Training begins for opening all jail units

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department is hiring and training mature, calm and alert law enforcement professionals to work as corrections deputies as it prepares to fully open all county jail facilities this summer.

“A people person with great communication skills will make a good officer,” said Alki Santamas, the county’s director of jail services. “It’s a high-stress job. You’re dealing with inmates your whole shift, and you have to give them respect in order to command respect for yourself.”

Although electronic alarms can summon help quickly, if needed, the unarmed deputies normally work alone in a prisoner housing unit, known as a pod. Each pod contains between 36 and 52 inmates, and most of the jail’s inmates are charged with violent felonies. The deputies open and close cell doors from an electronic control station, patrol the pod and observe and instruct the prisoners.

To fill vacancies and prepare for full reopening of all facilities, Sheriff Randall Wellington has hired 54 new deputies so far this year, with 30 of them still in training. The department needs to hire and train 23 more deputies, Santamas said. All of the jobs are full time and start at $11.24 per hour.

Current numbers

The department now has 260 law enforcement officers, consisting of 27 supervisors, 153 deputies and 80 cadets (deputies still in their three-year probationary period).

The sheriff said his goal is to open the last remaining 36-bed pod in the main jail by July 1. That would bring that building’s capacity to 548 inmates. Wellington added that he plans to reopen the 96-bed misdemeanor jail for regular overnight use by Aug. 1.

Under the settlement of a federal class-action lawsuit, in which inmates prevailed in their claim that overcrowding violated their constitutional rights, all jail facilities must be fully operational by Aug. 1.

In a new deputy, “We’re looking for someone who is level-headed, who we think can accept the training that we put them through as far as handling volatile situations without going overboard, thinking in the split second as to what is the right thing to do,” said Deputy Charles Van Dyke, training coordinator.

In training

Two of the new hires now in training said they believe they have what it takes to do this demanding job and hope to make a career of working in the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department.

“I’m pretty level-headed, and I can handle situations as they arise,” said Stacey Griffin, 29, of East Liverpool. “I’ve got good personal skills to work with people, inmates especially,” said Griffin, who most recently was a full-time corrections officer in the Columbiana County Jail for three years.

Griffin, who hopes eventually to be assigned to road patrol, got her police academy training at Jefferson College in Steubenville. She is a humane officer at the Humane Society of Columbiana County and a reserve sheriff’s deputy in that county.

Thomas Nieman, 33, of Sebring, who was trained at the Salem Police Academy, said his 12 years of road patrol experience with the East Canton, Smith Township and Newton Falls police departments prepared him well for his new job. “I’ve handled myself very well out there in keeping situations under control, and I don’t see how it’s any different in here,” Nieman said.

“If you keep your calm, cool and collected attitude and treat them [the inmates] like human beings, you don’t have a problem,” he said. “For the most part, if you treat people with respect, you’ll get the respect back,” he observed.

Eventually, Nieman said, he’d like to move on to investigative work.

Good preparation

VanDyke observed that working in a pod and doing mini-investigations of everything from one inmate stealing another’s lunch to a brawl among inmates will prepare him well for his goal.

“What we are hiring are police officers, and their beat happens to be that housing unit” in the jail and the inmate population they serve, VanDyke explained. Corrections deputies hone their interviewing and investigative skills and learn to identify the frequent troublemakers and their scams, VanDyke added.

In the hiring, training and equipping of the new deputies, the sheriff’s department is getting help through the Mahoning-Columbiana Training Association. For laid-off workers or those who meet income-eligibility requirements, MCTA has so far used some $60,000 in federal Workforce Investment Act funds to pay for training, uniforms, radios and other equipment for 24 of the new hires.

“We’re using federal dollars the smart way to be able to offset costs plus put people to work,” MCTA Director Bert Cene said.