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here is some more interesting reading, might help on the information side of things.

http://kutv.com/related/StoryFolder/story_661445001_html
Aug 6, 2002 4:07 pm US/Mountain

Ed Smart was stunned when police told him the handyman he'd invited into his home to do odd jobs last year was a potential suspect in his daughter's June 5 abduction.

Two weeks into Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping investigation, police told the family that Richard Albert Ricci was a violent felon with a 29-year criminal history and a record of parole violations.

"I was mad," Smart said. "And I was disappointed I hadn't heard this a year ago. I never would have hired him if I'd known."

Ricci's freedom wasn't unusual. In Utah and across the nation, an increasing number of prisoners are doing their time on the streets rather than behind bars in an effort known as "offender re-entry."

It's the solution prison officials have used to ease former inmates back into their communities. And it saves money.

Utah Corrections Director Mike Chabries last year announced a new policy on parole violators after budget cuts forced the closure of two prisons and the early release of 400 inmates.

Chabries said corrections would pursue the system of education and support that sends fewer parolees back to prison for violations such as failing drug tests or missing appointments with parole agents.

Keeping people on parole helps the cash-strapped state. Instead of spending $24,000 per year to house a prisoner, Utah pays $2,000 per year to supervise a parolee.

"We were spending millions and millions on prisons," said Joe Borich, director of the Corrections Department's Adult Parole and Probation Division. "All of a sudden, the budget's cut."

Because 97 percent of prison inmates will one day be released, "We want to make sure there's a transition into the community," Chabries said. "So when they walk out of the prison, on day one, they will have a place to go and something to do."

"That doesn't mean we ought to put the community at risk," he added.

That's what may have happened in Ricci's case. He was on parole while he worked in Smart's neighborhood last year. Ricci has been charged with thefts and a burglary that occurred in the area during that time.

Every month, the Utah Board of Pardons releases 200 to 250 prisoners. The state counts parolees, probationers and prisoners daily; on July 30, there were 5,370 people in prison and 3,492 on parole. Like the rest of the state's population, 80 percent of parolees live in Wasatch Front neighborhoods.

On average, each has been paroled twice. Virtually all parolees are felons; two were convicted of capital homicide.

Parolees tend to be undereducated and underskilled. Most arrests for additional crimes occur within the first six months of release. Sixty-five percent of parolees are back in prison within three years. Chabries hopes to reduce recidivism to 20 or 30 percent.

That's a tough assignment for parole agents staggering under caseloads of up to 60 probationers and parolees.

"We're the ones who know who they are, where they are, and we're responsible," said Corrections Deputy Director Chris Mitchell.

"Whenever there is a serious crime, we have a bad feeling in the pit of our stomach,'' Mitchell said. ``We worry it's one of our guys."

Ricci, 48, hasn't been charged in Elizabeth's kidnapping and has steadily maintained his innocence. Police Chief Rick Dinse says Ricci is a top potential suspect.

Court documents show Ricci has admitted to the 2001 theft from the Smart home and a night burglary of a neighbor's home around the same time. However, he has pleaded innocent to those charges. Federal authorities have charged him with robbing a bank in November 2001.

He was paroled from Utah State Prison, for the fourth time, in November 2000.

Ricci didn't tell his parole officer he was working for Smart. Even if he had, his agent may not have passed on the information.

Parole agent Diane Malmborg said when she verifies her clients' employment, she doesn't necessarily divulge their criminal status.

"Unless (employers) ask, I don't tell them," Malmborg said. "That's the responsibility of the probationer or parolee."

There are exceptions.

"If I have someone who's a forger and they are working for a bank, I would have to tell the bank," she said.

"But I would not allow a forger to work at a bank. A sex offender would not be allowed to work at a daycare. There is an element of liability there. We screen that closely."

Driving with her partner through tidy and run-down neighborhoods on the eastern edge of West Valley City and Taylorsville, Malborg said during her 14 years as a parole agent, the people she supervises have become more violent. She blames that on the influx of gangs, guns and methamphetamine.

"It's really dangerous now," Malmborg said. "I don't tell my family what I do."

In a way, parole agents like Malmborg are caught in a trap not of their own making. They can hurt the very people they're trying to help by disclosing too much information. If they are too tough, they will hinder efforts to reduce the prison population.

"Our attempt is to intervene, to provide them an opportunity to learn," said Malmborg. "It's frustrating when you get someone on his seventh parole, because you've worked with him and worked with him."

There is one absolute: Agents will cut no slack for parolees who commit new crimes. When that happens, "he goes back to prison, no questions asked," Chabries said.