GREAT FALLS – The U.S. Marshals Service District of Montana has issued a BOLO Alert (Be On the Look-Out) for Dakota Michael Lucero.

Lucero, 26 years old, is wanted by the Montana Violent Offender Task Force based on release violations related to a burglary charge.

State prison records show that Lucero has felony convictions in Cascade County and Missoula county for theft, burglary, escape, and criminal mischief.

Lucero is 5 feet, 6 inches tall, 130 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.

He has numerous tattoos, including “LUCERO” on his right forearm.

If you have information about Lucero, call the U.S. Marshals Service at 406-247-7030 or your local law enforcement agency.

MISSOULA (AP) — A 29-year-old Indiana man who started a crowdfunding site to raise money so he could travel to Montana to be with his 14-year-old “fiancée” is charged with felony sexual abuse of children.

William Eugene White Jr. of Montezuma, Indiana, was arrested Monday after reportedly spending the night with the girl at a Missoula homeless shelter. He appeared in Missoula County Justice Court on Tuesday, but did not enter a plea. His case was assigned to the public defender’s office.

Justice Mike Frellick set White’s bail at $25,000. He was ordered not to have contact with the 14-year-old girl or anyone else under the age of 18.

A representative of GoFundMe tells KGVO-AM that White’s fundraising campaign was immediately removed and did not receive any donations.

Court records indicate White may have arrived in Montana around Aug. 7.

BOULDER – A Jefferson County man fighting the seizure of his property will get a trial early next year.

Mike Chilinski said the county’s civil suit to take his Jefferson City property – including several mining claims and a home – is unconstitutional.

County Attorney Steven Hadden said since Chilinski was using the property for an illegal marijuana grow operation, the county is entitled to bring civil proceedings forward according to Montana’s civil forfeiture statute.

Chilinski was convicted in 2012 of 91-counts of animal cruelty for running a puppy mill where 139 dogs were seized. Court papers said the dogs were living in appalling conditions, many malnourished or dead. Chilinski was given a 30-year Department of Corrections sentence with 25 years suspended.

The cruelty case sparked a federal investigation that uncovered more than 100 marijuana plants on Chilinski’s property.

In April of 2013, Chilinski pleaded guilty to one count of Manufacture of Marijuana. He was given an 18-month sentence. When federal prosecutors declined to pursue property forfeiture, the county took up the case.

In 2014, District Judge Loren Tucker ruled, following a bench trial, in favor of forfeiture. Chilinski appealed that ruling to the supreme court saying he was entitled to a jury trial. The high court ruled in favor of Chilinski, remanding the case back to district court.

During a status hearing Wednesday morning in Jefferson County District Court, District Judge Luke Berger told Chilinski a trial will be scheduled in late January or early February of next year.

He’s currently under the supervision of probation and parole.

Helena- A Texas man police say was assaulted and carjacked early Sunday morning has died.

According to Lewis and Clark Co. Coroner Bryan Backeberg, Kerry Paul Malkerson, 67, died after returning to his Dallas County, Texas home on August 21.

Backeberg says in a news release that it is unclear at this time whether Malkerson died as a result of injuries from the assault.

The Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office has conducted an autopsy; the results are pending.

On Monday, Helena Police said they put out a statewide alert for 45-year-old Eddie Sanchez.

Police said Sanchez was the suspect in an early morning assault and carjacking outside a hotel on the 3100 block of Washington St. According to police Sanchez pulled a man later identified as Malkerson out of a car and assaulted him before stealing the car.

A $250,000 arrest warrant was issued for Sanchez on robbery and assault charges.

Helena Police said Tuesday that Sanchez was taken into custody in Salt Lake City, Utah.

HELENA – A 20-year-old suspect faces up to five years in prison for allegedly selling sea-salt and saying it was meth.

Maxwell Allen Roberts was arrested Monday and charged with felony distribution of imitation dangerous drugs.

Prosecutors say they received information that Roberts was offering to sell methamphetamine. His car was allegedly seen at areas frequented by drug dealers.

During a probation search, investigators found sea-salt in the glovebox of Roberts car. He allegedly told law officers he packaged the salt to look like meth.

Roberts has a prior conviction out of Lewis and Clark County for possession of dangerous drugs.

Bond in the case has been set at $10,000.

If convicted he faces a maximum of five years in prison and $50,000 in fines.

Correction: This story was updated on 08/24/2017 to correct the charge filed against the defendant the maximum penalty from the charge.

BILLINGS – Don Nichols, who was convicted of kidnapping athlete Kari Swenson and killing Alan Goldstein in 1984, was granted parole several months ago and was released from the Montana State Prison on Wednesday.

Nichols, 86 years old, was serving an 85-year sentence in the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge. He was convicted in Madison County on charges of deliberate homicide, kidnapping and aggravated felony assault.

Nichols and his son Dan kidnapped Swenson, a world-class biathlete, while she was jogging in the Big Sky area. The Nichols’ held Swenson captive in the woods for two days and chained her to a tree; Don had wanted to find a wife for his son.

Goldstein, a friend of Swenson’s who was helping with the search, was shot and killed by Nichols when he stumbled across the camp site where she was being held captive.  Swenson was also shot, but recovered from her injury.

Sandy Jacke, a spokesperson for the Montana State Prison, told MTN News that Nichols is restricted from visiting Madison County, Park County, and Gallatin County.

