Work-release escapes increasing in Iowa

DES MOINES - After declining between 2005 and 2009, the number of prisoners who have escaped from Iowa correctional facilities while on work release has increased over the past four years and is on pace to establish a new high this year, according to state records.

There were 305 work-release escapes in Iowa last year, the most since the state Department of Corrections started tracking the data in 2001.

With 192 escapes through June 13 this year, the state is on pace for 361 escapes in 2015.

The rate of escapes - the number of escapes relative to the number of prisoners in the program - also has risen over the past four years.

The escape rate, calculated by dividing the number of incidents by the number of inmates served by work release, rose from 8.8 percent in 2011 to 14 percent in 2014.

The number of work-release escapes has fluctuated since 2001. The first peak came in 2005, when there were 296 incidents and an escape rate of 14.6 percent.

Those numbers fell sharply over the next three years, and from 2008 to 2011, they plateaued at roughly 165 escapes per year and an escape rate of roughly 9 percent.

Since 2011, both figures have been on the rise again.

Increasing numbers

There are myriad potential factors for the increase in work-release escapes, Department of Corrections staff said, including an increase in the number of prisoners in the program and prisoners' varied lengths of stay in the work release.

'We have expanded work-release capacity since 2001, so there are more offenders that can be served,” said Lettie Prell, research director for the Department of Corrections. 'In the past, many inmates served six months to a year on work release. Now, work release stays are shorter on average. That leaves to more people being able to be served on work release.

'Capacity, the length of stays declining, more people going through work release; so we are seeing more work-release escapes. … There are a lot of factors at play.”

Prell pointed to the longer trend, that from 2001 to 2014, the escape rate rose only 1.4 percent. She said that rise was 'not statistically significant,” especially given the fact work-release admissions rose 32 percent over that same period.

'The increase in work release escapes is explained by the increased numbers of offenders going through work release,” Prell said.

Staffing levels

The leader of the state's largest public-employee union thinks there is another factor affecing work-release escapes - staffing levels.

Corrections staff in recent years have been forced to do more with less, said Danny Homan, president of AFSCME Iowa Council 61, which represents the vast majority of the state's corrections employees.

'These work release escape numbers confirm what our members have long known based on the facts on the ground that they see every day,” Homan said in an email. 'Our state's correctional system, both in our prisons and community based corrections, is severely understaffed.”

Gov. Terry Branstad recently addressed corrections staffing levels after a prisoner escaped from Fort Madison prison. He said the staff level at Fort Madison did not contribute to that incident.

'I don't think it was because of a lack of staff that this happened. … There's plenty of staff,” Branstad said.

The Fort Madison prisoner escape occurred just three days after the governor vetoed language in a bill passed by state lawmakers that required the Department of Corrections to add corrections officers.

'While I support efforts to ensure adequate numbers of correctional officers, I believe that flexibility is needed to determine how many officers are hired based on costs, availability of funding and the needs of each institution,” Branstad wrote in his veto message. 'Adequate staffing is the prerogative of the Executive Branch; therefore, this language is unnecessary.”

2015 trend

What remains to be seen is how high the number of work-release escapes in 2015 will go, and if it does break the record, whether that is a result of increased work-release participation or other issues.

Prell said because of the data used to calculate escape rates, the Department of Corrections will not be able to calculate 2015's rate until the end of the calendar year.