Pubdate: Tue, 21 May 2002 Source: Charleston Daily Mail (WV) Copyright: 2002 Charleston Daily Mail Contact: http://www.dailymail.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/76 Author: Vada Mossavat, Daily Mail staff Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration) ALTERNATIVE TO AREA JAILS CONSIDERED Panhandle Counties Using Day Reporting Centers To Save Money The jails are occupied beyond capacity. Regional Jail fees are rising. Counties are paying millions to keep non-violent offenders incarcerated. What can be done? One solution to these problems may already be in place in the Northern Panhandle. Hancock, Brooke, Ohio and Marshall counties have come together and formed day reporting centers, which are an alternative to jail time, and are saving $2.5 million a year. Logan, Lincoln, Boone and Mingo counties are looking to see if it would help them reduce their regional jail bills. Kanawha County Commission President Dave Hardy says day reporting centers also may be explored in Kanawha County. "We are spending a tremendous amount of money out at the regional jail and it always comes down to non-violent offenders," he said. "I think our commission would be interested in it." * * * Right now, there are 55 clients who pay $5 a day to report to the Lee Day Report Centers in Weirton and Wheeling. All clients are non-violent offenders who would traditionally serve their sentences in jail at the expense of their counties. Now they can pay to go to a day reporting center instead. There they receive drug and alcohol abuse treatment, education, job training and supervision. A day reporting center is like a one-stop shopping center, said Jim Lee, chief probation officer for the 1st Judicial Court. "It provides -- for non-violent offenders -- a chance to rehabilitate and go back into the community," he said. Lee has been a probation officer for 30 years and has been researching day reporting centers and community corrections for 10 years, he said. The day reporting centers in Weirton and Wheeling were named after him. "The regional jails are full and you have people sleeping on the floor because they can't get into prison," he said. "I'm not advocating (day reporting centers) for violent criminals. We ought to lock them up, but we need to find other solutions for our non-violent offenders and this is one way to do it." Offenders receive classes to teach them about life skills, decision making processes and receive preparation to take their GEDs. Groups are run 5 days a week. Participants also do community service or report to jobs. Even those who have jobs do community service in the county they are from on Saturdays. "Most of our clients are referred to us from magistrate court and they are on home confinement," said Fred MacDonald, executive director of the community criminal justice board and director of both day report centers. He said the two centers are staffed with seven full-time staff members and eight contractual workers. The centers, which cost about $500,000 a year to run, have been open since last year. Each of the four counties, Brooke, Ohio, Hancock and Marshall, put in $25,000 a year to participate in the program. Last year the centers received $300,000 from the state Budget Digest and a $125,000 grant, MacDonald said. Eventually, MacDonald hopes the two centers will be able treat 200 clients at once. The day reporting centers in the state have about a 15 percent recidivism rate which is only slightly better than the 18 percent recidivism rate for probation, Lee said. But with probation there is much less supervision. Probationers are only required to report in once a month and at that meeting, probation officers may find out that their charges haven't been doing what they have said they were doing. Lee said the increased supervision in the day reporting center guarantees the offenders remain on track. "We make sure he gets the necessary things he needs to be having. You are guaranteeing this structure because he is there five days a week," Lee said. About 70 percent of offenders need drug and alcohol treatment. The day reporting centers have a 12-week treatment program and a 12-week relapse program, both are significantly longer than most substance abuse programs. Furthermore, the cost of the substance abuse program is covered in the fee that the offenders pay. * * * Logan, Lincoln, Boone and Mingo counties all have started looking into starting their own day report center. "Our regional jail bills are just astronomical," Logan County Commission President Art Kirkendoll said. "Hopefully we can get some first-step progress in the next couple of months." Kirkendoll believes that not only would the day report centers be less expensive and ease overcrowding in the jails, the centers also would give offenders an opportunity to give back to the communities they committed their crimes in. "Instead of the tax payers lodging them in these regional jails we can uplift these people so after their time has been used they will be more productive," Kirkendoll said. About $1.2 million of Logan's budget of more than $5 million goes to paying for the regional jails, Kirkendoll said. "When it gets to where your jail bill ends up being 20 percent of your county budget, you need to look into some alternatives," he said. * * * Starting July 1, the counties will pay $1.75 more a day to house inmates in the regional jails. Allen Bleigh, Deputy Kanawha County Manager/Comptroller, said the increase in the regional jail per-diem rates from $43.25 to $45 will cost the county about $100,000 a year more in fees. The county has budgeted $2.5 million for regional jails fees for next year, Bleigh said. County Commissioner Kent Carper said saving money isn't a compelling reason to look into alternative sentencing ideas. "I am not interested in saving money to let someone off who needs to be punished -- that a judge has determined needs to be sentenced for a while. Letting him sit in jail is worth every penny," Carper said. But Carper said alternatives like home confinement or a day reporting center could make room for inmates who need to be in jail. And those who don't need to be in jail should be made to do community service instead "of sitting at home and watching HBO," Carper said. * * * The regional jail system would adjust if day reporting centers decreased the jail population, said Steve Canterbury, executive director of the Regional Jail Authority. "We would love to see the Regional Jail population diminish," Canterbury said. "If we had an absolute reduction in numbers, that would be a reduction in crime. Who wouldn't be for that?" Canterbury said the regional jails are constantly asked if they can house federal inmates. He said federal inmates could more than make up for inmates lost to day reporting centers. Also, he said the jails are set up so that if the population dramatically dropped, then part of the jail could simply be closed down. Funding for the jail comes from special revenue, which means that if there are fewer inmates then the jail will use a smaller staff, he said. "We imagine scenarios," Canterbury said. "You visualize and work out the "what-ifs." What if there is a riot? So that if something comes up they have already charged out a solution. We've also thought through the "what-ifs" in terms of lower numbers. - --- MAP posted-by: Jackl