COLUMBIANA COUNTY Jail company executive to meet with officials in wake of assault

None of the proposed changes will be significant, a company official said.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- An executive with the private company that operates the Columbiana County jail wants to meet with county officials later this month to talk about possible changes in how the jail's run.
The vice president of operations for CiviGenics Inc. of Milford, Mass., toured the lockup earlier this week after Sheriff Dave Smith expressed concern about assaults that occurred there in recent months.
The official, a corrections expert, is still finalizing his report, but it's likely to produce some changes, Peter Argeropulos, CiviGenics' chief operating officer, said Thursday without elaborating.
"There's nothing significantly drastic" that will be altered, Argeropulos said. "But you can always fine-tune an operation, and that's what we're looking at doing."
He added that the company wants to meet with county commissioners and the sheriff to talk about the proposed fixes.
Smith said earlier this week that in the last six months there have been three episodes in which inmates assaulted corrections officers and five situations in which inmates assaulted one another.
In some instances those involved in the assaults were treated at a hospital. But in no case was anyone admitted to a hospital for care.
Although the county contracts CiviGenics to run the lockup, county officials are still liable for what happens in the jail, Smith has said.
Care must be taken to ensure that everything possible is being done to ensure that assaults and similar episodes are avoided, he said.
Support for CiviGenics
Argeropulos and Commissioner Jim Hoppel, a proponent of privatizing the county jail nearly five years ago, have insisted that CiviGenics is doing a good job operating the lockup.
The facility routinely passes state inspections, they have noted.
Smith said he is considering bidding for the jail operation contract when CiviGenics' contract with the county expires Dec. 31.
CiviGenics said it also intends to bid.
The company charges the county about $48 per prisoner per day, which amounts to about $2.1 million annually.
Hoppel has said that's about $700,000 less per year than the sheriff's department spent to run the facility.
Smith has acknowledged that, given the higher cost of public employees, it's unlikely he can run the jail for the same amount as CiviGenics.