Report: High incarceration rates raise crime in Worcester neighborhoods

Oct. 10--WORCESTER -- The idea that too many people are given prison sentences instead of treatment for addictions or mental ailments is nothing new.

But a new study released recently by an independent Boston think tank urging criminal justice reform uses Worcester's neighborhoods to support that theory, mapping in detail where offenders live and suggesting that crime in some areas might actually be driven by high rates of imprisonment.

"You would think that locking people up who are creating disorder is always beneficial, but if you're putting a lot of people away for nonviolent offenses, it reduces the stigma attached to going to prison and makes it less of a deterrent," Ben Forman, research director at MassINC, said in announcing the results of the Sept. 25 report.

Titled "The Geography of Incarceration in a Gateway City," the 18-page report confirms what many would suspect: The bulk of people placed behind bars live in rougher neighborhoods. But by presenting the data alongside other neighborhood measures -- voting records and school discipline, chiefly -- it suggests that poor neighborhoods may be caught in a cycle of crime driven, as opposed to relieved by, incarceration of law-breakers.

"For ages, what we've been doing is incarcerating people with addiction," Dr. Matilde Castiel, Worcester commissioner of health and human services, said Friday. "It's a vicious cycle that needs to end."

Dr. Castiel, scheduled to give a talk on the report at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Family Health Center of Worcester, supports its findings and believes lawmakers debating criminal justice reforms on Beacon Hill would do well to consider them.

The state spent nearly $25 million on inmates from the city at the Worcester County Jail and House of Correction in 2013, the study found, double what it spent to fund Quinsigamond Community College.

Residents of Main South and the Vernon Hill and Piedmont neighborhoods made up nearly 40 percent of the city's inmates that year, though the city only draws 28 percent of its population from those areas.

Mr. Forman, the study's lead author, said research suggests that a tipping point is reached where the balance of arrests in particular neighborhoods actually drives more crime.

The idea, supported by several larger studies, is that negative effects associated with high neighborhood incarceration rates snowball to create an environment that is actually less safe.

In the Green Island, Main Middle and Shrewsbury Street neighborhoods, one in 10 men ages 25 to 29 served a House of Correction sentence between 2009 and 2013. Young children of these men lose a breadwinner, the study notes, sowing economic and social hardship that the report says contributes to juvenile delinquency.

According to the study, the rate of students disciplined in elementary schools in Worcester is much higher in neighborhoods with elevated incarceration rates.

"There is a growing body of evidence establishing a causal relationship between high rates of incarceration and school performance," it reads, noting that there are no high-performing schools in Worcester neighborhoods with high incarceration rates.

The study also finds generally low voter turnout in areas with high incarceration rates. State Rep. Mary S. Keefe, D-Worcester, a co-sponsor of a sweeping criminal justice reform bill expected to be debated soon on Beacon Hill, said that might be another symptom of neighborhoods weakened by incarceration.

"People lose faith in systems, and they don't want anything to do with (them)," she said. "Once that happens, it has generational effects (on disengagement)."

The study suggests its findings bolster existing research that show that a cycle of incarceration leads to loss of cohesion and added crime in poor, mostly nonwhite neighborhoods. Its authors suggest adoption of a number of the proposed reforms, namely, eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and diverting resources from incarceration to drug and mental health counseling.

Worcester County Sheriff Lewis G. Evangelidis, who provided intake data for the study, said his agency is already trying to divert as many people from prison as it can. The takeaway he'd like people to focus on is the funding inequity he faces. According to the report, Worcester County spent $43,553 per prisoner in fiscal 2016, the second-lowest tally of any county statewide and less than half what the top county spent.

"It's very frustrating," said the former Republican state lawmaker. "We're essentially half-funded as other similar counties, and yet we're expected to do the same job."

The sheriff's department runs several facilities aimed at helping arrestees avoid prison as they await trial. While the facilities are gaining traction with local judges, Sheriff Evangelidis says he could do much better with pre- and post-incarceration services with more funding.

"Why is it that people getting released from Worcester County's system don't get the same (programming)?" he asked. "Don't we deserve the same safety as the other counties get?"

A state report released last year recommended giving more money to historically underfunded counties, such as Worcester, but proposals to that effect from the governor and Senate were eventually scrapped.

"I'm not just going to go away quietly," Sheriff Evangelidis said, wondering aloud what the legislators in the Worcester delegation will do to help.

