Auditors: Montana DOC fails to provide education, training to meet demand; lacks data

A new legislative audit report released Monday tells lawmakers it’s unclear if inmates with the Montana Department of Corrections are receiving much education or instruction because the data and record-keeping within the agency is either non-existent or so incomplete that it was nearly impossible for auditors to perform their tasks.

Furthermore, some of the programs offered through the Department of Corrections seemed to do little for inmates who face re-entry into a market hungry for employees, and those same inmates gain little in terms of practical skills.

For years, lawmakers and auditors have focused on the Montana Department of Correction’s education and rehabilitation — and for good reason. Statistics provided by the auditors show that when inmates are put through educational or vocational programs, their chances at recidivism, or reoffending, drop significantly.

Around one-third of inmates who enter the Department of Corrections do not have a high-school diploma. By state policy, those inmates should be enrolled in programming that will help them complete a diploma-equivalency, the report said.

“Research indicates that participating in educational and vocational programs can decrease recidivism by a third,” the audit report said.

For more than four years, lawmakers have been pressuring the state’s Corrections Department to update its offerings. In 2020, the performance audit completed by the Legislative Audit Division compared state and contracted facilities, but that report determined the Department of Corrections was not monitoring or comparing education, which resulted in lawmakers recommending “a formal, data-driven approach.”

“This portion of the recommendation was not completed,” the auditors found.

In 2022, a report showed that one of the department’s largest contractors, Core Civic Corrections, was embroiled in a cheating scandal for inmates utilizing the education programs there. After that incident and a subsequent investigation which didn’t substantiate the allegations, though, it appears that the educational programming either stopped temporarily or was restarted with little tracking. Meanwhile, the 2024 audit report also said that educational and work-training programs have been moved and reorganized so many times that tracking data is “underdeveloped or (does) not exist.”

The audit report had four key findings:

• The Montana Department of Corrections does not maintain usable program data to assess education and work program performance and compliance, and the department does not monitor recidivism.
• Education and work programs across the state do not meet demand and are not regularly assessed to ensure relevance or quality.
• Inmates are not consistently provided education, career counseling or re-entry assistance.
• Contracted secure facilities, like Core Civic, in some cases have even more problems with education programs.

No tracking equals no data

The auditors and the report itself released by the Legislative Audit Division repeatedly pointed out that officials couldn’t say much definitively because the data and tracking was either so sparse or incomplete.

“The Department of Corrections lacked accurate records for inmate education and work participation across public and private facilities. The data management procedures for this program are inadequate or absent,” the report said. “We intended to use department records to assess program performance and compliance with the law, policy and best practices. However, while obtaining and reviewing the records, we realized that there were significant deficiencies in the data management practices.”

A deeper look into the problem with data reveals that information about an inmate’s work history or education could be in as many as six different software programs and servers.

The report details years of lost data at the Montana Women’s Prison. And many facilities don’t track “milestone” achievements like receiving a certificate of completion or even a high-school diploma equivalency.

The report said that auditing staff worked for months in an attempt to either resurrect or rebuild data. When the auditors did receive data, it was “inaccurate, incomplete, or difficult to decipher.”

“We found errors in student records including impossible date ranges, incorrectly identified information and duplicate entries,” the report said.

The problems with the data didn’t just present problems for auditors.

“It’s unclear which programs are most effective, and accurate information on course achievement is necessary to assess interventions,” the report said. “The Board of Pardons and Parole also reported lacking information on education and training accomplishments for parole consideration.”

High demand, few opportunities

What little data was available to auditors showed that there’s high demand among the incarcerated population in Montana, with as many as three out of four inmates wanting the opportunity, but not receiving a chance.

“Education and work program opportunities at Montana’s secure facilities are limited, with long waitlists and inconsistently relevant programs,” the report said. “Inmates’ opportunities to access beneficial programs are not equitable between private and public facilities.”

Not only is there high demand among inmates, which auditors say the Department of Corrections cannot meet, it also found that some of the programs’ quality was lacking, leading to a mismatch between the training inmates receive and what is expected in the workforce.

“Work program opportunities cannot meet inmate demand, do match inmate interest or state workforce needs, often do not provide industry-recognized credentials and are not regularly assessed to ensure enough continued relevance or quality,” the report said.

And the auditors found that 75% of those who had been accepted into a program received no classes or less than one day of instruction. The ripple effect from the lack of education has left even the prison system with a deficit of workers with skills.

“Despite the expected overestimation of participation from this data, it also shows that most of the individuals (63%) received no education or work program opportunities between 2020 and 2022. Nearly a third have not worked a single job,” auditors said.

It also appears that leaders within the Department of Corrections are not monitoring the programs, or looking for ways to improve or update the education.

“Programs are not assessed for feasibility, market strength, or cost-effectiveness prior to implementation or on an ongoing basis to ensure the time, space, and resources are going to programs that serve the most inmates and the state in the most inmates in the most effective way possible,” the audit said.

The report documents that it’s hard for inmates to be prepared for re-entry into society with few new skills and even less help from prison staff. For example, other states have career counselors that help inmates begin preparing for education. Seventy-nine percent of inmates have said they’ve never met with a staff person to discuss education.

“Case managers shared that they do not often advise inmates on education or job skill needs, and were not all aware related categories existed in the risk and and needs assessment,” the report said. “Case managers do not typically assist inmates until approximately one month before a parole hearing.”

The risk, the auditors note, isn’t just that inmates being released from prison will fail, but ultimately the lack of education opportunities will become a problem for the facilities and the department.

“Lack of support for inmates to obtain education and training increases idle time, may lead to more dangerous prisons, increases subsequent recidivism rates and results in an inefficient use of limited education resources,” the audit said.

Problems at contracted facilities

Auditors also noted that it wasn’t just state-run facilities, like the men’s prison in Deer Lodge, or the state’s women’s prison in Billings, that were problematic. Instead, they noted that other facilities in the state, namely Core Civic in Shelby and Dawson County Correctional Facility, which contract with the state, have, in many cases, even worse educational programming.

“Private facility contract requirements mandate some educational and job opportunities to facilitate inmate reform,” the report said. “However, these facilities are failing to meet their contracted obligations.”

Several of the facilities say they cannot afford to hire staff. For example, Core Civic said that its average monthly teacher vacancy rate reached as high as 51%, the report said. Furthermore, there are penalties in the contracts that these private companies can face if they don’t offer education.

“Based on SFCB (Secured Facilities Contract Bureau) records, we estimate that in 2021, more than $100,000 in fines were not levied to address minimum teacher shortfalls,” the report said.