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LOSANGELESHisbeatingstunnedthenation,left Los Angeles smolderingand helped reshape race relations andpolice tactics.And in a quavering voiceon national television, Rodney King

pleaded for peace while the cityburned.But peace never

quite came for King not after the fires dieddown, after two of theofficers who broke hisskull multiple timeswere punished, afterLos Angeles and itsflawed police depart-ment moved forward.His life, which ended

Sunday at age 47 after he was pulledfrom the bottom of his swimming pool,was a continual struggle even as thecity he helpedchange moved on.

Theimages preservedon an infa-mousgrainyvideooftheblackdrivercurled up on the ground while four

white officers clubbed him over 50times with batons becamea nationalsymbol of police brutality in1991. Morethan a year later, when the officers ac-quittalstouched offone of themost de-structive race riots in history, hisscarred face and soft-spoken questionCanweallgetalong?spurredthenation to confront its difficult racialhistory.

ButwhileLos Angelesrace relationsand the citys police department madestrides forward, King kept coming be-fore police and courts, struggling withalcohol addiction and arrests, periodi-cally reappearing publiclyfor a stint onCelebrityRehaboracelebrityboxingmatch. He spent the last months of hislife promoting a memoir he titled TheRiot Within: From Rebellion to Re-

demption.

Life was

constantstruggleInfamous 1991 beatingset off deadly L.A. riots

By Anthony McCartneyAssociated Press

King

See KING,PageA2

RODNEY KING,1965-2012

Until recently, Christian County offi-cials saw their jail in Hopkinsville as amoneymaker.

Knowing they could increase revenueby housing state prisoners as well ascounty inmates,they expandedthe jailgrowingitfrom94bedsinthe1990sto707beds today.

It took in as much as $200,000 morethanit neededto cover itsexpenses someyears, meaning that the county coffers

didnt have to help cover costs, JailerBrad Boyd said.

Butnow because the statehas start-

ed releasingprisoners earlyto savemon-ey and help with rehabilitation it hasmore beds than it needs.

So far this year, more than 2,100 stateinmates have been released up to sixmonths earlier than their original sen-tences.

And the issue is not unique to theChristian County jail, which has seen 58state inmates released early and mayneed $2.5 million from the county in thecomingyear to help offsetlosses.

County jails across Kentucky havebeen overbuilt because, as in ChristianCounty, they were expanded to make

room for state prisoners. The 19,727 jail

EARLY-RELEASE PLAN

ARRESTS JAIL PROFITS

Oldham CountyJail inmates NathanRobinson,left, andJeffrey Bell open bags of recyclingitems andsort them at the OldhamCountyRecycling Center. Jail inmatesmake upmost of thestaff at thecenter in Buckner. MICHAELCLEVENGER/THECOURIER-JOURNAL

0

5

10

15

20,000

00 02 04 06 08 10 12

KENTUCKY JAIL BEDS

SOURCE:KentuckyDepartment of CorrectionsTHE COURIER-JOURNAL

10,477

19,727

Many counties feeling pinch as states needs decrease

By Emily Hagedornehagedorn@courier-journal.com

The Courier-Journal

SeeRELEASE, Page A5

After years of working in the tire busi-ness, with its noisy air tools, Tony Vitalewas having trouble hearing people.

Butlike manypeoplewith hearing loss,Vitale, 83, put off getting his hearingchecked until his family noticed the prob-lem, and his son, Dr. Gary Vitale, whos asurgeon, urged himto seea doctor.

A lot of times somebody would saysomething and I didnt understand it be-cause it wasnt clear and I would just sortofignoreit andgo along withtheconversa-tion, said Tony Vitale, who now has twohearing aids that have allowed him to re-

sume a normal life at his Louisville homeand to enjoy his hobby playing the gui-tar.

To helppeoplelikeVitaleand their fam-ilies, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association has launched a na-tional publicity campaign to encourageolder peoplewho havea suspected hearingloss to come forward fortreatment.

The campaign, called Speak Up AboutHearing Loss, hasa simplebut importantaim: to put hearing loss among older peo-ple on the family kitchen table for discus-sion that will hopefullylead to action, as-sociationPresidentShellyChabonsaidin astatement.TonyVitale participates in a hearing test lastmonth. Vitale,who

now hastwo hearing aids, said he hadinitially ignored problemswithhis hearing. MICHAELCLEVENGER/THECOURIER-JOURNAL

Campaign aims to end the silenceabout hearing loss among elderlyBy Darla Carterdcarter@courier-journal.com

The Courier-Journal

SeeCAMPAIGN, Page A4

IN THEPRIMEGo along for ahearing test atthe HeuserHearing Institute

through a video,along withinformation onfood, fitness,finance and funfor a healthylifestyle, atwww.courier-

journal.com/prime

DOES NEWSROOM GET ITRIGHT? Journalists from WAVE-TV weigh in on the strengths,weaknesses of HBO series.

