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| This important piece by Ruth Stoltzfus Jost is to appear in the Daily News-Record this week. |
Our jail is full. Again. In 2015 we paid $20 million to join Middle River Regional Jail. Since 1994 when our Harrisonburg jail was built our community population has not quite doubled -- but we are jailing five times as many people.
On February 2 the Middle River Regional Jail Authority, including our city and county officials, will be considering jail upgrades and expansion. Options range from $40 - $68 million for construction, divided among 5 jurisdictions. Add $40,000 per inmate per year ongoing costs. Taxpayers beware!
That’s not counting the real costs to our community. The great majority of persons in jail are charged or convicted of non-violent offenses. Many have been held pretrial for months. Incarceration disrupts tax-generating employment, secure housing, child support payments, and stable family relations.
What can we do instead? Virtually every community in the country is struggling with this dilemma.
There is a roadmap to easier, cheaper, and more just solutions. Prison Policy Initiative has produced a report "Does our County really need a bigger jail? A guide for avoiding unnecessary jail expansion". https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/jailexpansion.html
The guide lists basic questions that local decision-makers ask and lays out detailed "best practices" for reducing jail overcrowding. Are we holding too many people in jail pretrial? Are we making arrests when we could issue citations to appear in court? Are we under-utilizing personal recognizance or unsecured bonds to release non-dangerous persons before a court hearing? Are we incarcerating people because they cannot afford to pay fines and fees when we could use community service in lieu of payment or exemption waivers for poor defendants? Do we weigh an individual's ability to pay when imposing fees and fines? Are we over- incarcerating people convicted of misdemeanors and low-level offenses?
These and other questions are followed with details about best practices that work: reforming pretrial detention, changing how we issue fees and fines, ensuring people with mental health and substance use disorders are treated in the community not incarcerated, creating alternatives to incarceration for people convicted of misdemeanors and low-level offenses, ensuring that we don't use jail for technical violations of probation and parole.
With the hiring last year of our Criminal Justice Planner, Harrisonburg and Rockingham are finally poised to gather our data about current practices, develop new strategies, and secure grants (or leverage funds) to:
1. Build on our current investments in comprehensive drug treatment facilities, mental health, employment, and other programs, and use them to a) divert non-violent persons from the criminal justice system before even charging them and b) divert non-violent persons instead of revoking probation and reincarcerating them.
2. Avoid incarcerating persons before trial unless they are an immediate danger to the public.
3. Avoid incarcerating the many non-violent offenders who can safely work and live at home with electronic home monitoring.
Tell your city and county representatives we need to use less expensive, more effective proven alternatives before we spend millions to expand our jail.
Here's a link to a petition to sign urging the cities of Staunton, Waynesboro and Harrisonburg and the Counties of Augusta snd Rockingham to consider alternatives to this proposed multimillion dollar expansion.
4 comments:
Thank you for this post, Ruth (and Harvey). Rather than incarceration, alternatives as those you outline should be employed when a person is accused or convicted of breaking a law. And even if a person is accused or convicted of some offense that makes people fear that the person will pose a threat to society, alternatives to incarceration should be sought. I am signing the petition!
-Kathleen Temple
Thanks, Kathleen!
As I work with people struggling with addiction, especially those coming out of incarceration, I see a system that seems to want them back inside. There are dedicated ministries and resources for various things they need, but little coordination and no overall strategy.
The biggest challenge is housing. Landlords don't want people with a criminal record when they can rent to college students. The new shelter doesn't have enough beds. The Salvation Army has a limited number of rooms. The Oxford Houses have waiting lists. And if an ex-offender doesn't have an address, he or she is in violation of their probation. And some (not all) POs are looking for an excuse to violate them back to jail.
There's also a need for a health and dental clinic (a real one that answers the phone and gets you an appointment in a reasonably-timely manner). And for those who are still addicted, I've been told that there are fewer than a dozen rehab beds in the whole state that will accept Medicaid.
I look at how much this expansion will cost and I imagine alternative ways to spend the money-- ways that keep people *out* of jail and return them to society. Look, for example, and the Gloucester Initiative in Gloucester, MA, or the drug court system in UT. Neither is perfect, but both are more cost effective and more successful than the revolving door of incarceration. The premise that someone will cure themselves of a disease if we just lock them up long enough is frighteningly medieval.
Thanks for your concern and your insights, DJ.
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