Jacke said that Nichols will reside in Great Falls, and will report to the parole office in Great Falls. Nichols must also register as a violent offender.

Nichols was granted parole in late April 2017; it was the fourth time he had been eligible for parole.

Dan Nichols was granted parole in 1991. He ran into trouble with the law in 2011 when he was arrested on drug charges at the Rockin The Rivers Festival in Three Forks.

Swenson is now a veterinarian in Bozeman.

MTN’s Aja Goare

MISSOULA – A Missoula man who won a 14-year fight earlier this year to erase a rape conviction has been arrested in South Dakota, three months after being accused of “absconding” from probation on an unrelated charge.

Cody Marble, 33, was arrested Wednesday night in Spearfish, S.D., and will be extradited to Missoula to face charges that he violated probation stemming from a 2013 drug conviction.

His father, Jerry Marble, told MTN News Thursday that his son had been driving back to Missoula from the Midwest, to turn himself in to face the probation-violation charge.

Authorities in Spearfish arrested him without incident after they ran his license plate and saw that he had a warrant for his arrest, his father said.

Jerry Marble said he hopes his son won’t get sent back to prison – from which he was released last year, after prosecutors filed to dismiss the 2002 rape conviction. A judge agreed to dismiss the conviction earlier this year.

“I hope that somebody in this process is reasonable,” he told MTN News.

Jerry Marble said his son never should have been on probation in the first place, after spending years in prison or on parole for a crime he never committed.

Cody Marble’s probation, scheduled to end next year, is for a suspended sentence he received for drug possession while on parole from his 15-year rape sentence.

State corrections officials told MTN earlier this month that they had to continue to supervise Marble for the drug charge, because a judge never dismissed it.

A Missoula prosecutor last month filed to revoke Marble’s suspended sentence on the 2013 drug charge, after Marble was involved in an altercation this May in Conrad and then refused to report to jail on the direction of his probation officer.

Cody Marble left the state and had been traveling in the Midwest, his father said.

Marble was convicted in November 2002 for raping a fellow inmate at the Missoula County Juvenile Detention Center and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Marble, just 17 when he was charged, denied that the rape occurred and said he was set up by other detention-center inmates, who lied at his trial.

Marble went through several attorneys and attempts to overturn his conviction until his case was taken up by the Montana Innocence Project and Missoula lawyer Colin Stephens a half-dozen years ago.

A 2015 Montana Supreme Court decision sent Marble’s case back to Missoula County and ordered a new look at the case. The county’s new head prosecutor, Kirsten Pabst, re-examined the evidence and decided in April 2016 to ask that the charge be dismissed and Marble’s conviction dissolved.

Jerry Marble said his son was told initially that he’d be discharged from any probation requirements related to the 2013 drug charge, because of all the time he’d already spent in prison.

But corrections officials later said because the suspended drug sentence was “consecutive,” meaning it was to follow time for the rape sentence, was still in effect, and that Cody would have to comply with probation requirements until May 2018, Jerry Marble said.

HELENA – A Helena suspect is in custody for allegedly exposing a young child to meth.

Savannah Raine Moody was charged with felony possession of dangerous drugs and child endangerment.

Early Thursday morning a Helena police officer arrested a suspect wanted on a federal escape warrant out of Salt Lake City.

When the suspect made a call to an unknown individual to have his child picked up at the Helena Motel 6, law enforcement officers concerned for the child’s safety, went to the motel. There they found Moody and the child. The officers also found glass pipes, a pie plate covered with meth, a glass bong and multiple baby bottles and pacifiers.

The Department of Family Services was contacted and took custody of the child.

Moody’s bond has been set at $25,000. She’ll be arraigned next month.

The male suspect in this case is facing a number of potential charges. He has yet to be seen in Justice Court.

HELENA- A convicted arsonist was sentenced to 20 years in the Montana State Prison on Friday.

Frederick Maw V was given the sentence by District Judge Mike Menahan on Friday.

Maw, sentenced for setting a series of arson fires in 2013 in Lewis and Clark and Broadwater counties, was charged again in April of 2016 for setting another arson fire in a slash pile at the Triple 8 Ranch, where he was working as a laborer.

At the time, Maw called 911 to report the fire when he claimed it was an accident.

An investigation showed that the evidence at the fire did not match Maw’s version of events when he said he used fire extinguishers to stop the blaze.

In May of this year, Maw pleaded no contest to the new charge.

In court Friday morning, Montana Probation and Parole Officer Deana Lougee told County Attorney Leo Gallagher her office agreed with his recommendation for a 20-year prison sentence.

Lougee and Gallagher reviewed Maw’s case, including his struggles with mental illness outlined in a presentence investigation report filed prior to sentencing. Maw has undergone numerous mental health evaluations over the past few years, he has been diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder.

According to the report, while Maw doesn’t specifically remember setting the fires in 2013, he does remember what he was wearing those days and what items were in his vehicle at the time.

One mental health expert said Maw has a “selective memory”.

As for the 2016 incident, Lougee said Maw remembers that fire and claims it was an accident.

“Is it difficult to supervise someone who believes he didn’t do anything wrong?” asked County Attorney Gallahger.

“He absolutely can’t be supervised,” said Lougee.

Maw’s defense attorney called his mother to the witness stand. Caterina Maw told the court her son had suffered from mental health issues for approximately five years.

