The facts of life in Iowa’s prisons

By Douglas Burns

Over the last three decades, Iowa’s prison population has skyrocketed — from a total of 2,276 inmates in 1980 to 8,492 last Thursday, according to the Iowa Department of Corrections.

That’s a 273 percent jump.

Is this reflective of an Iowa that’s a more frightening place — or looking at it the other way, a safer place — with three times as many people behind bars?

“I have about half the people when I speak say they feel no different than they did 25 years ago,” said Iowa Department of Corrections Director John Baldwin in an interview. “About half the people say, ‘I feel more threatened.’ ”

The population at Iowa’s nine prisons reached an all-time high of 9,009 last April, the Iowa Department of Human Rights reports.

What about the future?

Iowa’s prison population is expected to increase from 8,787 on June 30, 2011 to 11,300 on that same day in 2021 — a 29 percent increase, according to the Human Rights Department’s Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning.

It costs about $30,000 annually to house an Iowa prison inmate, Baldwin said.

The gothic Anamosa State Penitentiary has roots dating back to the 19th century.

By June 30, Iowa’s prison population is expected to exceed official capacity by about 1,615 inmates. Women’s facilities are expected to hold about 115 more inmates than the official capacity, and men’s prisons are expected to hold 1,500 more.

Bottom line: At the end of fiscal year 2012, the men’s prison population is projected to be 23 percent above capacity.

The opening of a new prison at Fort Madison in 2014 is likely to improve that situation, as there will be an addition of 120 beds.

There’s no great secret behind the increase in the prison population.

In separate interviews, Baldwin and Dr. Paul Stageberg, administrator of the Human Rights Department’s criminal division, cited three primary reasons: the war on drugs, mandatory sentencing and stronger provisions on sex crimes.

Drug crimes

The percent of inmates serving sentences for drug crimes — as their major offense — increased from 2 percent in 1988 to 23 percent in 2011. The number of admissions to the Iowa Department of Corrections prison system for drugs stood at 880 in fiscal year 2011. During that period the next highest figure for admission based on a crime was for assault — 479. By way of comparison, during fiscal year 2011, 40 people came into Iowa’s prisons for murder or manslaughter, just 25 were incarcerated for arson and 69 for robbery.

“Iowa should continue examining drug offenders and drug sentences to ensure that those committed to prison for drug offenses could not be handled more effectively elsewhere or, perhaps, handled in prison for shorter periods of time,” The Iowa Department of Human Rights recommends in its Fiscal Year 2011 to 2021 Iowa Prison Population Forecast.

According to that report, the prison population hike since 1990 came largely as a result of the Midwest methamphetamine epidemic — which has stabilized somewhat as law enforcement has effectively combated meth.

The drug-conviction numbers reveal a system in need of reform, said Art Neu, a former Iowa Republican lieutenant governor and 12-year member of the Iowa Board of Corrections.

“I don’t think people ought to be going to the penitentiary for marijuana,” Neu said. “I’d either decriminalize, it or I’d reduce it to some kind of a serious misdemeanor. I wouldn’t send anybody to one of our nine prisons on a marijuana conviction.”

Neu said Iowa should overhaul the state criminal code and examine all mandatory sentences “and in most cases reduce them.”

Marijuana may be the most frequently used illicit drug in Iowa, but meth-related offenses are the most likely to land people in prison, Stageberg said.

Of drug offenders admitted to prison during fiscal year 2011, 47 percent had offenses related to meth, Stageberg’s report says.

According to Stageberg, another factor in the drug numbers is the connection between the historically high rates of African-American incarceration in Iowa and drugs.

“As admissions for methamphetamines rose from the 1990s through 2004, the percentage of white drug admissions also rose, as meth tends to be a ‘white’ drug,” Stageberg said in his report. “As meth admissions dropped, however, there was a tendency for cocaine-related admissions — who are principally ‘black’ — to increase.”

African-American inmates in the state’s system was at 22.2 percent in 1991. Twenty years later, the figure stood at 25.1 percent.

Iowa’s population is 2.9 percent African-American according to the 2010 U.S. Census.

Stageberg’s report forecasts that the African-American percentage of the prison population will climb to 27.5 percent “in the coming years.”

Baldwin said the Iowa Department of Correction is working with community-based programs in an attempt to reduce the number of African-Americans in Iowa prisons by preventing crimes from occurring.

“We are working very hard particularly in Waterloo and Des Moines,” he said.

Education programs are key in this regard, Baldwin said.

In 1991, the percentage of Native American, Latino and Asian inmates (combined) in Iowa’s prisons was 3 percent. That number tripled to 9.3 percent in 2011.

Stageberg’s report says the big change in prison population will be with Hispanics — who are over-represented in OWI and drug crimes and assaults.

The report projects an increase in the number of Hispanic inmates in Iowa’s prisons from 586 in fiscal year 2011 to 1,152 at the end of fiscal year 2021. That projection is based solely on the anticipated increase in the population of Hispanics in Iowa as a whole.

The Human Rights Department report shows that the percentage of women in Iowa’s prisons has jumped from 5.3 in 1990 to a high of 8.8 percent in 2008.

Another issue at play is the aging of the prison population: The median age of prisoners in the system was 29 in 1991. Today it is 34.

One concern is that the number of inmates older than 50 will rise from 1,129 at the end of the current fiscal year to about 2,000 by 2021.

“I don’t know if you’re going to have to establish geriatric prisons,” Stageberg said.

A National Governors Association report showed that elderly inmates cost about $70,000 annually compared to $29,000 for the rest the prison population.

The median age for death of lifers in Iowa’s prison system has been 58 years.

In general, prisoners have more health issues than the general public because of lifestyle, Stageberg said.

“People who wind up in prison are typically people who haven’t taken very good care of themselves,” Stageberg said.

Drug and alcohol abuse and cigarette smoking rates of those entering the system are high, Stageberg said. Baldwin said 23 percent of the prisoners in Iowa have a “serious” mental illness.

“A lot of the people also have serious mental issues and what they do with the drugs sometimes, not always, is try to self medicate,” Neu said. “So what we have in the prison system now are a lot of people who are there for drug offenses.”

In many Iowa counties, there are few diversion programs for people with mental illnesses and substance abuse issues, meaning the criminal-justice system is a lodge of last resort for all those who slipped through an inadequate system.

“That’s not a good place to work with people who have mental-health issues,” Neu said. “Of course there are some people who have mental-health issues who are dangerous and those people have to be dealt with in the prison system. But we have a lot of people in prison who don’t need to be there.”

Sex offenders

In 2005, the Iowa Legislature passed tougher laws on sex offenders. This is also a major reason for a higher expected prison population going forward, according to the Human Rights Department report.

The number of offenders serving sentences for sex offenses is expected to increase from 1,270 to 2,222 by 2021.

Mandatory sentences

An even bigger factor than the sex-offender requirements is the Violent Crime Initiative, which went into effect in 1997 and mandated that offenders serve at least 85 percent of the maximum time for certain violent crimes. Changes to the law have set that figure at 70 percent for many of the offenders.

On May 9, the Iowa Department of Corrections expects to receive a report through its “Results First” program — a cost-benefit analysis that will review the system with a business-like model.

Baldwin expects to get results that address a number of the problems in Iowa’s prisons. CV