Iowa's prison chief worries over spike in state's violent crime data

Iowa is one of only two states nationally that has had increases in arrests in all four main categories of violent crimes over the past decade, which represents a troubling trend, the state's top prison administrator said Wednesday.

Iowa Corrections Director Jerry Bartruff said at the same time, the rate of offenders convicted of violent crimes who are returning to prison is on a slow, but steady rise.

"So if you see an increase in crime in the community and an increase in crime of people who have been returned to the community, that tells me we have something that we need to do differently," Bartruff told Gov. Kim Reynolds during a budget presentation at the Iowa Capitol.

If those trends continue, it poses the likelihood of more Iowans becoming crime victims and increased costs to taxpayers to house more violent offenders behind bars, Bartruff added.

The violent crime data, obtained from FBI uniform crime reports, includes homicide, robbery, rape and aggravated assault. The analysis was done by the Council of State Governments Justice Center and presented at a recent 50-State Summit on Public Safety that Bartruff attended in Washington, D.C. The statistics show that between 2006 and 2016, Iowa had an 8 percent increase in reported violent crime and a 27 percent increase in arrests for violent crime. The only other state experiencing a similar increase in all four categories was West Virginia.

Meanwhile, Iowa's recidivism rate for violent offenders — which is measured over a 3-year period after release from prison — has risen from 17.4 percent from offenders freed in 2011 to 21.2 percent for those returned to the community in 2014.

"The point is that we can be a part of the solution to this problem," Bartruff said. He then outlined to Reynolds a host of initiatives to use data-driven practices, programs and an allocation of resources to help address the issue. Some of these approaches include reclassifying prisons to better manage offenders, conducting staffing analysis and workload studies, having evidence-based job descriptions and using data to comprehensively monitor public safety outcomes.

Bartruff noted that the costs of having inmates return to prison can be significant. A total of 1,623 people released from prison in 2014 eventually returned to prison for an estimated length of stay of 507 days. Based on an average cost per day of $92.16, those inmates will cost taxpayers about $76 million. So reducing recidivism by 10 or 20 percent can result in millions of dollars in savings, he said.

Despite Iowa's significant increase in violent crime statistics, FBI data show that in 2016, Iowa's violent crime rate was still comparable to or lower than most of its neighboring states. Iowa had 291 violent crimes last year per 100,000 residents, which was at a rate identical to Nebraska. Illinois had 436 violent crimes per 100,000 residents; Kansas had 380; Missouri, 519; and South Dakota, 418. Minnesota was lowest, with 242 violent crimes per 100,000 residents.

Iowa currently has 8,286 inmates in nine state prisons. There are also 30,200 offenders in community corrections programs, including probation, parole, pre-trial supervision and assignment to community residential facilities.

Bartruff isn't proposing a big increase in prison spending or more staffing. He submitted a Department of Corrections operational budget for the 2019 fiscal year, which begins July 1, of $378.7 million — just $1 million more than the current budget year. Authorized staffing would remain at 3,741 full-time personnel for prisons and community corrections programs.

The Iowa Legislature, which convenes in January, will use a spending proposal submitted by Reynolds in developing the state's corrections budget for the coming fiscal year.

The focus on the the Department of Corrections' budget comes as the state agency and Reynolds have repeatedly come under fire from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees after a series of violent assaults in recent months against prison employees at Fort Madison, Coralville and other institutions.

AFSCME Council 61 President Danny Homan issued a statement after a nurse was badly beaten by an inmate Friday at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville. Homan said the inmate knew about "dangerous staffing levels within the facility and saw it as an opportunity to strike." He said there have been two additional assaults since Friday's incident.

“It is sickening that the failing governor and Department of Corrections refuse to do anything about the state of crisis in which our correctional facilities are operating," Homan said. "Woefully inadequate staffing levels are at the root of this issue, and until this administration gets their act together, I have no doubt that incidents like this will continue to occur. Enough is enough.”

After Wednesday's budget briefing, Bartruff met with reporters and defended staffing within Iowa's prisons. He said there are about 2,500 staffers in the nine institutions statewide and that a data-driven staffing analysis supports his view.

"We think that we have adequate staffing to take care of incidents as they occur," Bartrufff said. "We also recognize that in the Department of Corrections — with the people who are incarcerated — there are some people who are going to commit behavior that is atrocious. We think that we are in good balance right now."