Jail programs to help inmates turn lives around

By ROGER AMSDEN, LACONIA DAILY SUN

LACONIA — A program being offered at the new Belknap County Community Corrections Center designed to help prisoners with addiction problems find their way back into the community is expected to see improved results and wider participation in its new setting.

Belknap County Corrections Superintendent Keith Gray says the Corrections Opportunity for Recovery and Education (CORE) program has expanded from three days a week to five days a week, more than doubling the number of hours inmates spend in the classroom.

And, while there are only 13 currently enrolled in or about to enter the program, he expects that number will increase substantially in the near future as the Corrections Department works closely with Belknap County Attorney Andrew Livernois, police department prosecutors and probation officers to bring more recommendations before judges for completion of the program as a condition of sentencing.

“Before the center opened, people in the program were going right back into what was not really a therapeutic environment in the jail. Now they’re housed in a separate unit with people who are involved in the same program. It’s a much better environment for them,” said Gray.

The 18,000-square-foot, 72-bed center opened in October and now has 34 minimum-security inmates housed there, 27 men and seven women, who are in separate units.

Some of those inmates are already involved in work release programs which see them work during the day and return to the jail at the end of the day, where they take part in recovery programs offered in the evening by AA and Navigating Recovery.

Daytime programs are provided by three clinicians from Horizons Counseling Center who are overseen by a case manager,

Courses offered during the day include those dealing with decision-making skills, parenting, anger management, employment readiness and career and technical education.

Tamara McGonagle, program director at the Department of Corrections, said a pilot program that the county ran for two years has already shown some good results.

Of the 49 people who have completed the program, she said only nine have been returned to custody – five for probation violations and four for new offenses.

“We’re going to continue tracking them to see how effective the program was,” said Gray. The goal is to reduce the recidivism rate from the current 70 percent to 35 percent over the next few years.

Currently 70 percent of those held at the jail are repeat offenders and most are dealing with drug and alcohol addiction problems.

The program provides early intervention and screening assessments which classify and target offenders appropriately and identify low-risk offenders, who could be considered for alternative programs and moved out of the jail, as well as high risk offenders, who would be targeted for intensive treatment services at the jail.

Gray said all new inmates receive evaluations when they are first brought to the jail and those can be useful in deciding what kind of sentences will be recommended to the court.

Those whose sentences include successful completion of the CORE program can see their sentences reduced from 12 months to eight months and can qualify for release with an ankle bracelet to monitor them.

Providing inmates with job skills so that they can support themselves when they are released is an important consideration, said Gray, as are the follow-up and support services available to the released inmates through community groups.

Gray is optimistic that the program will help reduce recidivism and points to the success that Sullivan County enjoyed in its Community Corrections program.

“Since they started their program in 2010, they’ve had 408 people go through it. They dropped their recidivism rate from 60 percent to 19 percent, and their jail population has dropped from 110 to 120 to just 69. In fact, they even had a shortage of prison labor this summer and were asking other jails in the state to send them inmates,” said Gray.

Belknap County currently has 83 inmates, 17 of whom are women, and has averaged about 97 inmates on a daily basis.