She told the court her son, while incarcerated, has not been properly given his medications. Caterina said when that happens, her son is not able to defend himself and he’s already been the victim of assaults in jail. She believes her son will likely be further victimized in prison.

Maw’s mother told the court her son has suffered from prior abuse from a former fiance who once stabbed him in the arm.

She also told the court that if her son is returned to the community, he can be placed in an AWARE home.

Defense Attorney Teal Mittlestadt argued in favor of a suspended sentence for her client, saying he’d benefit from being in the community. She also cited his youth and his trouble with his mental illness.

Before pronouncing his sentence, Judge Menahan said he’d reviewed all the reports in the case file, including Judge Kathy Seeley’s sentencing memorandum from 2015.

Judge Menahan noted the presentence investigation found that Maw asked his probation officer for permission to light fires when he got his job at the Triple 8 Ranch. Both his probation officer and his supervisor at the ranch specifically told him to only cut slash and not light any fires.

The judge said Maw presents an extremely high risk to the community and that a suspended sentence is not appropriate given Maw’s extreme risk to re-offend.

The judge then handed down the 20-year prison sentence.

This isn’t the end of Maw’s legal troubles. He now faces a petition to revoke his suspended sentence from the 2013 fires. In that case, County Attorney Gallagher is recommending to Judge Seeley that Maw receive a 40-year prison sentence with 20 years suspended.

It will be up to Judge Seeley whether or not Friday’s sentence will be served consecutively or concurrently with the recommended 2013 sentence. If served consecutively, Maw faces 60 years in prison, with 20 suspended.

On Nov. 2, 2015, when she gave Maw a suspended sentence, Judge Seeley told Maw, “If you violate the terms of this sentence and you come back here, you will go to prison.”

No date for Judge Seeley’s sentencing has been set.

MISSOULA – Missoula Police say that a report of shots being fired downtown on Monday morning was actually a case of “swatting”.

Lieutenant Bob Bouchee said police received a call just before 8:30 a.m. from a male stating he had hostages in an apartment in the 300 block of Pattee Street.

The male demanded a $20,000 ransom and stated one person had been shot.

The Missoula Police Department, Missoula County Sheriff’s Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation all responded to the scene.

The area around the 300 block of Pattee Street was secured and Bouchee said “Upon confirming information and contacting the renter of the apartment, the call was determined false.”

Bouchee explained that these types of false emergency calls have occurred around the country and are commonly called “swatting.”

An investigation into the prank call is ongoing.

MTN’s Kent Luetzen and Melissa Rafferty

GREAT FALLS – An 18-year-old is facing criminal charges after he allegedly caused a multi-car crash in Great Falls on Saturday.

Aaron Brogan has been charged with criminal endangerment, reckless driving, speeding and a red light violation for a multiple-vehicle crash at the intersection of 8th Avenue North and 9th Street North in Great Falls.

Brogan allegedly crashed the car he was driving into another vehicle after trying to run a red light.

According to the Great Falls Police Department, the incident started after Brogan and another person got into a  dispute at the Great Falls Riverside Railyard Skate Park. Both parties were in vehicles and a brief chase began after the person in the first car flashed a handgun at Brogan.

The cars reached speeds up to 50 mph in a 25 mph speed zone while traveling along River Drive, on to 6th Street and then on to 8th Avenue North.

The first car ran the red light at the intersection of 8th Avenue North and 9th Street North. Brogan also tried to run the red light but T-boned a third vehicle in the intersection. One minor in the third vehicle sustained injuries that are not believed to be life threatening.

Brogan’s truck then flipped, crashing into two other parked vehicles in its path, along with a historical wall on the property as it came to rest on its top.

Denise Burk, a neighborhood resident, was one of the first people on scene.

“The truck was crushed pretty well. He’s lucky to be alive,” Burk said. “I got down on my hands and knees to assess and make sure that everybody was able to get out of the truck. And, he was able to kind of lay down and crawl out the opposite side of the vehicle.”

Burk added that her neighbors were parked along the road and lost two vehicles when the truck rolled.

Property owners said the wall that was damaged was built in 1901 and the Historical Society will have to approve its replacement before they can move on with repairs.

Authorities are still investigating and searching for the other person involved.

Other charges could be brought against Brogan as the investigation continues. His bond has not been set.

POWELL, Wyo. – A Powell man allegedly shot and killed his wife in their home before police arrived to find him sitting on the porch early Saturday morning, according to the Powell Police Department on Monday.

David Eugene Williamson, 64, is being held at the Park County Detention Center in Wyoming for the murder of his 65-year-old wife, Shirley.

Dispatch received a 911 call around 4:45 a.m. on Saturday from a man reporting his “wife is dead, send the cops.” The caller then hung up.

Police responded to the scene and found Williamson calmly sitting on the porch of his house on the 900 block of Lane 11. When he was asked by officers what was going on, Williamson told officers to go take a look.

“Go inside, you will see,” said Williamson. “She is in the bedroom.”

Officers found the victim dead on a bed in the back bedroom with a gunshot wound to the right side of her head, according to the police department’s press release.

A semi-automatic handgun was lying on the bed at her feet.

Williamson was arrested for the murder. He has yet to make his initial court appearance.

No other details were released.

