With the nation's prison population standing at about 1.3 million and invovlving 200,000 corrections officers, many inmates still must live in dangerous, substandard conditions.
Six years ago, the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute launched a $10 million project funded by Arnold Ventures to "shine a much-needed light" on prison conditions and strategies to promote the well-being of prisoners and corrections employees.
The project centered on five states -- Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Missouri and Vermont -- with the idea of establishing "a model of transparency, accountability and innovation" in at least one prison in each state.
Results are not yet in -- the project will not conclude until year's end -- but its leaders gathered last week at the Urban Institute to review progress so far.
A key instigator of the effort was Jeremy Travis, former director of criminal justice at Arnold Ventures and a longtime expert on the nation's corrections system.
In a concluding talk at the session, Travis took note of correction leaders' "new way of thinking about their profession ... moving from a law enforcement culture to a social-service culture."
Travis and other speakers said that historically, prisons have concentrated on maintaining order. Now there is more emphasis on encouraging inmates to develop better job skills and improve their health, with a large number suffering from the effects of drug abuse and other illnesses.
The project has encountered setbacks, as much of it has been conducted during the COVID pandemic amid staffing shortages and the fact that "the corrections sector is way behind other sectors in technology," as Travis put it.
One project discussed was the Missouri Prison Transformation Project, an ongoing five-year study on how improved prison conditions affect inmates' conduct violations and recidivism.
Selected prisoners will move from the general population to newly renovated housing units, which feature more home-like conditions, reports KOMU.
The Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Vandalia is the first Missouri prison to take part in the test program. Three other prisons will join later.
The Vandalia prison has two newly renovated housing wings that will house 96 residents with three residents in each room. This is an improvement from six residents per room in the general population areas. The new rooms have curtains and beds with double mattresses, comforts not available to the general population.
The goal is to provide conditions "mirroring the outside community as much as possible," University of Missouri researcher Kelli Canada told the Urban Institute session.
“It’s beautiful. It feels like you’re at home,” Olivia Ingleton, who is serving a seven-year sentence in the Vandalia facility, told KOMU. “I didn’t expect to see something so beautiful in such a mean place.”
The improvement project also hopes to attract and retain more prison staff members. Former Missouri corrections director Anne Precythe noted that many prisons are located in rural areas, where an increasing number of local residents have been reluctant to take prison jobs.
Vermont corrections director Nick Deml said prisons need more staffers with social work skills, a change opposed by some workers' unions. He called the overall prison staffing model "fundamentally flawed."
Another project discussed at the conference was "Restoring Promise," a federally supported effort led by the Vera Institute of Justice to improve housing in South Carolina prisons "so that they are grounded in dignity for young adults."
Providing inmates aged 18 to 25 with a meaningful daily schedule of specialized education has transformed the prison culture and and resulted in a 73 percent reduction in violent infractions, said Vera's Chlor Aquart.
Overall, said the Urban Institute's Jocelyn Fontaine, the project is working to "increase the transparency and accountability" of prisons.
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