Jade01
07-10-2005, 08:33 PM
Department of Correction data also show number of incarcerated women is rising
BY CHARLIE FRAGO ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
The familiar white jumpsuits worn by Arkansas prisoners increasingly are being filled by whites as the state’s Caucasian inmate population has surged to a clear-cut majority over the past 10 years, an increase fueled largely by methamphetamine convictions.
As of July 1, about 55 percent of the state’s 13,684 inmates were white — an almost exact reversal from 1995 when 54 percent of the inmates were black, according to data provided by the Department of Correction. In June 2004, whites became the majority in the prison system for the first time in recent memory, and their numbers since have only grown.
Methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant, has driven the increase, prison officials say, with 1,010 inmates serving methamphetamine-related sentences. All but nine are white. Crimes like writing hot checks and committing forgery — how addicts often support their habits — drive those numbers even higher, officials say.
"Ten years ago the drug problem was crack cocaine, and there was a lot of gang activity," said George Brewer, classification manager for the Department of Correction. "Now the biggest problem is meth, which is predominantly white — almost exclusively white."
So many white women have had methamphetamine convictions, in fact, that the prison system has run out of beds for them.
Since 1995, the number of incarcerated white females has increased 170 percent to 702 inmates while the number of black females incarcerated has declined slightly from 314 to 308. One hundred more women than men are being held in county jails awaiting space in state prison.
The Department of Correction hopes to ease this backlog by adding 200 beds for women at the Wrightsville Unit by March 2006 and another 200 beds at the all-female McPherson Unit, which is more than 100 inmates over capacity. The beds at McPherson won’t be available for more than a year.
"In 1998, we opened the McPherson Unit with 600 beds. Seven years later we had to add that many beds again," said Dina Tyler, spokesman for the department. "If you were to look at one big culprit: crystal meth. McPherson’s drug treatment is full all the time."
State lawmakers weighed in on the growing problem this spring when they passed legislation that can reduce prison time for methamphetamine offenders, who previously had to serve 70 percent of their sentences. Act 1034, signed into law in March, reduced the mandatory time for methamphetamine-related convictions to 50 percent for inmates who behave well in prison.
Some observers say such legislative attempts to address the consequences of drug convictions happen more quickly when whites are involved.
Others see them as practical responses to overcrowded prisons and a recognition that treatment, not incarceration, is the best solution.
What isn’t debated is the devastation wrought by methamphetamine in terms of its effects on families, communities and taxpayers. An offender sentenced to 10 years who serves 70 percent of that time costs the state more than $120,000.
Originally passed in 1995, Arkansas Code 16-93-611 made five violent crimes punishable under the 70 percent rule: first-degree murder, aggravated robbery, rape, kidnapping and causing a catastrophe. Methamphetamine production and possession of methamphetamine-making materials with intent to manufacture were added to the list in 1999.
The push to change the law came not because of race, but to control an exploding prison population, said state Sen. Jim Luker, D-Wynne, the bill’s sponsor.
"In spite of getting tough on crime, the population continued to grow by leaps and bounds, exceeding our ability to pay for it," Luker said, adding that lawmakers had come to recognize the tenacity of methamphetamine addiction and the need for treatment rather than long prison sentences.
The state pays about $47 a day to feed, house and provide medical care for an average inmate. In the past decade, as the prison population swelled by 50 percent, the Correction Department’s budget has increased from about $108 million to $247 million.
In Minnesota, after similar legislation passed this spring, a black legislator told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that the discussion about treatment and leniency for drug offenders only begins when whites start going to prison. Minnesota has seen its white inmate numbers skyrocket 12 percent in the five years since methamphetamine hit the state.
"The surest way to get sentencing reform is to over-incarcerate white people," said Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison of Minneapolis. "All of a sudden, folks want to talk about redemption."
The Rev. Rickey Hicks, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Arkansas, said scaling back the 70 percent rule itself wasn’t racially motivated but was a recognition "of the costs of warehousing misery."
Nonetheless, the Legislature’s actions illustrate a general principle, he said.
"It’s not only in the prisons. Whatever ills our society faces, when those ills are dropped at the doorstep of white America, you see reforms take place. When it only affects blacks and Hispanics, no one gives a darn."
Luker said race played no part in his support for the legislation. "Frankly, I don’t think I was ever aware of that change in the mix of the inmate population," he said.
