Monday, May 18, 2009
COLUMBUS (AP) — No steel bars or heavy sliding doors greet the residents in the lobby of Alvis House’s Alum Creek center — just a clipboard and a wand-wielding security guard.
Once frisked and inside, residents — most of whom are at the halfway house because of a drug conviction — get counseling, do household chores, work on their job skills or stand by for random room searches. They leave for outside work and return at a set hour, signing the clipboard as they do.
“In some ways, this is more stressful than prison,” said Mark Fraker, caught last year on an Ohio highway during a cross-country drugs delivery. “You always got somebody up on you about doing the right thing.”
The people who run Alvis House think that Ohio’s budget problems, and the state’s overcrowded and costly prison system, will make lawmakers more willing to expand support for community-based correctional facilities, such as halfway houses and drug treatment centers.
After years of new laws mandating tougher sentencing, Gov. Ted Strickland’s proposed changes for the upcoming two-year budget would reduce the number of people sent to prison for low-level crimes, the most expensive rehabilitation option.
The state has been projecting a $7 billion shortfall, although that number could rise as income-tax collections drop in the recession.
Ohio could save about $11.5 million by increasing funding for prison and jail-diversion programs and for community corrections facilities, an analysis from the state Office of Budget and Management says. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has an annual budget of about $1.8 billion.
House Democrats pulled Strickland’s sentencing changes from the budget, choosing instead to fund a $100,000 study on possible sentencing changes in Ohio.
The governor’s proposals still could be included in the Senate’s version of the budget or considered as separate legislation, Strickland spokeswoman Amanda Wurst said.
Sending nonviolent offenders — those convicted of drug possession or not paying child support, for example — to halfway houses reduces the number of people who commit another crime after being released from custody, said Denise Robinson, the president of Alvis House.
And that, in the long run, would save money for a state that spends $68 a day, or about $25,000 per year, to lock an inmate in prison, says Ohio prisons director Terry Collins. It costs $10,000 per year to send an offender to an alternative program.
“Trust me, we are not soft,” Robinson said. “We are not saying, you shouldn’t pay your child support. What we’re saying is, you can’t pay it if you’re locked up.”
And the structure and services provided by a halfway house or other community facility have helped Ohio achieve a 38 percent rate for reoffenses compared with almost 65 percent nationally, Collins says.
A study by the University of Cincinnati’s Center for Criminal Justice Research found in 2005 that criminals who went through Ohio community corrections programs were less likely to commit other crimes than those who were simply released from prison or jail. An updated look at the issue is due from the center in December.
Most Ohio counties already have a number of alternative programs, said William Breyer, Hamilton County’s chief assistant prosecuting attorney. So, if prosecutors and judges decide to send someone to the state, it’s probably because the offender really needs to be locked away for the public’s safety, he said.
“The crime should determine whether or not you go to jail, not the jail space question,” he said. “It just seems like the state is drifting toward making prison terms fit the available jail cells, not the crime. That’s not a good idea.”
Ohio’s 32 prisons are at 132 percent capacity with 50,814 inmates. Most were convicted of nonviolent crimes and are better suited for jail diversion programs, halfway houses or community-based facilities, Collins told lawmakers during budget testimony at the House Finance Committee in February.
About 7,400 offenders were sent to Ohio halfway houses last year, a figure that’s been fairly consistent in recent years because the state hasn’t funded any new halfway house beds, Alvis House spokeswoman Gloria Nielsen Iannucci said.
The state’s prison system contracted 1,699 beds with the nonprofits that run halfway houses in 2008. With increased funding, the state could contract another 670 beds, according to the Ohio Community Corrections Association.
Such an increase in offenders would likely lead to fears and complaints in communities where facilities are located, Iannucci said.