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7/29/2019 Early-release plan arrests jail profits

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beds that exist statewidetoday arenearlydoublethenumber Kentuckys coun-ties had in 2000.

According to the state,Bullitt County expandedfrom 56 beds to 305, Old-ham from 80 to 115; Shelby

from 137 to 312 and Hardinfrom 383 to 646. In Louis-ville, Metro Correctionsexpanded from 1,213 to1,774 beds, butthe increasewas not to house state in-mates.

Fewer state prisonerscould be good for the state its expected to save$40 million over a year buthardon counties,whichalso rely on inmates forfree labor.

Its costing a bunch ofmoney, no doubt about it,said Christian CountyJudge-Executive SteveTribble.

A cottageindustryKentuckys situation is

unusual because roughlyone-third of all state andfederal prisoners in Ken-tucky are housed in countyjails, according to the U.S.Justice Department. Thatssecond only to Louisiana(52 percent).

Most states avoid thepractice.

Using jails doesntmake sense from a correc-tions pointof view becauseit causes all sorts of prob-lems, said James Austin,an expert on criminal jus-tice practices and presi-

dent of the JFA Institute inWashington, D.C.Austin, who has also ad-

vised Kentucky legislatorson corrections issues, saidthe problems include re-quiring parole boards totravel to jails to conducthearingsandprisoners fac-ing different conditions ofconfinement, dependingonthe jail.

Kentuckys shift towardhousing state prisoners injails largely began with alaw in the early 1990s thatrequiredmost Class D felo-ny offenders people con-victed of nonviolent, lessserious offenses with sen-

tences of less than fiveyears toservetheir timein county jails, rather thanin state prisons, whichwere overcrowded.

Eventually some ClassC felons, who serve five to10 years for more seriouscrimes,wereaddedaswell.

The law was seen as acost-saving measure forthe state. Rather thanbuild more prisons, wecould house them in jails,state Rep. John Tilley said.

And many counties sawit as an opportunity.

For some of thesecounties, it was almost acottage industry, state

Sen. Tom Jensen said.They went out and builtsomereallynicefacilities.

Take the Fulton CountyDetention Center in West-ern Kentucky, for example.

It had just 19 beds butnow has more than 350 af-ter four additions. We hadplenty of inmates, FultonCounty Jailer Ricky Par-nell said.

Athisfacility,closeto70inmates have been re-leasedearlythisyearthemost of any jail. Whilesome of these beds havebeen filled by other felons,the loss has left the jail fi-nancially strapped. Parnelllaid off six deputy jailers,andhefearsmorecutsmaybe on the way.

Illneverbeabletohirethose peopleback,he said.

No state guaranteeThe state Department

of Corrections didnt guar-antee that any jail wouldgetenoughstateinmatestofill it, spokeswoman LisaLamb said.

Justice and Public Safe-ty Cabinet Secretary J. Mi-chael Brown said thestates goal is to reduce thenumberof people incarcer-ated notto help fill coun-ty jails.

Werecognize thesitua-tionthatthecountiesarein,but it is certainly not goodpublic policy to try to gen-erate prisoners, he said.

Brown said the lawpassed last year Tilley

and Jensen were its mainsupporters enacted sev-eral significant changes inthe state criminal justicesystem, including early re-lease, and it will help inmoreways thanjustsavingmoney for the state.

More early releasesThe early-release pro-gram aims to let out morethan 3,000 inmates thisyear, and ofthe inmates re-leased earlyso far, roughlyhalf have come from jails.

The fewer people wehave in prisons and wedont have to spend moneyon them, the more we canpump that into otherareas, Brown said.

The new law also wasdesigned to help prisonersfind jobs and homes, and itaims to reduce recidivism.

Close to 20 percent ofthe inmates who have beenreleased early this year al-

ready have violated termsof their release or re-of-fended, with many of thecrimes being alcohol- ordrug-related. While offi-cialssay its tooearly totellif that statistic will stick, itis still halfof thehistorical-ly 40 percent of prisonerswho commit crimes afterbeing released.

A portion of the savingsfrom the bill are also beingset aside in a special fundthat jails can pull from inthe future.

Jailwork crews hitThe Kentucky Jailers

Association, the Kentucky

Association of Countiesand the Kentucky CountyJudge-Executive Associa-tion are among the groupsthat endorsed the early-re-lease law even thoughthey knew they might suf-fer.

Longterm,thats reallygoing to be a lot of savingsfor the state and counties,said Richard Tanner, exec-utive director of the Ken-tucky Magistrates andCommissioners Associa-tion, which also endorsedthe bill. Temporarily, itwill bea bump inthe road.

But it may be a bumpthat some counties findhard to get over.

Counties receive$31.34 per day to house astate inmate.

TheDaviess County De-tention Center in Owens-boro, for example, wasdown atone pointabout100inmates from a couple ofyears ago, said Jailer Da-vidOsborne. Thereductionwas equal to about $1 mil-lion annually.

If I dont have thosestateinmates,Ihaveemptybeds, and I still have thesame amountofareaI haveto cover with personnel,he said.

