchorage public-nuisance laws with fines ranging from $50 to $300 for a first offense and $200 to $600 for a second offense."

Other towns and counties around the country began experimenting with litter cams earlier this year, at about the same time as Juneau, Hopkins finds. The Delaware Natural Resources Department has used hidden cameras to catch litterers since 2009. County supervisors of Henry County, Va., population 54,000, voted this year to approve $5,000 for the purchase of game cameras to catch people illegally dumping trash.,saying the detritus is bad for tourism, bad for business. Meanwhile, notes Hopkins, the trend is growing. Lorain County, Ohio, sheriffs recently bought solar-powered litter cameras. And local news reports indicate that litterers better be on the lookout for trash cams in Stephenville, Newfoundland, and in the Municipal District of Foothills in southern Alberta.

Reporter who broke Penn State abuse story offers lessons, including: 'People can be good at lying'

Harrisburg Patriot-News reporter Sara Ganim, 24, right, learned a big lesson while covering the Penn State sex-abuse scandal that has landed former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on trial this week. "People can be good at lying," she said during a speech at the annual convention of Investigative Reporters & Editors, reports Ted Gest of The Crime Report.

Ganim has won several awards for her coverage of the scandal, including a Pulitzer Prize this April. She told IRE members that she wasn't handed the story of Sandusky's wrong-doing and had to go after it with "old-school, knocking-on-doors journalism," Gest reports. It took her more than 18 months to compile the bits and pieces of reporting into a solid story that resulted in the allegations that Sandusky abused several boys over several years.

Ganim didn't name the sources who lied to her during that time, but said she had a two-hour conversation with someone that was initially convincing. Later, she found out the information was "fabricated" and made her think "This does not add up," Gest writes. An original source told her that the source's tip wasn't true, but she followed it anyway.

She said The Associated Press got ahead of her at one point, but by returning to her original sources, including mothers of some alleged victims, she was able to stay ahead of her competition. Ganim had recently been hired by the Patriot-News as a police reporter, but her boss was willing to let her work on the Sandusky story full-time. As a bit of advice to those at the conference, she said they should find employers who support good investigative reporting, because many wouldn't have that much faith in a new reporter. (Read more)

Weekly and daily newspaper work together to give update about national story in their area

Large daily and small rural weekly newspapers don't often work together to write special reports, but when they do, the results can be well worth the effort. The Pueblo Chieftain and the weekly Johnstown Breeze collaborated on an update about the "Mortal Kombat" killing, in which Heather Trujillo, left, and her boyfriend were charged with the murder of Heather's seven-year-old sister, Zoe Garcia, by acting out moves from the video game.

When the story broke in 2007, it got national attention and was lauded as the example for why children shouldn't play violent video games. Steve Henson of The Chieftain and Matt Lubich of the Breeze report that the story is actually more complex, starting with the fact that Garcia's death had nothing to do with Mortal Kombat. It was more about Heather's violent boyfriend and her inability to stop his drunken rage that led to the beating death of Garcia.

The reporters write that the case was also about Heather's troubled upbringing, which included being born to a 13-year-old mother, at times raising some of her 10 younger siblings, many of whom had different fathers, and her struggles with drug and alcohol abuse. Henson and Lubich also report the story is about how the system sometimes fails those born into poverty with drug-addicted and neglectful parents. "To understand" this story, they write, "you need to come to terms with children having children, the numbing of logic brought on by reliance on bureaucracy, poverty, drug abuse and parental neglect." Heather is now 21 and is scheduled for release from the Colorado Department of Corrections Youthful Offender System in December.

Read part of Henson and Lubich's joint report here. The Breeze has the full story behind a pay wall, but it can be accessed for $1.