Statewide, blacks make up about 15 percent of the general population, while they account for 45 percent of the state’s inmates. Whites make up 79 percent of the state’s more than 2.6 million residents, while Hispanics account for just under 4 percent, according to the most recent estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
During the 85th General Assembly, some black legislators approached Luker to ask why he didn’t push for similar legislation for crack cocaine, he said. "I told them that crack cocaine had never been subject to the 70 percent rule."
State Sen. Tracy Steele, DNorth Little Rock, is a black legislator who voted for the bill. He said he believes it will help reduce strain on a prison system that is already overloaded by nearly 2,000 inmates. But he expects his colleagues to offer support for sentencing changes for other categories of drug offenders in the next session.
"All drug offenses need to be looked at equally," he said, adding that there is "absolutely" more attention given to white methamphetamine offenders than blacks convicted of crackcocaine violations.
Overall, more than 2,800 of the state’s inmates are serving time for drug violations, accounting for about 21 percent of the total inmate population, compared with 13.4 percent in 1990 and 8.2 percent in 1980.
Even with the recent legal changes, long prison sentences for methamphetamine-related crimes can lead to disciplinary problems, said Marvin Evans, warden at the medium-security Tucker Unit.
"Folks serving that much time have a tendency not to be as concerned about doing the right things and trying to get out of prison because their release dates are so far in the future," he said.
A growth in white prison gangs has accompanied the upswing in white inmates, prison officials say. Evans said he has noticed that the white gangs "have been particularly violent in terms of how they go about practicing their craft."
In a letter to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, one white inmate, who asked that his name be withheld, boasted that white gangs are now the strongest at many units, something prison officials confirm.
"In the mid-90s, when I first came to prison blacks ran everything. ... Now we do hold the strongest gang in here," the 27-year-old inmate wrote, identifying himself as the leader of a "skinhead" faction called the "Wolfpack."
"There is not much talk about this in the free world here in Arkansas. When you hear of hate groups, people think of the KKK, but the KKK is nothing anymore, just some rednecks in the woods. It’s a new day and time," he wrote.
After being involved in violence at the medium-security Ouachita River Unit in Malvern, the inmate recently was transferred to the maximum-security Cummins Unit in Grady.
Arkansas’ percentages buck national patterns. Across the country, whites are a prison minority, accounting for just 36 percent of the 2.1 million inmates in prisons and jails, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
But Missouri and Tennessee, two neighboring states that also rank in the top five nationally for methamphetamine cases, have seen some of the same patterns.
In Missouri, the racial composition of its approximately 28,000 inmates has stayed fairly stable since 2000. Whites have increased 2 percent to 57 percent of all inmates there while blacks have declined an equal amount to 42 percent. But Missouri has seen a jump in white female inmates. Since 2000, 39 percent more white females have entered prison. Department of Corrections officials say the causes for this increase are being studied by a committee.
In Tennessee, the numbers of white inmates have shot up 25 percent since 1998, making whites a majority of the state’s 19,299 inmates. But the state doesn’t track methamphetamine offenders and hasn’t studied the reasons behind the racial shift. Department of Correction spokesman Amanda Sluss said "[it] could be something that’s not on our radar screen."
In Arkansas, methamphetamine hasn’t just changed the color of the inmate population. The predominantly white counties hit hardest by the drug also have been transformed. Realtors and homeowners struggle to cope with properties contaminated by methamphetamine labs. Schools scramble to meet the needs of children with incarcerated parents.
Marti Wilkerson, a rehabilitation science professor at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, pointed to a dispiriting string of statistics for Pope, Johnson and Franklin counties. In 2003 and part of 2004, 52 percent of all felonies involved methamphetamines. Methamphetamine-related crimes have increased 114 percent in the three counties since 1997.
"Everybody in the community in one way or another will be affected by the methamphetamine problem," Wilkerson said. "A lot of people that we see, many of them will have one person in their family that has an addiction problem. It’s devastating for the family."
Especially hurt are the children, said Dee Ann Newell, director of parenting services for Arkansas Voice for the Children Left Behind, an advocacy group for youngsters with incarcerated parents.
Newell said that between 60,000 to 70,000 children in the state have had at least one parent in prison during their childhood, more and more because of methamphetamine convictions. Those children are seven to eight times more likely to go to prison themselves, according to studies. In addition, their suicide rates are 11 percent higher than any other group of highrisk kids. Newell knows of one child who had to move 13 times between various relatives.
