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.