MTN’s Aja Goare

GREAT FALLS (AP) — Two Las Vegas businessmen have been sentenced to 20 months in prison for their roles in defrauding a Montana Indian tribe’s online lending company.

The US Attorney’s Office says Zachary Brooke Roberts and Martin Gasper Mazarra were sentenced Friday in federal court in Great Falls. They and their company — Encore Services — must pay $2.5 million in restitution to the Chippewa Cree tribe.

Prosecutors say Encore Services was brought in to run the tribe’s first online lending company. It was not involved in the second one, called Plain Green, but still received $3.5 million and diverted $1.2 million back to others, including Neal Rosette and Billi Ann Morsette.

Prosecutors say Roberts and Mazarra initially got involved with the tribe to use tribal sovereignty to circumvent maximum interest rates and other state regulations for short-term lending companies.

HELENA – In Gallatin County, mug shots of criminal offenders and suspects – including U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte – are considered “confidential criminal justice information,” and therefore not public unless a judge allows it.

In most other Montana counties, authorities consider mug shots to be public record, and routinely make them available to the media.

Attorney General Tim Fox’s office and a state district judge also have weighed in on the question, in favor of public disclosure of mug shots.

But a bill before the Montana Legislature to define mug shots as a public record failed this year – and Gallatin County Attorney Marty Lambert says until there’s a definitive ruling from a statewide authority, mug shots or “booking photos” remain confidential information, under the law.

“As there is no express authority regarding the dissemination of booking photos … my approach has been to advise the sheriff to restrict dissemination unless a demonstrated exception applies,” he wrote in a 2015 letter to the attorney general.

The issue came to the fore last week, when Gianforte was booked and fingerprinted by Gallatin County authorities for the charge of misdemeanor assault, to which he pleaded guilty June 12.

Gianforte was cited May 24 after he threw Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs to the ground and started punching him, as Jacobs tried to question Gianforte about a GOP health-care bill before Congress.

Lambert told MTN News last week that Gianforte’s photo – like all booking photos in the county – is confidential criminal justice information, and therefore won’t be publicly released without a judge’s order.

MTN News and at least one other news organization have filed a request to release Gianforte’s booking photo, saying the public right to know supersedes Gianforte’s right to privacy. A state district judge will rule on the issue.

The broader issue has come before a judge before, when District Judge Jon Oldenburg of Lewistown ruled in October 2015 that a defendant’s booking photo is “public justice information” and should be released.

In a case involving a Livingston man charged with attempted deliberate homicide, Oldenburg said the photo “has no evidentiary value” and that the defendant’s expectation of privacy is “greatly diminished” because his name already appeared on the local jail roster, which is public, and because he was already on a violent offender registry.

A month before that ruling, Lambert had asked Fox for an attorney general’s opinion on whether booking photos are public information, and cited conflicting elements of the law.

Lambert noted that the law says booking photos are confidential criminal justice information, and that such information can’t be released without a judge saying there’s an exception.

Fox’s office didn’t reply to Lambert until several weeks after Oldenburg’s ruling – and indicated the ruling had settled the issue, in favor of disclosure, and therefore an official attorney general’s opinion wasn’t needed.

Media advocates hailed the Oldenburg ruling and the Fox reply as the final word of releasing mug shots.

But Lambert told MTN News Monday he doesn’t agree.

The Oldenburg ruling didn’t say it applied statewide, and concerned a person already in jail and on the violent offender registry, rather than someone who may be accused of a misdemeanor, and have a stronger claim to privacy rights, he said.

“It doesn’t address the issues,” Lambert said of the ruling.

State lawmakers also failed to clarify the issue this year, taking an unusual step to kill the requisite bill.

Republican Rep. Frank Garner of Kalispell introduced a bill based largely on the Oldenburg ruling, to say booking photos are public information. It had the support of law enforcement and media representatives.

Garner says they wanted to clarify the law, in the wake of the Oldenburg ruling.

Yet the Republican majority of the House Judiciary Committee changed the bill to say the opposite of its intent: That booking photos are confidential, unless a judge orders otherwise, the defendant agrees, or the defendant is convicted.

Garner told MTN News that because his bill’s intent had been completely changed, he asked the full House to kill it – and a majority did so, on a 55-45 vote on Feb. 3.

This story is the first of a four-part series examining extensive sentencing and correctional reforms passed by the 2017 Legislature, aimed at reducing Montana’s prison populations.

HELENA – From prisons to pre-release centers to probationary supervision, Montana has 15,000 criminal offenders on the books – an amount projected to grow in coming years, even though crime rates have been relatively stable or declining.

But in a rare bipartisanship push on a major issue, state lawmakers this year enacted a sweeping set of initiatives designed to reduce the number of Montanans in prison and on supervision.

The main thrust of the reforms is to cut the rate of criminal offenders who, while on parole or probation, violate rules or commit new crimes and then are sent to prison. The main focus is to devise better-targeted treatment and a clear path for offenders to serve their time and get out of the system.

“We know that 90 percent of people (in the system) are released from jail and prison and come back and live in our society,” says District Judge Ingrid Gustafson of Billings, who served on the commission that proposed the reforms. “You want to have people come back and be productive and not be an increased danger to the community.”

Gov. Steve Bullock and his Corrections Department are on board as well, saying mass incarceration is straining state and local budgets, with no real public benefit.

