Nebraska trying to improve prisons, but problems persist

June 13, 2016, 6:45 a.m. ·

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Tecumseh State Correctional Institution (Photo courtesy Nebraska Dept. of Correctional Services)

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Nebraska’s prisons have problems, including overcrowding, staff turnover, and a shortage of programs to help prisoners return to society. People are trying to change that. But big challenges remain.


By the end of 2014, Nebraska’s prisons had been in the news a lot: Hundreds of prisoners were released too early. Nikko Jenkins, released on time but directly out of solitary, killed four people. And the state’s prisons were holding nearly 60 percent more people than they were designed to hold.

Gov. Pete Ricketts took office promising to get the prison system back on track. He appointed Scott Frakes, then deputy director of prisons in Washington state, to get the job done.

Scott Frakes (Photo courtesy Nebraska Dept. of Correctional Services)

Frakes has been on the job almost a year and half now. How does he think it’s going?

“We’re continuing to make progress,” he said, pointing to things like legislative approval of a $27 million, 148-bed expansion of the Community Correctional Center in Lincoln, a work-release facility.

Nebraska prison overcrowding (Graphic by Tim Svoboda, NET)

At the same time, Frakes acknowledges overcrowding continues to be a problem.

“There’s no question that we’re crowded,” he said. However, he adds, overcrowding’s biggest impact on prisoners is “not about the size of their cell – the place where they sleep. It’s about all the surrounding amenities and supporting structures that provide for a quality of life within our prison system. So it’s that dining hall that’s too small, that visiting room that’s too small, the lack of adequate recreation space, the lack of adequate programming space.”

Adding 148 beds will shave about 5 percentage points off the nearly 60 percent overcrowding. Senator Les Seiler, chairman of the Legislature’s special prison oversight committee, says a much bigger effect is expected from sentencing changes approved by the Legislature last year.

Sen. Les Seiler (Photo courtesy Nebraska Legislature)

“It is a new method of taking people with less violent crimes and giving them supervised release rather than putting them 3-4 years in the state penitentiary,” Seiler said. “That should reduce the number of people in the prison system.”

Seiler said sentencing changes have had that effect in South Carolina and Georgia, with the latter state closing three prisons in five years. If the changes in Nebraska do what projections say, that will leave this state’s prisons still almost 40 percent above design capacity.

Sen. Kate Bolz, also on the prison oversight committee, mentions another concern -- making sure the acute needs of people with behavioral and mental health problems are met within the system – “that we’re responding to them adequately and that the behavioral health staff is available to them when they need it.”

Sen. Kate Bolz (Photo courtesy Nebraska Legislature)

Bolz has been trying to figure out if there are enough trained staff to handle the demand. Frakes said that’s hard to know.

“We’re still trying to figure out if we have all the resources we need," he said, adding, “Today, the biggest challenge would be filling and keeping full the positions that we have allocated. Without that, it’s difficult to know for sure whether or not we have enough resources because we continue to struggle, especially with psychologists.”

Staffing in other areas is another concern. Frakes said turnover last year among protective services workers – staff members who work with inmates – was 33 percent. He said it‘s lower this year, but his department is still struggling. (To see Frakes' testimony before a legislative committee on this and other issues in April, click here).

One thing that makes it a struggle is pay.

“The pay is much higher in the county jails than it is in the prison system,” said James Davis III, deputy ombudsman for corrections.

Deputy Ombudsman for Corrections James Davis III (Photo by Fred Knapp, NET News)

Davis points to Douglas, Lancaster and Hall Counties. While starting pay for a state corrections officer is $15.49 an hour, corrections officers in those counties start around sixteen and a half to nearly eighteen dollars an hour. And while county officers get raises for years of service, someone hired by the state a dozen years ago gets the same pay as a newcomer. Changing that could cost millions, at a time when the state is facing a budget shortfall.

In addition to overcrowding, behavioral and mental health services, and staffing, Davis raises another concern as well – overuse of restrictive housing. Of the roughly 5,100 state prisoners, 335 are in restrictive housing, meaning they have limited contact with others, strictly controlled movements while out of their cells, and out-of-cell time of less than 24 hours a week.

The Legislature passed a law last year aimed at reducing the use of restrictive housing. Frakes says the Department is trying to do that.

“We’re always working towards the goal of only putting the people in restrictive housing that present a justifiable risk, and that we only maintain those in restrictive housing that continue to demonstrate some level of risk,” Frakes said. “If we’re going to keep them there for a longer period of time, we will provide programming and other interventions to reduce that risk. And as soon as we can get them out to a general population bed – some appropriate housing outside restrictive housing -- that’s where they go,” he added.

Nebraska’s prison system is continuing to deal with these and other issues, ranging from assaults on staff to the adequacy of programs to prepare inmates for parole.

“From my perspective, we still have serious problems that we need to address,” Davis said.

Frakes says problems are being addressed.

“We have an incredible number of pieces in motion in this department at this time -- a lot of good work,” he said.

How well, and how quickly that work is done will have an effect on prisoners, prison staff, and the entire state of Nebraska.

Editor’s note: NET News will air a half-hour special, “Nebraska Prison Reform,” a discussion program on our state’s prisons, Thursday June 16 at 6:30 p.m. Central on NET Radio and 8 p.m. Central on NET Television.