"It’s a family affair," Newell said of methamphetamine addiction and its consequences. "It’s a devastating drug."
BY CHARLIE FRAGO ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
The familiar white jumpsuits worn by Arkansas prisoners increasingly are being filled by whites as the state’s Caucasian inmate population has surged to a clear-cut majority over the past 10 years, an increase fueled largely by methamphetamine convictions.
As of July 1, about 55 percent of the state’s 13,684 inmates were white — an almost exact reversal from 1995 when 54 percent of the inmates were black, according to data provided by the Department of Correction. In June 2004, whites became the majority in the prison system for the first time in recent memory, and their numbers since have only grown.
Methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant, has driven the increase, prison officials say, with 1,010 inmates serving methamphetamine-related sentences. All but nine are white. Crimes like writing hot checks and committing forgery — how addicts often support their habits — drive those numbers even higher, officials say.
"Ten years ago the drug problem was crack cocaine, and there was a lot of gang activity," said George Brewer, classification manager for the Department of Correction. "Now the biggest problem is meth, which is predominantly white — almost exclusively white."
So many white women have had methamphetamine convictions, in fact, that the prison system has run out of beds for them.
Since 1995, the number of incarcerated white females has increased 170 percent to 702 inmates while the number of black females incarcerated has declined slightly from 314 to 308. One hundred more women than men are being held in county jails awaiting space in state prison.
The Department of Correction hopes to ease this backlog by adding 200 beds for women at the Wrightsville Unit by March 2006 and another 200 beds at the all-female McPherson Unit, which is more than 100 inmates over capacity. The beds at McPherson won’t be available for more than a year.
"In 1998, we opened the McPherson Unit with 600 beds. Seven years later we had to add that many beds again," said Dina Tyler, spokesman for the department. "If you were to look at one big culprit: crystal meth. McPherson’s drug treatment is full all the time."
State lawmakers weighed in on the growing problem this spring when they passed legislation that can reduce prison time for methamphetamine offenders, who previously had to serve 70 percent of their sentences. Act 1034, signed into law in March, reduced the mandatory time for methamphetamine-related convictions to 50 percent for inmates who behave well in prison.
Some observers say such legislative attempts to address the consequences of drug convictions happen more quickly when whites are involved.
Others see them as practical responses to overcrowded prisons and a recognition that treatment, not incarceration, is the best solution.
What isn’t debated is the devastation wrought by methamphetamine in terms of its effects on families, communities and taxpayers. An offender sentenced to 10 years who serves 70 percent of that time costs the state more than $120,000.
Originally passed in 1995, Arkansas Code 16-93-611 made five violent crimes punishable under the 70 percent rule: first-degree murder, aggravated robbery, rape, kidnapping and causing a catastrophe. Methamphetamine production and possession of methamphetamine-making materials with intent to manufacture were added to the list in 1999.
The push to change the law came not because of race, but to control an exploding prison population, said state Sen. Jim Luker, D-Wynne, the bill’s sponsor.
"In spite of getting tough on crime, the population continued to grow by leaps and bounds, exceeding our ability to pay for it," Luker said, adding that lawmakers had come to recognize the tenacity of methamphetamine addiction and the need for treatment rather than long prison sentences.
The state pays about $47 a day to feed, house and provide medical care for an average inmate. In the past decade, as the prison population swelled by 50 percent, the Correction Department’s budget has increased from about $108 million to $247 million.
In Minnesota, after similar legislation passed this spring, a black legislator told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that the discussion about treatment and leniency for drug offenders only begins when whites start going to prison. Minnesota has seen its white inmate numbers skyrocket 12 percent in the five years since methamphetamine hit the state.
"The surest way to get sentencing reform is to over-incarcerate white people," said Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison of Minneapolis. "All of a sudden, folks want to talk about redemption."
The Rev. Rickey Hicks, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Arkansas, said scaling back the 70 percent rule itself wasn’t racially motivated but was a recognition "of the costs of warehousing misery."
Nonetheless, the Legislature’s actions illustrate a general principle, he said.
"It’s not only in the prisons. Whatever ills our society faces, when those ills are dropped at the doorstep of white America, you see reforms take place. When it only affects blacks and Hispanics, no one gives a darn."
Luker said race played no part in his support for the legislation. "Frankly, I don’t think I was ever aware of that change in the mix of the inmate population," he said.
