FREEDOM WALK

With Jails Bulging, Some Sheriffs Let Inmates Go Early

BEND, Ore. -- Ben Peles was lying on a bunk in a two-man cell at the
Deschutes County Jail here when the intercom squawked his name.
Sheriff's deputies told him to roll up his stuff and prepare to leave.

Mr. Peles, a 26-year-old air-conditioner installer, was taken aback.
He had landed in jail only 10 hours earlier to start serving a
two-week sentence for possession of methamphetamine and theft.
Shivering in a sweatshirt in the November night air -- it had been
warm and sunny when he walked in at 10:30 a.m. -- he couldn't believe
his luck. "I've never heard of them releasing anybody this quick," he
said, waiting outside the jail for his girlfriend to pick him up.

Mr. Peles's unexpected freedom walk is becoming a regular ritual at
jails and prisons in Oregon and at least half a dozen other states.
These states have long grappled with overcrowding by trying to find
money for new facilities and stuffing more prisoners into existing
cells. More recently, some have turned to a last-ditch solution:
opening the doors and letting inmates go.

The brunt of such decisions often falls on sheriffs at local jails.
Traditionally holding pens for minor offenders or suspects awaiting
trial, jails are increasingly accepting surplus inmates from state
prisons. Here in Deschutes County, Sheriff Les Stiles and jail
commander Capt. Ruth Jenkin expect to turn loose 900 inmates ahead of
their normal release time this year, up from 335 last year.

"There's not a day goes by that Ruth and I don't worry and ask
ourselves, 'Is this the one? Is this the person who is going to go
out there and commit a crime that is going to be a tragedy?' " says Mr. Stiles.

Of the 2.2 million people incarcerated in 2004, 713,990 were in local
jails, up from 486,474 in 1994. The number of violent criminals in
local jails has risen even faster, more than doubling over a decade
to 160,300 in 2002. Jail-related costs for local governments totaled
$16.7 billion in 2001, the last year for which figures are available,
up from $3 billion in 1982.

One reason local jails have more violent offenders is the overflow
from state prisons. By the 1990s every state had some form of
mandatory minimum sentencing or truth-in-sentencing provisions that
helped increase the inmate population. Perhaps the best-known was
California's "three strikes" law, enacted in 1994, which allowed the
state to sentence three-time felons to life in prison regardless of
the seriousness of the crime.

In Oregon, the state legislature, anticipating prison crowding,
mandated in 1995 that all state inmates serving sentences of less
than a year would be housed in local jails. County officials who are
being forced to release prisoners early criticize the state, saying
they haven't been given the funds to handle the extra jail population.

In Indiana, more than 12,000 prisoners have been released from the
Marion County Jail in the last four years because of overcrowding,
including more than 2,600 this year. In Connecticut, where the state
corrections department also runs the local jails, officials have
released more than 13,000 prisoners judged to pose the least threat
to public safety since 2000.

Ultimately the issue has its roots in the contradictory impulses of
state voters, who want to put more criminals behind bars but are
reluctant to pay higher taxes to build and operate prisons and jails.
Advocates of tougher laws say there is little arguing with their
success: Violent-crime rates in 2004 were at their lowest rate since
the U.S. Justice Department began collecting the data in 1973.

Local jails are often not equipped to deal with tougher criminals. In
July 2003, an 18-year-old man was thrown into a general-population
jail cell in Grant County, Ky., after a traffic violation. Three
other criminals serving time at the jail because of overcrowding at
state prisons sodomized him.

In November, Texas death-row prisoner Charles Victor Thompson was
sent to a county jail in downtown Houston so he could be resentenced
in the murders of his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend. Mr.
Thompson changed out of his prison overalls and slipped away after
convincing deputies he was with the state attorney general's office.
He was recaptured three days later outside of a Louisiana liquor store.

At the Deschutes County Jail, an 11-year-old brown building with
modern shatterproof glass instead of bars in many cells, the changes
to deal with a more-dangerous inmate population are visible. In years
past, prisoners there on serious violations were allowed into "day
rooms," where they could watch television. Now they're more likely to
be restricted to their cells for extended periods. In the segregation
unit, which is reserved for informants and inmates with medical or
behavior problems, prisoners used to walk freely with one deputy as
an escort. Now they must put their arms through the food slots and be
handcuffed before leaving their cells. Each officer guards no more
than 10 prisoners, down from 20 earlier.

Getting Tougher

Oregon got significantly tougher on crime in the 1990s thanks to
voter initiatives, including one in 1994 that required minimum
sentences for nearly two dozen crimes. At first, local officials were
pleased: The tougher sentences rooted out "a lot of the frequent
fliers" at local jails and locked them up in state prison, says David
Burright, executive director of the Oregon State Sheriffs' Association.

Pretty soon, though, state prisons got full. The population rose from
6,636 inmates in 1994 to 8,531 by January 1997, the month those
prisons started sending short-term prisoners to local lockups as a
result of the state's 1995 law. About 9% of the state's prisoners, or
1,160 people, were serving their time in local jails as of this July,
up from 6% two years earlier. In many counties, sheriffs are using
money from their own budgets to house state prisoners.

Mr. Stiles, a law officer for 29 years including 16 years with the
Bend police department, ran for sheriff in 2000 on a platform of
cutting costs without raising taxes. He defeated the incumbent with
60% of the vote. His 6-foot-2, 215-pound frame and bald pate give him
an instantly recognizable, Kojak-like appearance.