Because their crimesare usually nonviolent, thestate inmates are oftenconsidered perfect candi-dates for public workcrews, which providelaborat no cost to the counties.

So whenthoseprisoners

are released early, thereare fewer crew memberswho can perform thosetasks, and without thathelp, counties may have tohire people for those du-ties.

For example, in OldhamCounty, jail inmates make

up most of the staff at therecycling center in Buck-ner.

Bullitt County regularlyhas 10 to 12 inmates out inthe community at a time,picking up trash alongroadways and mowinggrass on county property.Bullitt Jailer Martha Knoxsaid her jail suffered asmall blow with the lossof six inmates.

A lot of communitiesrely on those work crews.Thats a great program,Tilley said. But at the endof the day, thats still not afree ride. The taxpayerfoots the bill for those

crews.Besides the early-re-leaseprogram,the newlawallows police officers towrite citations, rather thanarrest alleged offenders,for some misdemeanors.

Thatcan further reducejail populations, but itsaves counties money be-cause they would be cover-ing the expenses of thoseinmates.

Private prisons eyedWhile jailers under-

stand their facilities mightlose prisoners because ofthe reforms, they have anideathat could inflate their

bottom lines: Close thestates private prisons.

I dont think we shouldbe helping the private sec-tor when weve got coun-ties that are suffering,said Parnell of FultonCounty.

Kentucky has two pri-vate prisons: the 656-bedOtter Creek CorrectionalCenter in Wheelwright andthe826-bedMarionAdjust-mentCenternear Lebanon.

Both are medium/mini-mum-security facilitiesand are managed by Nash-ville, Tenn.-based Correc-tions Corporation of Amer-ica.

Earlier this year, stateofficials announced thatthey would not renew thecontract with Otter Creek,and the facilityis expectedto shut down by the end ofJuly.

Some of those inmateswill bemovedto theNorth-point Training Center inBurgin,which is reopeningfollowing damage from ri-ots in 2009.

The contract with theMarion AdjustmentCenterwas recently approved foranother year.

But Brown, along withTilleyand Jenson,are infa-vorofmovingoutofpriva-tization.

While jails are paid$31.34 per day per state in-mate, the state pays Mar-ion Adjustment Center$37.99 a day for minimum-security inmates and

$47.98 perday formedium-security inmates. OtterCreek has been paid $44.26per day per inmate.

If they (the jails) canofferthoseservices,Ithinkthey should be able to getfirst crack at it, Tilleysaid.

MajoremployersThe private facilities

are major employers intheirtowns, though.Nearly200 people will be out of ajob when Otter Creekcloses, but CorrectionsCorporation of America ishelping employees findjobs at their other facili-ties, said spokesman SteveOwen.

The inmates at the pri-vate facilities are also ableto takeadvantageof educa-

tional and vocational ser-vices, along with drug re-habilitation, which jailsmight not have, he said.

You have to look at thescopeof servicesyourere-ceiving for the cost, Owensaid, adding that the pri-vate facilities are still

cheaper than the $60.02 itcosts on average to housean inmate in a state prisonper day.

Moving inmates housedat private prisons into thejails also fliesin thefaceofcurrent reforms, Austinsaid.

You already have a lotof people being housed atthelocallevel,andthestateshould be looking at waysto diminish that instead ofincreasing it, he said. Itsgoing to be a headache, I

think, of maintaining aqualityofcareatabunchofplaces (jails) as opposed toone place (the private pris-on).

But jailers, county offi-cials and others are quickto point out that theyve al-

ready housed these in-mates before.Those more hardened,

higher-security folks start-edoutin a countyjail ... be-fore they ever went to thestate, said Denny Nunnel-ley, executive director andCEOof theKentucky Asso-ciation of Counties.Theyve been there al-ready and were handledwell.

Reporter Emily Hagedorn can

be reached at (502) 582-4621.

RELEASE: Kentuckys need to house prisoners in county facilities dropsContinued from Page A1

Empty beds are seen in the Christian County Jails restricted custody center in Hopkinsville. Kentucky is releasingminimum- and medium-security inmates early to reduce the cost of housing them.PHOTO PROVIDEDBY STEPHENLANCEDENNEE

HOWEARLY

RELEASE

WORKS IN

KENTUCKY

To be released under themandatory re-entrysupervision program, an

inmate must meet sever-al qualifications. Theseinclude: Having six months orless left in sentence. Being eligible forparole. Having been sentencedinitially to two years ormore. Having not been con-victed of a capital of-fense or Class A felony. Having not been classi-fied as maximum or closesecurity. Having not previouslybeen released on manda-tory re-entry supervisionduring incarceration.

Offenders are reviewedfor eligibility when theirrelease date nears, and,upon approval, officialsbegin the process ofsecuring suitable homeand job placement.

Source: Kentucky Dept.of Corrections

THE COURIER-JOURNAL | MONDAY, JUNE 18, 2012 | A5FROM PAGE ONE | courier-journal.comKY

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