Crime victim restitution up 70%

The state over the past several years has dramatically increased its collection of funds that inmates and parolees owe to their crime victims, forging a path that national experts say is a model for other states.

Comparing fiscal year 2013 with 2016, the state collected about 70 percent more from the offenders and made 40 percent more disbursements to victims, mostly by focusing on improvements in policy, data collection and interagency coordination, according to the Justice Center for the Council of State Governments, which assisted the state in making the turnaround.

The increase was so pronounced that it was the focus of a panel discussion at a meeting last month of the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington, D.C. The conference agenda noted that Hawaii had developed a national model for improving management of victim restitution.

“I love what they’re doing in Hawaii, and I hope that a lot of us can replicate that,” panelist Darlene Hutchinson, director of the federal Office for Victims of Crime, told the meeting participants.

“When people say you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip, I’ll tell them to go to Hawaii because look at the (restitution results),” said Anne Seymour, the panel moderator, national crime victim advocate and consultant to Pew Charitable Trusts. “They’re just amazing.”

The state in fiscal 2016 collected nearly $367,000 from inmates and parolees, compared with $216,744 three years earlier, according to the Justice Center data. And tallies for 2017, though not part of the Justice Center analysis, show about $587,000 was collected. The increase was mostly due to a new policy involving inmates on work furloughs.

The collection amounts do not include payments made by probationers — criminal offenders whose initial sentences include probation.

The state Judiciary oversees probationers while the Department of Public Safety, which runs the prison and parole system, oversees inmates and parolees. The latter are those released early from prison with time still left on their sentences; they continue to report to parole officers.

The number of restitution payments from inmates and parolees also has been on the rise, hitting nearly 2,500 in 2016, up from 1,771 in 2013, according to the Justice Center. In 2010, only 253 payments were made.

Policy changes

Marc Pelka, deputy director of state initiatives for the New York-based Justice Center, said in a phone interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that getting good data was the key to Hawaii’s turnaround, along with fostering more coordination among the agencies and making policy changes.

“No institution alone can do this,” said Pelka, who also participated in the Washington panel discussion. “Everyone needs to work together and pitch in.”

With the center’s help, Hawaii’s Crime Victim Compensation Commission developed a new database that enables the people who manage collections to easily monitor payments and other data and share the information with the involved agencies, according to Pelka. The old system was too clunky to permit such practices.

On the policy front, the state made several changes to help with collections.

It requires 25 percent of an inmate’s prison account, including wages and deposits from outside sources, to be deducted for victim compensation. Before the 2012 law change, the prison deducted only 10 percent of wages and zero from outside deposits.

Parole officers also started checking to make sure parolees were current on restitution payments before travel requests were approved.

“You cannot go to Disneyland if you’re not current on your restitution,” Pelka told the Washington audience.

To boost staff awareness, all parole and probation officers in 2013 underwent a full day of training on victim restitution, including strategies on the most effective ways to get offenders to pay their debts.

Changes like that helped restitution payments from parolees increase 76 percent between 2013 and 2016, even though the paroling agency did not hire more staff, Pelka told the Star-­Advertiser.

Work furlough wages

Another change involved work furloughs by inmates.

In 2016, DPS Director Nolan Espinda directed that 25 percent of net wages from furloughs be set aside for victim restitution, according to Pamela Ferguson-Brey, executive director of the victim compensation commission.

Before the change, no amount was set, and little was going to restitution, Ferguson-Brey said.

But since the change was made, more than $362,000 has been collected, contributing to the substantial boost in 2017 collections.

Data is key

Ferguson-Brey said the overall improvement in collections was made with only a handful of additional staff. She attributed the increase mostly to the high-level commitment by and collaboration among the agencies, the policy revisions and the tracking of statistics.

“The data for us has been really, really key in telling the story,” she added.

One thing the numbers showed was that on a micro level, the amounts owed in many cases were not huge and that prospects for collecting the money could be improved without a major investment of funding, the officials said.

“You don’t have to have a lot of money to make changes,” Ferguson-Brey said.

Although inmates and parolees collectively owe millions of dollars, the individual debt for more than half of those offenders is $1,000 or less, the data show.

As the collection rate has improved, the number of payments to victims of $50 or higher also has increased.

In 2012, only 263 such payments were made. By 2016, the number of disbursements for $50 or higher more than tripled, according to the Justice Center data.

The statistics also show that more than three-fourths of the court-ordered restitution was intended for victims of property, motor vehicle and other nonviolent crimes.

That suggests many victims of nonviolent crimes are unable to get money through victim compensation funds — typically reserved for cases involving violent offenses — and have to ask courts to impose restitution to try to recover their losses, according to Pelka.

“Restitution may be their only resort,” he said.

The restitution totals analyzed by the center did not include about $1.2 million collected since 2012 via 10 large one-time payments ranging from $11,470 to $353,064. That money, paid mostly in theft and money-laundering cases, was excluded so the restitution data would show trends with regular payments.

Pelka said many states lack the depth of data Hawaii has for its restitution program, making comparisons with other states difficult. In compiling data, some states don’t even separate restitution amounts from fines and other types of penalties.

Hawaii’s success, however, could spur other states to take similar action, Pelka said.

“It’s given a whole new approach to talking about victim restitution in a way that is much more positive,” he said.

For the victims who receive compensation, they feel like they’re getting some measure of financial justice, the officials said.

“It makes a lot of difference to them, feeling like they weren’t forgotten,” Ferguson-Brey said.