Ms. Keefe said she'd like to see where additional funding would go, though she noted she supported a budget amendment filed by Rep. Kimberly N. Ferguson, R-Holden, to increase the sheriff's budget.

While Sheriff Evangelidis -- who says roughly 90 percent of his inmates have substance abuse issues -- supports adding programming centered on treatment, he isn't sold on the idea that higher incarceration rates lead to more crime.

"You can't just say, 'If we incarcerate fewer people, the crime rate is going to go down,' " he said, proclaiming that by that logic, locking nobody up would eradicate crime.

Sheriff Evangelidis deferred to prosecutors on the idea of abolishing mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenders. He noted such minimums -- one of the larger sticking points in the criminal justice reform bill -- are often used by prosecutors to get people to plead guilty to lesser offenses.

"They don't want to give up that leverage," he said.

"But I'd also state that certainly there are clear examples where that type of sentencing was not a deterrent to crime," he said.

District attorneys in Massachusetts have not been united on the issue. Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr., who has asked state lawmakers to keep the minimums, declined an interview request.

Worcester Police Chief Steven M. Sargent also declined to be interviewed about the study. A spokesman said the Police Department generally does not comment on statutes, incarceration costs or school discipline.

The department did provide a statement about its approach to community partnerships and crime that stressed its focus on preventing violent crime.

"Our officers practice proactive policing by being visible in neighborhoods, addressing quality of life issues, and engaging residents and business owners to learn their concerns," it wrote. In many neighborhoods -- including Main South -- neighborhood crime watch organizations urge police to go after drug activity.

In the study, MassInc noted that crime in Worcester is relatively low and socio-economic conditions are better than in many other Gateway Cities. Mr. Forman said high incarceration rates are "no doubt even more problematic" in cities that struggle more deeply with crime.

In an opinion column, Mr. Forman wrote that "overuse" of incarceration exacerbates the long-term costs of the opiate crisis, because offering treatment in jail is less effective and more costly.

The MassINC report juxtaposes a number of costs in its report. The cost to incarcerate residents from the Main Middle neighborhood in 2013, $1.7 million, eclipsed the city's $1.6 million economic development budget that year, it noted; the state spent twice as much incarcerating Union Hill residents that year ($1.9 million) as it gave to the city for youth violence prevention.

Worcester City Manager Edward M. Augustus Jr. declined to comment on the report Friday. Dr. Castiel said she believes the figures show that more resources are needed for treatment as opposed to incarceration.

She noted a recent pilot program that aimed to help men leaving custody in Worcester County reduced recidivism from around 56 percent to a percentile in the 20s.

Dr. Castiel, who founded the Hector Reyes House, which helps Worcester men with addiction issues, said in her experience, incarceration and the laws surrounding it often lead to more crime.

If someone can't get housing or a job when they leave prison, she said, they often have no choice but to resort to crime.

"No one's running a CORI (background check) in drug dealing," echoed Kevin Lynch, executive director of Ex-prisoners and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement.

EPOCA, a nonprofit based in Worcester, helps people struggling to right their lives after prison. Mr. Lynch said the current laws, particularly laws surrounding criminal records, need major change.

"Someone will get a job ... Then, six months later, they'll run a (background check), and they'll be let go," he said. "People become despondent, and through that they fall back into criminal behaviors."

The Legislature is expected to take up the omnibus criminal justice reform bill soon. Supporters say it is meant to countervail "tough on crime" regulations implemented in response to rising crime in the 1980s and 1990s that they argue perpetuate cycles of incarceration, particularly in communities of color.

Among other measures, the bill proposes repealing mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, raising the upper limit of juvenile court jurisdiction from 18 to 21 years of age, reducing the number of larcenies that are considered felonies, shortening the length of time until a criminal record can be sealed and abolishing probation and parole fees.

Although crime rates have decreased since "tough on crime" laws went on the books, research is inconclusive as to how much of the decrease is attributed to those changes.

"The increase in incarceration may have caused a decrease in crime, but the magnitude of the reduction is highly uncertain and the results of most studies suggest it was unlikely to have been large," the National Research Council found in a 2014 study commissioned by the Department of Justice.

Sheriff Evangelidis said regardless of whether one believes high incarceration rates increase crime, those in public safety are working to keep prison stays shorter and less frequent.

"We're moving in this direction," he said, noting he's working with Mr. Early on a diversion program for arrested drug addicts aimed at keeping them out of jail.

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