Statewide, blacks make up about 15 percent of the general population, while they account for 45 percent of the state’s inmates. Whites make up 79 percent of the state’s more than 2.6 million residents, while Hispanics account for just under 4 percent, according to the most recent estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
During the 85th General Assembly, some black legislators approached Luker to ask why he didn’t push for similar legislation for crack cocaine, he said. "I told them that crack cocaine had never been subject to the 70 percent rule."
State Sen. Tracy Steele, DNorth Little Rock, is a black legislator who voted for the bill. He said he believes it will help reduce strain on a prison system that is already overloaded by nearly 2,000 inmates. But he expects his colleagues to offer support for sentencing changes for other categories of drug offenders in the next session.
"All drug offenses need to be looked at equally," he said, adding that there is "absolutely" more attention given to white methamphetamine offenders than blacks convicted of crackcocaine violations.
Overall, more than 2,800 of the state’s inmates are serving time for drug violations, accounting for about 21 percent of the total inmate population, compared with 13.4 percent in 1990 and 8.2 percent in 1980.
Even with the recent legal changes, long prison sentences for methamphetamine-related crimes can lead to disciplinary problems, said Marvin Evans, warden at the medium-security Tucker Unit.
"Folks serving that much time have a tendency not to be as concerned about doing the right things and trying to get out of prison because their release dates are so far in the future," he said.
A growth in white prison gangs has accompanied the upswing in white inmates, prison officials say. Evans said he has noticed that the white gangs "have been particularly violent in terms of how they go about practicing their craft."
In a letter to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, one white inmate, who asked that his name be withheld, boasted that white gangs are now the strongest at many units, something prison officials confirm.
"In the mid-90s, when I first came to prison blacks ran everything. ... Now we do hold the strongest gang in here," the 27-year-old inmate wrote, identifying himself as the leader of a "skinhead" faction called the "Wolfpack."
"There is not much talk about this in the free world here in Arkansas. When you hear of hate groups, people think of the KKK, but the KKK is nothing anymore, just some rednecks in the woods. It’s a new day and time," he wrote.
After being involved in violence at the medium-security Ouachita River Unit in Malvern, the inmate recently was transferred to the maximum-security Cummins Unit in Grady.
Arkansas’ percentages buck national patterns. Across the country, whites are a prison minority, accounting for just 36 percent of the 2.1 million inmates in prisons and jails, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
But Missouri and Tennessee, two neighboring states that also rank in the top five nationally for methamphetamine cases, have seen some of the same patterns.
In Missouri, the racial composition of its approximately 28,000 inmates has stayed fairly stable since 2000. Whites have increased 2 percent to 57 percent of all inmates there while blacks have declined an equal amount to 42 percent. But Missouri has seen a jump in white female inmates. Since 2000, 39 percent more white females have entered prison. Department of Corrections officials say the causes for this increase are being studied by a committee.
In Tennessee, the numbers of white inmates have shot up 25 percent since 1998, making whites a majority of the state’s 19,299 inmates. But the state doesn’t track methamphetamine offenders and hasn’t studied the reasons behind the racial shift. Department of Correction spokesman Amanda Sluss said "[it] could be something that’s not on our radar screen."
In Arkansas, methamphetamine hasn’t just changed the color of the inmate population. The predominantly white counties hit hardest by the drug also have been transformed. Realtors and homeowners struggle to cope with properties contaminated by methamphetamine labs. Schools scramble to meet the needs of children with incarcerated parents.
Marti Wilkerson, a rehabilitation science professor at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, pointed to a dispiriting string of statistics for Pope, Johnson and Franklin counties. In 2003 and part of 2004, 52 percent of all felonies involved methamphetamines. Methamphetamine-related crimes have increased 114 percent in the three counties since 1997.
"Everybody in the community in one way or another will be affected by the methamphetamine problem," Wilkerson said. "A lot of people that we see, many of them will have one person in their family that has an addiction problem. It’s devastating for the family."
Especially hurt are the children, said Dee Ann Newell, director of parenting services for Arkansas Voice for the Children Left Behind, an advocacy group for youngsters with incarcerated parents.
Newell said that between 60,000 to 70,000 children in the state have had at least one parent in prison during their childhood, more and more because of methamphetamine convictions. Those children are seven to eight times more likely to go to prison themselves, according to studies. In addition, their suicide rates are 11 percent higher than any other group of highrisk kids. Newell knows of one child who had to move 13 times between various relatives.
"It’s a family affair," Newell said of methamphetamine addiction and its consequences. "It’s a devastating drug."