Courts turn to probation with life skills classes

Criminals in Cook County looking to avoid prison can't just strap on electronic home monitoring bracelets and visit probation officers anymore.

Many of them now have to attend classes to learn the everyday skills many people take for granted, like balancing a checkbook, holding down a job or getting along with others.

"At first, they are not happy about it," said Jose Reyes, chief of adult probation. "But we are finding that many will often go back to their probation officers and say they are glad we made them do that."

Illinois officials hope that by targeting the underlying reasons people commit crimes they can break the cycle, saving taxpayers money.

It's a change in the philosophy of how to approach offenders eligible for probation and how to allocate resources in local state's attorney's offices.

"We are getting away from the one-sentence-fits-all approach," said Kane County Chief Judge Donald Hudson, who is helping spearhead the change as chairman of the Illinois Supreme Court committee on criminal law and probation.

Studies show classes and counseling can keep people out of prison. And that can often be accomplished without costing taxpayers more money.

The Washington State Institute for Public Policy compared 571 alternative sentencing programs throughout the country and found recidivism could be reduced by 3 percent to 20 percent in most cases. That saved thousands of dollars in victim, court and law enforcement costs for each defendant successfully breaking the cycle of crime, according to the 2006 report.

Illinois is working with the National Institute of Corrections to determine which programs work and which don't.

Cook County pilot sites have been testing the alternative sentencing since 2004. It's too early for statistical validation, but anecdotally it seems to put not-yet-hardened criminals on the right track, Reyes said.

"This is a whole new wave of the future," Hudson said.

A small number of specialty courts, such as those that focus on drug treatment in lieu of jail time, exist already. But experts are looking to standardize evaluations of offenders, widen the type of services offered and create better communication among judges, police, probation officers and community social service groups to make sure no one falls through the cracks.

Previously, problems in many instances were addressed but the evaluations didn't reveal the deeper reasons.

For example, a person might be ordered to get treatment for addiction, but mental disorders, domestic violence, or a lack of self-esteem due to minimal work skills could be fueling the addiction. Without addressing those causes, the addiction is likely to recur and lead the person back into trouble.

"In Illinois, we did try to do more of a systematic approach," said Dot Faust, correctional program specialist with the national corrections institute. "Everyone says they support public safety. But you have to ask, 'What do you mean by public safety?' If you mean a person is going to quit doing crimes, this is what the research shows will do that."

The agency plans to publish a report on the Illinois and Maine pilot programs this winter. Hudson and Lake County Chief Judge Chris Starck will outline the change in sentencing attitudes on local cable channels this month on "Judicial Perspective," a talk show sponsored by the Illinois Judges Association.

Cook County has more than 200 offenders on probation using the new sentencing styles in each of two sites: one in Skokie and one in Chicago. Offenders get a battery of evaluations to determine if they need help targeting issues including mental health, substance abuse and family counseling.

The evaluations will become standard for all Cook County probationers within 12 months, with help from a U.S. Bureau of Justice training grant recently applied for.

Probation departments and judges in the rest of the state are undergoing training. The new approach will be phased in over time, Hudson said.

The move toward rehabilitation and away from warehousing prisoners can be cyclical. But, experts say, increasingly savvy taxpayers who demand evidence-based results combined with budget crunches could force the pendulum of offender treatment to stay here for good.

"The ideas is if you provide (inmates) the right services, they won't need us again," Reyes said.

A 2007 Pew Charities Trust report on public safety estimates the nation will need $12.5 billion for new prison construction and $15 billion in new operating funds by 2011.

In Illinois, it costs about $23,000 a year to house an inmate. Illinois prisons already are 35 percent over capacity, according to a 2005 Illinois Department of Corrections year-end report, the most recent available.

Inmate numbers have risen by 18 percent and state general fund corrections spending by 70 percent in the last decade.

"All these programs we thought worked don't work," Hudson said. "Supervision, electronic home monitoring, you are just putting the person on ice. They are not learning to change."

But the new programs don't work for everyone. Nor do they work on who you might think.

Life skills works for youths but not adults. Juveniles do not respond as well to drug courts as do adults. Boot camps work for neither, experts say.

The public traditionally clamors for tougher sentences on adults and an array of restrictions like fines, community service and counseling on youthful offenders to scare them straight. When 16 teens were charged in a fatal 2005 brawl in Plato Township, residents decried the fact that none of the teens originally were sentenced to prison and that they were given passes on frequent violations of their probations.

"With low-level offenders, the more you give them to do the more likely they are to commit more crimes," said Lake County Chief Judge Chris Starck.

They become more exposed and acclimated to the criminal life, Faust said.

But convincing even judges of that isn't easy, Starck said.

Lake County has been dabbling with alternative sentences for about 20 years, focusing on modifying high-risk offenders' behavior.

"If you get a ticket, you are embarrassed. But for some of the population, going to prison and going to jail is just what you do," Starck said.

Lake County aims to change that attitude through programs that increase self-esteem, job training or encouraging the earning of high school diplomas.

"The big thing with these programs is we want to keep them from coming back," Starck said. "We are seeing people come back in the system less than we used to."