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Counties sign state prison alternatives funding agreements
TRACEY BLAIR
Legal News Reporter
Published: February 2, 2018
Local officials are working together to prepare for state-mandated changes designed to help reduce Ohio’s prison population.
Last fall, the state legislature implemented new regulations prohibiting counties from sending most felony five offenders to prison.
Summit and Mahoning counties are among 10 targeted counties that must participate in the program starting in July.
The Ohio Targeted Community Alternatives to Prison (T-CAP) program will focus on Felony 5 offenses that are non-violent, not sex offenses and do not require mandatory prison time.
Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiro, Summit County Sheriff Steve Barry and Common Pleas Administrative Judge Amy Corrigall Jones have executed a memorandum of understanding under the T-CAP program.
“I am grateful that we were able to collaborate with other local county stakeholders to arrive at a consensus regarding the burden placed on our local government,” Judge Corrigall Jones said. “The court will use the apportioned funding to increase pretrial and probation services in order to meet the additional demands that are being placed on the Summit County justice system. Our continued goal is to attempt to reduce recidivism and to protect the community, while addressing treatment needs of those who find themselves in the system.”
The county is slated to initially receive more than $1.3 million in TCAP grants, and subsequently $1.6 million, Judge Corrigall Jones said.
According to Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction officials, the funding amounts allocated statewide assume a reduction in the prison population to average 49,104 during state fiscal year 2018, and 47,538 in state fiscal year 2019.
In Summit County, T-CAP will allow an estimated 140 Felony 5 inmates with drug trafficking to be removed from the prison population.
In Mahoning County, the program will remove about 61 Felony 5 drug trafficking offenders from prison, according to ODRC statistics.
Summit County’s plan includes the following:
• Enhance continuum of sanctions and community control options (pre/post) through Adult Probation Department or pretrial services.
• Add early screens for specialty court docket and/or programming through pretrial services.
• Utilize the jail registrar to continue to evaluate inmates for population control.
• Support adult probation to oversee violators.
• Support medically-assisted treatment.
• Enhance programming provided through Oriana House, an Akron-based community corrections and chemical dependency treatment agency. Programming will include day reporting, electronic monitoring and work release, in addition to General Equivalency Diploma help and other skill-building classes.
“This multi-dimensional approach will provide judges with additional supervision officers, programming and treatment options for those individuals who will now be sentenced locally as a result of TCAP, as well as for other low-level offenders,” Judge Corrigall Jones added. “It will also be used to pay for sheriff’s office staff who determine program eligibility of inmates for population control purposes, and includes early screening for specialty courts, such as Drug Court.”
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction promotes TCAP grants to further the state’s Justice Reform Reinvestment initiative by supporting the continued diversion of low-level offenders from prison.
The goal is to reduce the prison population while ensuring more people receive the supervision and essential treatment they need in a more effective and less costly setting than prison, Judge Corrigall Jones said.
“Summit County continues to focus on collaborations and partnerships as we work proactively through state budget cuts and mandates,” Shapiro said. “Summit’s multi-dimensional approach will responsibly use this grant funding to target the needs to the affected individuals throughout the criminal justice system.”
The other targeted T-CAP counties are Franklin, Cuyahoga, Hamilton, Montgomery, Lucas, Butler, Stark and Lorain. Participation was voluntary for all other Ohio counties.
In 2016, about 8,300 of nearly 20,000 people committed to prison were sent to the ODRC for one year or less.
About 4,100 of those were for Felony 5 offenses. Of those Felony 5 offenders, about 3,400 were non-violent prisoners who did not commit sex offenses, according to ODRC officials.
The ODRC started the T-CAP program with four pilot grants that involved common pleas courts in Clinton, Ross, Medina, Lucas, Defiance, Henry, Williams and Fulton counties.
Two of the pilot grant sites also chose to target the same Felony 4 offenses