Orange County has been selected by the National Institute of Corrections in partnership with Urban Institute as one of four counties in the nation to receive a technical assistance grant. This grant will synchronize the efforts of many different agencies to help the incarcerated become good citizens in the community.
The grant provides training and technical assistance to the Department to better coordinate the activities of about 60 agencies working to help Orange County Jail inmates successfully transition.
The Department’s “Great Escape Program” for inmates and a Re-Entry Center for those recently released are among the most effective efforts by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department to help inmates lead lawful and productive lives in the community and reduce costly recidivism.
Among the agencies that have programs to help inmates adjust to life in the community are Probation, the Orange County Superior Court, the District Attorney, Public Defender, Department of Veterans Affairs, Social Services, and Rancho Santiago Community College. These agencies are currently working together through the Orange County Re-Entry Partnership, established two years ago and led by the Sheriff.
“The next two years will be an exciting time for the Sheriff’s Department and all of our community based organizations as we create a system wide reentry program that will have a positive effect on all of Orange County, ” said Dominic Mejico, who will coordinate the grant effort. The Transition from Jail to Community Model is a Re-Entry Program designed to meet the individual needs of the inmates in Orange County, enhance public safety, and improve the conditions of our local community. With the Sheriff’s Department Inmate Re-Entry Unit in place, combined with a full time manager dedicated to the project and over 50 community partners participating in Inmate Reentry discussions, OCSD and its community has proven that they are ready to commit to a cultural and systematic change focused on Inmate Reentry.
One of the chief ways of accomplishing that goal will be a unified assessment tool, a personalized information sheet that can be used by all agencies to help establish the benefit an individual inmate would likely achieve from the various programs offered. The assessment tool will help match the inmate to the available programs and filter out the seemingly incorrigible and those who would waste their time and county resources in the program.
A second goal of the grant is to establish better statistics by which to measure recidivism and other benchmarks of success or failure. Currently there is little ability to gauge recidivism for those released in Orange County and subsequently incarcerated elsewhere.
“The Sheriff’s Department is dedicated to identifying collaborative strategies to reverse the trend of criminal recidivism in best hope for making a meaningful impact on adult recidivism,” said Sheriff Sandra Hutchens in a letter that accompanied the grant application. “We also understand that it is imperative to develop a coordinated effort with other key Orange County stakeholders that promotes community safety.”
In the grant application the Department outlined some of the advanced training it provides for staff to help inmates adjust to life on the outside.
“The Department also recognizes the importance of increasing availability of inmate programs such as continuing education and life skills classes to interested participants as a way to increase personal development skills and reduce tension amongst incarcerated individuals,” the grant said.
One of the measures of competence demonstrated to the National Institute of Corrections was the safety provided to inmates in the Orange County Jail system.
“Research has shown that the Orange County Jail system remains one of the safest mega-jails in the country. Based on average daily populations, the Orange County Jail system is now the 2nd largest jail system in California and the 8th largest nationally. In 2007, the Average Daily Population (ADP) was 6,545 inmates. Our current inmate-to-staff ratio is 34 to 1, significantly higher than the national average of 14 to 1; however, Orange County is still 60% below the national average of inmate-on-staff violence and 45% below the national average of inmate-on-inmate violence.“
It has been estimated that up to one third of persons released from custody onto formal probation do not keep their first probation appointment. Three out of four persons released from custody re-offend within three years of their release. Only one in four of those who go from incarceration to community programs are likely to re-offend during that same three year period.
With this information in mind, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and Orange County Probation Department began to develop a re-entry strategy to close the gaps that exist between the time of release and the accessing of community-based services designed to enhance a successful reintegration to the community.
The existing programs preparing inmates for life in the community are well used. An average of 10,500 male and female inmates voluntarily participated in the Great Escape program over the past four years. Willing participants can receive 42 days of paid for residential substance abuse treatment in a state-licensed, Probation-approved facility. A very unique component of our Re-Entry program is our Great Escape Re-Entry Center which was developed to bridge the gaps that exist between an inmate’s release and accessing of community based services. Our Re-Entry Center operates five days per week and assists formerly incarcerated individuals with referrals, counseling, placement into a variety of county facilities, transportation, clothing, DMV fee reduction forms and employment. On average, we have over 145 formerly incarcerated individuals who utilize the services at our Re-Entry Center on a monthly basis.
Sheriff Hutchens, along with Chief Probation Officer Colleen Preciado, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, The Board of Supervisors, the Collaborative Courts, and other government agencies, non-profits, and religious groups are united in their commitment to help inmates facing the challenge of re-entry into the community. The challenge is to identify each agency’s role as it pertains to Inmate Reentry to avoid duplicating services and to maximize resources. The TJC model will assist Orange County in identifying these roles.
Currently, the Re-Entry partnership stakeholders meet bi-monthly to devise better ways to help inmates adjust to life in the community. The Sheriff’s Re-Entry Unit currently includes 11 staff members with an operating budget of $1.5 million.
A key to success will be coordinating services for the incarcerated with services available to the recently released. Statistics show that 75% of those who availed themselves of in custody services did not participate in post-release services available. That same study showed that only 25% of those who participated in the post release programs were subsequently arrested.
The Orange County Jail has a data system than can chronicle both the demographics of the inmates and track their participation in the Re-Entry programs. Improved tracking is a goal of the grant, to help gauge which programs are the most successful.
The existing Department effort to support inmate Re-Entry to the community is a good one. The Department has the ability to provide in custody programming and similar post custody services which increase the inmates’ chances for a successful transition from jail into the community. Many of the service providers have access to inmates while they are in custody so that the inmate knows exactly who to contact and where to go upon release. For example, Probation meets with a select inmate population weekly and provides follow up meetings post release. Rancho Santiago Community College provides counselors that meet with inmates in custody to develop educational plans that inmates can access from the counselor when released.
The grant application said:
“ Although there are strengths to our re-entry efforts in Orange County we have a lot of room for growth, direction, and guidance. The major challenge in our re-entry efforts is technical assistance. Indentifying how to create recidivism reports, track inmates post release, and measure the effectiveness of our programs are all challenges that need to be addressed. The implementation of one universal assessment tool that all of Orange County agencies and resource providers can utilize will help tremendously in maximizing resources and not duplicating services. By combining our current Re-Entry program with the TJC model, Orange County is confident that we can create a community-based re-entry model that can be shared with other counties across the country with the overall goal of properly preparing inmates for a successful transition from jail into the community. “
Sheriff Hutchens said in her letter to the Urban Institute:
“The Orange County Sheriff’s Department and its community partners welcome the opportunity of implementing an evidence based transition model that will benefit all those living in Orange County. If selected as a TJC site we are confident that we will be able to expand on our existing Re-Entry services in both custody and post release to lower recidivism rates, reduce jail overcrowding, reunite families, and make our communities safer.”