“A direct focus on imprisonment as a solution, I don’t think is the right track,” says Reg Michael, who became state corrections director this summer. “What you’re finding, and what other organizations have found, is it’s just not sustainable.”

Now that the bills are law, Bullock’s Corrections Department faces the daunting task of making it all work – even though it’s just one of the players in a complex system.

Montana’s criminal-justice system is a huge bureaucracy, including law enforcement, courts, jails, prisons and multimillion-dollar private contractors, who provide everything from treatment to incarceration.

“They’ve got an ambitious schedule,” says Mike Thatcher, CEO of the state’s largest private correctional contractor. “In order for all parties to be successful, there needs to be a concerted effort to get this thing moving – judges, county attorneys. … A lot of training needs to take place.

“I’ve been at this for 17 legislative sessions, and then in this one session, I saw more sweeping criminal-justice reform than I have in the previous 16 sessions combined,” Thatcher adds. “It’s a huge undertaking.”

State government spends just over $200 million a year on corrections. That amount doesn’t include millions more spent on courts and local jails.

The changes are supposed to save the state at least $70 million in correctional spending over the next six years, by preventing the projected increase in the prison population and cutting the number of offenders on probationary supervision by as many as 2,600 people.

Out of those savings, $21 million will be spent on various programs to help keep people out of prison.

The major changes include:

• A “risk and needs assessment” for every criminal offender, before sentencing, meant to design specific programs and goals they must achieve to get out of the system, as productive citizens.

Gustafson says in the current system, judges often hand down sentences and rules of probation before specific rehabilitation needs are identified.

“It just seems like we should find out what (offenders) need and then fashion the requirements of what they have to do, to what they need,” she says.

• A full-time, professional Board of Pardons and Parole, which will follow a consistent set of guidelines for paroling inmates who’ve met certain requirements. The newly configured board held its first meeting earlier this month.

• A pretrial assessment of people who’ve been arrested, to determine if they’re a risk and should be jailed or not, before any trial. The intent is to sharply reduce the number of people held in jail – and the harmful effects of unnecessary incarceration.

“What we’re trying to do is reduce the pressure on jails, and save those spots for people who really deserve them,” says Rep. Nate McConnell, D-Missoula, who sponsored one of the reform bills. “Don’t put people in jail for dumb stuff – that’s kind of what it comes down to.”

• More supervision of high-risk offenders on probation and parole. Research has shown that concentrating on high-risk offenders in the first months helps prevent them from re-offending, while those considered low-risk don’t need tight supervision.

• Making it less likely offenders will be sent to prison for minor infractions while on parole or probation, by creating required, non-prison sanctions. If someone is sent to prison for repeated minor infractions, the new law limits the return to nine months.

• Removing offenders from supervision, if their record out of prison is clean, after a certain time period. Researchers say if an offender has been out of prison more than three years and has a clean record, the chance of re-offending is extremely low.

State corrections officials say almost one-fourth of offenders on probation – about 2,000 people – have been on supervision for three years or longer.

Some of these steps – the risk-and-needs assessments, or the supervision focus on high-risk offenders, for example – had already started, as initiatives by the Bullock administration.

The new laws, however, make them requirements for whoever’s in charge, with an eye toward creating long-term savings and, ultimately, fewer Montanans in prison and on supervision, while still maintaining public safety.

Michael, the new corrections director, says Montana and the nation have spent a lot of time and money putting people in prison, but haven’t done as well helping them develop the skills to succeed once they get out.

The new laws should help Montana move toward the second goal, he says – although it won’t necessarily be an easy road.

“We won’t be 100 percent successful; that’s just the reality of the business we live in,” he told MTN News. “But I think this will have an effect that will create positive change for individuals. And if we can keep fewer people in jail, than I think the community will benefit from it.”

Part two looks at the new full-time Parole Board, considered a linchpin of the reforms.

This story is the second part of a four-part series examining broad criminal justice and correctional reforms passed by the 2017 Legislature, aimed at reducing Montana’s prison population.

HELENA – For the first time in Montana’s history, the state board deciding parole for thousands of criminal offenders now has full-time members with a background in corrections – a key piece of sentencing reforms enacted by the 2017 Legislature.

Scott Cruse, a former FBI agent and the board’s new chair, tells MTN News that this new board wants to do more to ensure that inmates released from prison succeed on the “outside.”

“It’s important that we have good re-entry programs and ways for (offenders) to become functioning members of society so we can stop this revolving door of putting them back in jail,” he said in a recent interview.

The Legislature’s package of reforms aims to reduce the rate of offenders who return to prison after being released, or when they’re on state supervision on a suspended sentence.

The new Board of Pardons and Parole, created by Senate Bill 64, has five full-time members with an extensive background in corrections or law enforcement. Its first meeting was August.

Before, the board had part-time, volunteer members appointed by the governor. They made decisions on parole based on recommendations by their own staff – recommendations that often differed from those made by prison staffers who worked with inmates.

Now, prison case-workers and the Parole Board will be using the same guidelines, to give inmates a more consistent path to achieving parole and getting ready for life outside prison.

“Everyone who comes before this Parole Board should expect to be treated fairly and consistently,” Cruse said.

Also, Parole Board members will review cases themselves, doing work formerly done by staff.

Montana State Prison Warden Michael Fletcher told MTN News he thinks the new model will be an improvement.

