It Takes A Whole Community To Create A Model Criminal Justice System

Current proposals for expansion would require the investment
of millions by each of the cities of Harrisonburg, Staunton and
Waynesboro as well as by Rockingham and Augusta Counties. 

The following Open Forum piece was published in today's Daily News-Record:

Five years ago our locality signed a $21.5 million contract allowing us to house some of our local inmates at the Middle River Regional Jail (MRRJ) in Augusta County. 

Now both jails are overcrowded, largely because the Department of Corrections (due to COVID risks) has delayed receiving some 300 inmates from here waiting to be moved to DOC facilities. So the MRRJ Authority Board, which includes six local representatives, is now considering a multi-million dollar expansion of MRRJ at a time when both state and local budgets are stretched to the limit.

This is a critical time to consider proven alternatives to incarceration for the vast majority of our offenders who are not a physical danger to our community. We already have a Day Reporting Program and Drug Court in place, and could implement a comparable mental health court, eliminate cash bail for most people awaiting trial, and have many more inmates on electronic monitoring devices while working to support their families and pay off their fines and fees.

In 1994 the Virginia General Assembly mandated local jurisdictions like ours to form advisory Community Criminal Justice Boards (CCJB) made up of representative attorneys, judges, law enforcement officials, school superintendents and other local agencies and governing bodies. Thus local communities are given more say in effectively dealing with crime, and are charged with these responsibilities:

1. Advise on the development and operation of local pretrial services and community-based probation services for use by courts in diverting offenders from incarceration;

2. Assist community agencies and organizations in establishing and modifying programs and services for defendants and offenders on the basis of an objective assessment of the community's needs and resources;

3. Evaluate and monitor community programs and pretrial and local community-based probation services and facilities to determine their impact on offenders;

4. Develop and amend a criminal justice plan in accordance with guidelines and standards set forth by the Department and oversee the development and amendment of the community-based corrections plan as required by § 53.1-82.1 for approval by participating local governing bodies;

5. Review the submission of all criminal justice grants regardless of the source of funding;

6. Facilitate local involvement and flexibility in responding to the problem of crime in their communities; 

7. Do all things necessary to carry out the responsibilities expressly given in this article.

We are blessed to have a high level of experience and expertise in our CCJB, which meets quarterly and is co-chaired by City Council member Chris Jones and Board of Supervisor chair Rick Chandler. This group, like its neighboring Augusta County-based CCJB, could be soliciting the community’s help in developing concrete proposals for reducing incarceration costs and numbers while maintaining a high level of public safety and developing a high level of citizen responsibility.

Together we can find ways of reallocating resources and expanding drug treatment programs and services. Our community needs alternatives to confining ever more people in expensive steel cages--inconveniently located in a neighboring county.