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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:53 pm
Time: 11:53 pm
Results for jails (montana)
1 results foundAuthor: American Civil Liberties Union of Montana Title: Locked in the Past: Montana's Jails in Crisis Summary: Despite heralding itself as a champion of freedom and human liberty, the United States has the second highest incarceration rate in the world, taking second only to the African nation of Seychelles. Of the incarcerated, statistics suggest that as many as 38% are being held in county detention centers and many of those inmates are held pre-trial. These pre-trial prisoners-an estimated 21.6% of all incarcerated Americans-are detained before guilt is proven in a court of law, weakening the proud American axiom that our citizens are "innocent until proven guilty." Problematically, many county detention centers lack adequate funding and struggle to effectively manage the incarcerated. The impacts these often-deplorable conditions can have on individuals and society as a whole are extremely far reaching. Neglect in county detention centers, coupled with a prevalence of mental illness, leads to a high rate of recidivism, which turns the justice system into a revolving door that is a blight on county, state, and federal budgets. Incarceration rates have started to decrease for the first time in decades, albeit at a glacial pace. The reduction of the incarceration rate is largely fueled by the financial realities and burdens of housing an historic number of prisoners at local, state, and federal levels. County detention centers play a unique role in this process in that they often house people on the front-end of the criminal justice system, such as pretrial detention, and can thus be addressed with different measures than state or federal prisons. County detention centers can improve through coercion, such as litigation, or through collaboration between entities with shared goals. The American Civil Liberties Union of Montana (ACLU) is eager to work with counties to improve detention center conditions, streamline local criminal justice policies, and help make counties more effective at screening, prosecuting, and housing the accused and convicted at local levels. The ACLU of Montana has worked collaboratively with counties throughout the state. For example, the ACLU helped Custer County officials come to grips with their deplorable and antiquated facility by passing a successful bond measure to renovate its facilities. The ACLU is currently working with Lewis & Clark County to assess options for pretrial release and other options for reducing their chronically over crowded facility. The ACLU of Montana is working statewide on substantive criminal justice reform that will allow the courts to respond to the unique needs of the accused on a path to rehabilitation, rather than warehousing them in county detention centers. The purpose of this report is to provide a comprehensive overview that identifies conditions of confinement in county detention centers throughout Montana and provide recommendations regarding how we might improve those conditions. The study utilized a three-prong methodology, including touring jails, interviewing administrators and prisoners, and sending a mixed-method questionnaire to all jail inmates in the state. We identified several overarching trends, including: - Overuse of solitary confinement for individuals with mental illness - Inadequate numbers of detention staff - Lack of access to fresh air - Lack of access to natural light and exercise - Inadequate medical and mental health care - Overcrowding - Lack of basic necessities such as underwear, socks, and bras - Unconstitutional prohibitions on visitation from minors and non-family members - Lack of access to law libraries - Inadequate or unworkable grievance procedures - Sub-par physical plant issues Details: Helena, MT: ACLU of Montana, 2015. 74p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 4, 2015 at: http://aclumontana.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/2015-ACLU-Jail-Report.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://aclumontana.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/2015-ACLU-Jail-Report.pdf Shelf Number: 134754 Keywords: Correctional AdministrationCorrectional InstitutionsDetention CentersJail OvercrowdingJails (Montana)Pretrial Detention |