“Before, (the Parole Board) hadn’t been actually involved 365 days a year, and now they’re giving us feedback on what we can do better and there’s more of a collaborative effort between the two entities,” he said..

The new members include Cruse; Annette Carter, who previously was manager of the Department of Corrections’ re-entry program for inmates; Renee Bauer, former executive director of a Nebraska inmate job skill training organization and the Helena Downtown Business Improvement District; Kristina Lucero, an assistant public defender in Missoula; and Darrell Bell, a U.S. Marshall with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Mike Batista, the former director of the state Corrections Department, was also appointed by Governor Bullock to serve on the board temporarily.

Parolee Anthony Valderrama of Helena says having board members with a background in corrections should be an improvement.

“To understand the crime and what somebody needs, you have to understand the person,” he told MTN News. “They are professionals, it’s what they deal with. It’s not like having a farmer from Sidney sitting on the board, (who) has no clue about law and no clue about anything.”

While the board is its own entity, its partnership with the Department of Corrections will be strong, its members say.

“Our end goal is the same, because our piece is re-entry (for inmates), and what we’re assessing is risk and readiness,” said Carter.

Fletcher, the Montana State Prison warden, said the department wants to work with the board to “ensure (inmates) have the successes once they get out in the community,” and not create any “new victims in the community.”

Another key part of the reforms is a requirement that the Corrections Department create a “risk and needs assessment” for every offender, assigning them a level of risk and outlining what they need for treatment or other programs that can help them stay out of prison or succeed once they’re released.

Carter explained that assessment will help streamline the board’s decisions on parole – and hopefully make decisions more consistent, and easier for offenders to know what they must do to be paroled.

“We’re going to be talking the same language and (the Corrections Department) are going to be looking at the programming that we are going to want people to have prior to seeing us,” she said. “The tool also helps us develop plans with the DOC as far as programming for people as far as reducing their risk to the community and for public safety.”

Carter added that members will pay close attention to what sort of support potential parolees have in the community where they might live, and whether it’s necessary to send them to something like a pre-release center, which is more restrictive.

Not only is the Parole Board tasked with doing things differently, but it also must develop how it will measure success – a task it’s just beginning to work on.

“It’s been a long-held belief that the recidivism rate was a measure of success, and I think in a lot of ways it’s still going got be a measure of success,” Cruse told MTN News. “But until we can make that really say it’s an accurate portrayal of how things are working out, we have to get all these changes implemented and working together in concert before we’re really seeing how effective it’s being.”

Recidivism is the rate of offenders who return to prison within three years of being released.

While the details of measuring outcomes are still being discussed, Cruse said the overarching goal is to have the board coordinating its efforts with the entire correctional system, to prepare inmates for release and staying out of prison.

“A year from now, (if) we can all say we are working off the same script, whether you’re in the Department of Corrections, whatever institution you’re in, or here at the parole board, we’re working off the same script when deciding parole hearings, that’s going to be something where I say is a win,” he explained.

Part three examines how these sentencing reforms could offer a better pathway to freedom for people within the correctional system.

HELENA – A pair of Helena suspects are accused of breaking into a home and stealing guns.

Prosecutors said Riley Stevens and Zachary Weaseltail were seen by a neighbor kicking in a door at a Lydia Road residence on Monday before going inside.

When sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene, they ordered the suspects to come out. Stevens exited the home, followed by Weaseltail.

Investigators found a large plastic tote at the front door of the residence, with several handguns and other items including hunting knives. Some of the guns were loaded.

Weaseltail allegedly told deputies he and Stevens went inside the home to steal items, thinking the home was unoccupied.

Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton said Monday’s arrests are the result of neighbors watching out for one another.

“It is a great partnership when we can work with the neighbors and actually catch someone right in the act of stealing all of the possessions,” said Dutton.

Both suspects have been charged with felony burglary and felony theft. Bond for both has been set at $40,000.

HELENA – The Montana Highway Patrol has teamed up with state police in Idaho and North Dakota to protect the roads over Labor Day weekend.

Operation Border to Border begins at 12:01 on Friday morning and runs through Labor Day.

The program includes extra patrols on u-s highway’s two and 93. Troopers will focus on impaired and distracted driving, seat belt use and criminal activity.

It is a collaborative effort to reduce traffic fatalities. Law Enforcement officials hope to make the program and annual event.

US 2 and 93 were identified by the states as high-traffic corridors experiencing an increase in traffic congestion and dangerous driving and therefore selected for Operation Border to Border.

This story is the third of a four-part series examining extenstive sentencing and correctional reforms passed by the 2017 Legislature, aimed at reducing Montana’s prison populations.

HELENA – Ex-con Anthony Valderrama has his own business, a home and a family, and has been out of prison for three years – but still faces another 11 years of supervision by the state Department of Corrections, on a drunk-driving conviction.

Under sentencing reforms passed by the 2017 Montana Legislature, that time could be shortened to three or four years, or less.

Valderrama, 55, says that change would be a great gift for him and many other ex-cons who have turned their lives around.

“I’d be able to go home and see my family (in California) without having to get a travel permit,” he told MTN News in a recent interview. “Say I wanted to take a vacation and go to California. I could go to California. … I mean, I’m a good citizen.”

Lawmakers passed and Gov. Steve Bullock signed a half-dozen laws this year designed to reduce Montana’s prison population and the number of criminal offenders on supervision.

