Nevada's prison population is rising far faster than experts had predicted and one of the reasons is that a smaller percentage of inmates are winning release from the parole board. But the parole board and prison officials disagree over why that is happening.
Dorla Salling of the Parole Commission told members of the legislative budget committees Wednesday they have been seeing a "harder" population of inmates appear before the board.
She said many more of the minor offenders including first-time drug offenders, are now being diverted into rehabilitation, house arrest and other alternative programs. She told lawmakers the inmates coming before the board seeking parole are more likely to be violent offenders, three-time losers or those serving time for major or multiple felonies.
"The pool of good candidates is very shallow. The people are getting tougher and the decision to allow them to come and live next door to the people of the state of Nevada is getting harder," she told the joint meeting of the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committees.
But Fritz Schlottman, of the Department of Corrections, said that doesn't jibe with their data. He said statistics show the number of inmates granted parole dropped 11.78 percent last year.
And as for the "hardening" of the prison population coming eligible for parole, he said the Department of Corrections consultants, who look closely at that kind of data, disagree. He said the percentage of inmates being denied parole is rising for both nonviolent and violent felonies.
"The grant rate (for parole) has been on a decreasing pattern for the last few years," he said. "Is the population for parole different than years before? Our consultant says for all classes of felonies, the denial rates are up across the board."
He said the percentage of candidate inmates who receive parole dropped from 57 percent to 52 percent over the past couple of years and that number includes nonviolent offenders as well as violent felons.
Schlottman said the other factor hurting the state prison system is that the courts are sending more criminals to prison than they were a few years ago. The result is 1,300 more inmates - including 115 additional females - over the past two years.
"And a different kind inmate is coming in," he said. "It was hardening for several years but this population is different. We have a substantial increase in the number of property offenders coming in."
He said a similar thing happened in 1994-95, also a period just after economic recession, "so there seems to be some economic component."
Prison officials have warned lawmakers they expect to need substantially more prison cells in the near future. Gov. Kenny Guinn's proposed budget includes three added housing units at High Desert State Prison for more than $58 million, millions more to open and staff the mothballed Southern Desert State Prison and the opening of Casa Grande transitional housing center for 400 more inmates.
Corrections Director Jackie Crawford said all those facilities will be necessary to handle the growth in the inmate population, which is now more than 11,000.
Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at nevadaappeal@sbcglobal.net or 687-8750.