Bend, the county seat, has seen crime rise along with an influx of
people from other states that has lifted the population to 63,000
from 20,000 in 1990. Crimes in one category that includes rape and
car theft have risen more than 50% in the past four years. Mr. Stiles
says the growing methamphetamine problem in Oregon is largely to blame.

In October 2003, Mr. Stiles was forced to start releasing prisoners
early from his 228-bed jail to make room for more dangerous ones
coming in. Using a computer, the staff now compiles the prisoners'
criminal histories along with other data such as their record of
showing up for court. The computer uses algorithms to predict which
prisoners are the least likely to commit major crimes when they
leave. Inmates sent by the state who have certain serious convictions
are automatically ineligible for release.

Once these "matrix" scores are computed, the inmates with the lowest
totals are let go. The number depends on how many beds the sheriff
needs to clear out for incoming inmates.

The first inmate to walk out of the Deschutes County Jail using the
matrix system was Jodie Ackerman on Oct. 11, 2003. She was awaiting
trial on car-theft charges. Within 24 hours, she had committed at
least 11 crimes, including stealing three cars, nearly running down a
pedestrian and breaking into a business.

"It was not, to say the least, a good start," said Mr. Stiles.

Ms. Ackerman, now 26 years old, served less than a year in jail but
then promptly stole another car. She was once again arrested in
October. Now back in jail, Ms. Ackerman says she will enter a guilty
plea and likely get an 11-month sentence.

When Ms. Ackerman was first released in 2003, the average matrix
score was 16. Now, it is routine for people with scores above 40 to
be released. Gone are the drunken drivers and people sleeping off a
drinking binge, says the sheriff. They've been replaced by prisoners
with drug addictions or methamphetamine dealers. "Eventually it will
be a jail filled with all really bad people," says Mr. Stiles.

Not surprisingly, word of the matrix system has filtered out to the
crooks. As Amber Dawn Cartrette, 26, was escorted into the booking
area of Mr. Stiles's jail one November afternoon, she asked the
sergeant on duty, "Are you matrixing anybody right now? What's my score?"

Ms. Cartrette, who seemed much thinner than her listed weight of 135
pounds, was a veteran of the matrix system, having been released from
the same jail twice in the previous few months. On May 9, after she
was arrested for possession of methamphetamine, she was released,
hitched a ride to Portland with friends and skipped her court date.
She repeated the performance again in October and was released on
Oct. 9 only to miss another court date.

Tears rolling down her pale cheeks, she promised the deputies that if
given another chance she would make her court dates and check into
addiction treatment.

Even though her arrest record was nearly two inches thick -- the
result of her addiction, Ms. Cartrette said -- it didn't suggest a
propensity toward violent crime. That gave her hope of getting out
again and returning to her job as a stripper at a local nightclub.
The jail has only 28 beds for women.

Mr. Stiles, who from his second-floor office often sees the inmates
whooping with delight in the parking lot after being released early,
says the growing need to keep prisoner numbers in check is making him
consider following the lead of some nearby counties.

In Marion County, Sheriff Raul Ramirez has cut back on the jailing of
suspects. Those who were arrested for crimes such as forgery and car
theft used to stay in jail, but now they merely get citations and an
order to show up in court. Mr. Ramirez says he has released more than
4,000 prisoners this year through matrixing because of overcrowding.

Bad Message

Sheriffs acknowledge that releasing prisoners early sends a bad
message but they say their hands are tied. Spending three-quarters of
each shift making sure prisoners don't escape and one-quarter of the
shift trying to figure out who to push out is "maddening," says Mr. Stiles.

The sheriff and his deputies worry they'll get blamed if someone who
gets out early commits a serious crime. "It's not a matter of if it's
going to happen but when," says Mr. Stiles. In 2004, a Lane County,
Ore., man who had been locked up for stalking his ex-wife was
released early by the matrix system because of jail crowding in the
county. On the day 43-year-old Tomas Ortega-Benitez was due in court,
he took Paula Benitez, 46, hostage, then killed her. He killed
himself several hours later during a standoff with police.

Thursdays are often the beginning of four-day run of forced releases
because that's when county inmates who were arrested outside of the
county are transferred in. On a Thursday night a few weeks ago, the
jail's population increased by 13. Dark blankets and pillows were
lined up in neat, folded piles on the floor for the prisoners coming in.

Sgt. Brook Van der Zwiep, a shift supervisor, spent three hours
scrolling through criminal records and other information needed to
matrix inmates, marking the points with a purple highlighter.
Glancing at patrol cars pulling up, he did a quick calculation.
"We'll have to let some of them out," he said.

The calculations eventually showed that six prisoners had to go to
make room for the new arrivals. The average score for those released
was 31.3. Mr. Peles, the air-conditioner installer, and five other
inmates stood in a hall together in blue jumpsuits, white athletic
socks and slippers provided by the jail before going into rooms to
change into street clothes. One by one they were processed and were
led through five security doors before they were outside. Meanwhile,
handcuffed inmates were being brought in through another door.

As Mr. Peles waited for his ride, the other five released prisoners
walked out into the dark parking lot, one by one. One man was met by
two women who hugged him. They walked to nearby Highway 20 and threw
their thumbs up in the air to hitch a ride.

Mr. Peles's ride barely came to a stop in the parking lot before he
reached in, grabbed a coat and hopped inside. "I'm getting the hell
out of this town," he said.