Offenders on supervision must report routinely to a state probation officer and get approval for many things any other citizen takes for granted, like traveling or moving.

Most of the changes are designed to give low-risk offenders a clearer path to parole and/or eventual freedom from the correctional system, if they do required treatment and keep a clean record.

For example, if an offender is on probation and meets all conditions of supervision, a probation officer now must recommend ending supervision after nine-to-24 months, depending on the offender’s risk level.

Research has shown that offenders on supervision more than two or three years rarely re-offend. But in Montana, 60 percent of the offenders who completed their supervision in 2015 had been on the books more than three years and 31 percent more than five years.

Valderrama and another former offender who spoke with MTN News, Dave Clark, say any change that gives offenders a set goal for release, or ending supervision, is a positive step.

“I think there’s got to be a point where you give a guy a chance,” says Clark, who had his supervision shortened on a drunk-driving sentence. “The person who has turned their life around, it’s clear, it’s obvious. … Give them a defined path on what they need to do.”

Clark, 55, is now a construction contractor in Helena.

Yet both men say the Corrections Department still often seems like a bureaucratic maze, overloaded with too many offenders and paperwork duties.

Offenders can get caught up in the maze, made to cycle through the same programs again and again, both inside the department or among its web of private contractors, they say.

Clark says the caseload for probation officers is far too high, making it difficult for them to provide the one-on-one help that many offenders need to stay on track.

Reducing that caseload by getting low-risk offenders off the books can’t help but improve the system, they say.

“That would alleviate a lot of problems on corrections – I mean, overcrowding of jails, of prisons, of the pre-release centers and people sitting and waiting,” Valderrama says.

Another huge problem faced by people with a criminal record is housing, says Valderrama.

“(Landlords) won’t rent (to ex-cons),” he told MTN News. “They won’t rent to violent offenders or sexual offenders. And if you do rent something, you have limited funds, so it’s not the best living environment.”

One of the laws passed by the Legislature attempts to address housing for criminal offenders.

The law allows the Corrections Department to give rental vouchers to people getting out of prison, for up to three months, and creates a grant program to fund housing services – but provided no specific money for either one.

Clark and Valderrama also say any reforms to streamline the system should be applied to private contractors, who can exercise considerable power over when an offender is released from a program they’re running.

Clark says he had mostly good experiences with treatment and programs run by contractors, but that he’s known offenders who’ve had to take the same programs, over and over.

“It all depends on the contractor,” says Valderrama. “For some programs, you’re just a number, you fill the bed. You have somebody who comes through a pre-release center, has already been through the program once, they get reassessed and they have to take all the same classes again.”

Bree Derrick, a staffer for the Council of State Government’s Justice Center who is helping Montana implement the changes, told MTN News that one aspect of the reforms is meant to prevent unnecessary programming: A “risk and needs assessment” for every offender.

“Cycling through programs more often has to do with the way we’re screening people and assessing them, and directing them into programs, than it does with anything else,” she says. “We’re working to make sure we’re controlling who is getting referred into programs, so we’re targeting those people most in need, and providing services they actually need, instead of one-size-fits-all.”

Reg Michael, the new director of the Corrections Department, says the new laws provide specific guidelines “to really keep everyone on a consistent track,” both inside and outside the agency.

“We’ve done a great job of separating individuals from the community at large, but we haven’t done as good helping people develop skills that will allow them to remain in the community once released,” he says. “I think we can do a better job, and I think these legislative actions will give us an opportunity to do a little better.”

This story is the final installment of a four-part series examining extensive sentencing and correctional reforms passed by the 2017 Legislature, aimed at reducing Montana’s prison populations.

BILLINGS – As Montana launches an ambitious push to reduce the number of criminal offenders in its correctional system, a key piece of the puzzle operates outside state government: Private contractors running community-based programs.

The 2017 Legislature passed a half-dozen laws designed to create a clearer path for offenders to avoid prison, or get out of prison and the correctional system, once they meet certain requirements.

How and whether multimillion-dollar programs run by private contractors help meet those goals is part of the discussion.

“We want to make sure that both inside the department, and with contractors, that we have programs that are evidence-based and have the best recidivism-reducing outcomes,” says Sen. Cynthia Wolken, D-Missoula, who sponsored most of the bills.

The rate of “recidivism” usually is measured as the number of inmates who return to prison within three years of leaving.

Contractors who spoke with MTN News said they’re on board with the overall goal, and welcome any scrutiny of their programs.

“We embrace the majority of the legislation,” says Mike Thatcher, CEO of Community, Counseling and Correctional Services Inc. (CCCS) of Butte, the largest private correctional contractor in the state. “(Our) outcomes should be measured. … Programs that are funded should be able to demonstrate they’re delivering they say what they deliver.”

Dave Armstrong, CEO of Alternatives Inc., which operates correctional programs that house or oversee 390 people in Billings, agrees that something must be done to halt the growth in Montana’s correctional system, and says contractors can be part of the solution.

“I think lower recidivism rates is what we’re looking for, so we would be accountable for that, and we welcome that,” he said in a recent interview. “We think we have very good facilities throughout the state.”

Yet he also said Montana already has a respectable recidivism rate, and that the state must use an accurate tool to evaluate programs’ success on keeping people out of prison.

