Governor John Kasich met with people in Marion to discuss his privatization plans.
LancasterEagleGazette:
...The press conference follows the state budget proposal to sell five Ohio prisons to a private operator, balancing the ODRC budget for 2012 and saving a further 5 percent in costs in operations as required by Ohio law....
....The level of violence in the prisons is unacceptable as are recidivism rates, which he hopes to change by reorganizing the system and implementing sentencing reforms making their way through the legislature.
The goals of the reform are to lower violence, lower recidivism and save taxpayers money, he said.....
Kasich thinks that the prisons have been mismanaged and only he is capable of fixing them. I wonder where Kasich got his facts about recidivism because they don't seem to be accurate.
The Crime Report had published this information on February 25, 2011:
The rate of released offenders returned to Ohio prisons is the lowest it has been in 11 years, reports the Columbus Dispatch. Last year, 34 percent of inmates returned to prison for a parole or probation violation or a new felony conviction, down from 36 percent in 2009, said state corrections director Gary Mohr. Last year's recidivism rate is the lowest since 1997, when it was also 34 percent. The national recidivism rate averages about 50 percent.
Mohr credited several factors for the improvement: better inmate programming, more structured parole supervision, enhanced staff training, and more use of community corrections, such as halfway houses. The department offers "evidence-based" programming that research has shown to be successful in leading to careers after prison, such as its horticultural and auto-mechanic training for inmates, spokesman Carlo LoParo said. The state's use of halfway houses and other community-corrections facilities for low-level, first-time offenders has helped improve the results by keeping such inmates away from career criminals in prisons, LoParo said....
Since Mohr was with Kasich today in Marion, I wonder why he didn't let Kasich in on the real facts.
* When will All Children Matter, the pro-charter school, group pay their $5.2 million fine? The Middletown Journal:
....The Ohio Elections Commission unanimously ruled in 2008 that All Children Matter, headed by former Michigan Republican Chairwoman Betsy DeVos and run out of that state, illegally funneled $870,000 in contributions from its Virginia political action committee to its Ohio affiliate....
...Records show Brennan has begun donating to another school choice organization called the American Federation for Children, where some alums of All Children Matter now work. Brennan donated $11,000 to the federation on Oct. 14, records show....
....Brennan is a generous Republican donor in the state, having contributed to the campaigns of Kasich, DeWine and elections chief Jon Husted, among many others....
When will DeWine collect that money or will he just let it go considering his connections to the charter school supporters?
**** Why haven't the Republicans shared the text of SB 5 with their Democratic counterparts? What are they hiding? See the CapitalBlog for details.