Currently, the state neither requires nor measures any specific recidivism rates for criminal offenders who go through private programs.

Five major contractors operate 17 correctional programs across the state, from prerelease centers to drug-treatment facilities.

These programs currently house nearly 1,500 criminal offenders – about 30 percent of the male and female state inmates in secure facilities across Montana – and consume 23 percent of the state’s correctional budget, or $47 million last year.

The nonprofit companies that run the programs hire lobbyists to press their case at the Legislature and their CEOs often make more than the director of the entire state Corrections Department, which has an annual $202 million budget.

CCCS, the largest private correctional contractor, employs about 400 people in Montana and operates eight treatment, sanction or pre-release sites in Montana that house 700 offenders. It reported $35 million in annual revenue in 2014, according to tax records, and also runs correctional programs in North Dakota and Washington state.

Thatcher, its CEO, told MTN News that correctional programs can be seen as “economic development” – but also said that, in a perfect world, the goal would be to put programs like his out of business.

“I don’t see that happening any time soon,” he adds.

Thatcher says as the Department of Corrections prepares to implement the reforms, his nonprofit company is prepared to offer new programs or beds as needed – and submit to new standards and data-tracking, as long as they’re evenly applied.

“If the bar is getting raised, do it for every part of the system – Public, for-profit, nonprofit,” he says. “Subject us all.”

When it comes to recidivism in Montana, the state Department of Corrections measures it for the overall system, but does not have figures for specific “alternative” programs run by private contractors.

Up-to-date, comparable recidivism rates for other states are hard to come by, but most data indicate that recidivism nationwide is around 40 percent, for offenders returning to prison within three years of being released.

The latest figure for Montana is 38 percent, for offenders who left prison in 2013 and returned in the next three years.

The rate is slightly higher – 43 percent – when Montana looks at offenders released from any correctional facility or program in 2013, and returning within three years, including those run by private contractors.

An analysis by a group helping Montana implement the reforms indicates that during one particular three-year period – 2012 to 2015 – offenders going through privately run non-prison programs appeared to have no better outcomes than those who didn’t.

The Council of State Governments’ Justice Center looked at all 2,046 adult sentences in Montana in 2012, and the path those inmates took over the next three years.

Of the 960 people who ended up in a private, non-prison programs, nearly 28 percent of them eventually went to prison anyway.

Of the 1,346 people placed on probation supervision by the state, only 11.5 percent ended up in prison – including some who went from probation to a private program and then to prison.

Thatcher says CCCS does some of its own tracking of offenders going through its programs, and that he believes its record is a good one – but he’d like to work more closely with the state on data that track the success or failure of offenders as they go through certain programs.

“We don’t have that full data bank, or data base, that the Department of Corrections has,” he says. “That’s where the responsibility needs to lie.”

The Corrections Department has a $500,000 grant to enhance its information-technology systems to help implement the 2017 reforms, including granting more access to contractors to the DOC data system. Specific details of those enhancements haven’t been decided yet, an agency spokeswoman says.

Yet one of the new laws says new or renewed correctional contracts must require contractors to use “evidence-based tools” for people in their programs.

“We are in the process of reviewing some contracts that are expiring shortly, to ensure we meet these requirements,” says Corrections Department spokeswoman Judy Beck.

Still, correctional contractors in Montana often have 20-year contracts, which can’t be changed without agreement from the contractor.

Critics of the system also sometimes point the finger at contractors, saying inmates end up cycling through multiple private programs, taking similar treatment programs again and again, without a good plan that leads to their release.

Armstrong, however, says its up to the state to “call the shots” on what programming it wants for offenders, and to say how they’re released. Contractors such as Alternatives Inc. can provide what’s needed, he says.

“We’re not the decision-makers who decides where (offenders) go,” adds Thatcher. “We don’t have any role in those decisions.”

State corrections officials do make the final decisions on where offenders will go after they leave a program – but pre-release centers have the power to reject referrals from DOC, and do so about 50 percent of the time.

Still, as Armstrong points out, pre-release centers are generally full and have waiting lists.

Bree Derrick, a CSG Justice Center staffer helping Montana implement the new laws, says contractors may be asked to provide additional services in areas where a specific need is identified.

For example, in Pennsylvania, it was found that private contractors needed to provide more mental-health services and domestic-violence intervention, instead of substance-abuse programs, she says.

“They worked to retool that, and actually added those services,” Derrick says.

She also says other states have “performance incentive funding” for correctional contractors, that rewards them for meeting certain goals.

Thatcher says CCCS already is looking at what new services it could provide, such as alternatives to local jails, which are overcrowded across the state. As of this week, almost 350 state inmates were being held in local jails, awaiting placement in prison or another program.

A local prerelease center or other privately run facility could temporarily house offenders instead of jail, allowing them to keep their job and their family together while DOC or other authorities determine which facility or program they end up at, Thatcher says.

Beck says DOC already is preparing “requests for information” for contractors to provide these possible new services.

As changes to the system unfold, correction officials say contractors should expect to be asked to adjust their practices to reflect the goal of getting offenders through the system and returned to the community, more quickly and consistently – and successfully.

“You’ve got to give (offenders) some skills to allow them to be effective when they return to the community,” says Reg Michael, director of the state Corrections Department. “I would like to ensure that we and the treatment-based partners focus on what the established community-correction expectations are.”