Public Safety Center By the Numbers

By Contributing Writer on December 13, 2022

December 13, 2022

Brian Massie, Citizen Journalist

We continue to do our research into the proposed Lake County Public Safety Center (Jail). Since the new model for the jail is rehabilitation rather than just incarceration, we contacted Mr. Jason Boyd, Lake County Administrator, and Ms. Kim Fraser, Executive Director of the Lake County ADAMHS Board to see if they have any statistics that would help us better understand who is being incarcerated, and our current ability to help the inmates.

Here is the response from Mr. Boyd:

Pursuant to your request, I reached out to the Sheriff’s Office and received the following:

GED is paid for from profits made in the Inmate Commissary. Inmates receive GED training in the jail but take the GED test once they leave the detention facility. In 2020, 35 inmates went through GED training. We do not have statistics on those who have gotten their degree.

The Drug and Alcohol program is funded by the Lake County ADAHMS Board. On average 250 inmates per year go through the Drug and Alcohol treatment program. We do not have any statistics on “cure” rates. However, we do offer AA and NA here in the jail.

We do not have a rate of recidivism for our detention facility. There are myriads of recidivism rates: 1 year, 5 year, federal prison, state prison, etc. None of which we keep here.

We do not have any statistics available that we keep on what inmates live in Lake County or in other counties. The prosecutor states 46% of our felony cases in Lake County are from people who live outside Lake County.

Due to COVID restrictions all of our inmate programming apart of Drug and Alcohol Treatment was stopped for the last 12 months to eliminate outside infections in the jail

Regards,

Jason

*****

Here are the statistics provided by the ADAMHS Board:

We still have more questions than answers. A very interesting statistic to us is the “length of stay” metric. If 85% of the inmates are incarcerated for 30 days or less, how effective is ANY rehabilitation program. Even with all their good intentions, it does not seem reasonable that an individual would change their behavior in that short period of time. Assuming that the inmate is put on probation and required to attend some type of counseling, the statistics show that anywhere from 62% – 85% of the inmates return to jail because they violated their probation. Something is not working with our current counseling model.

Kim Fraser responded to our question: How will the new facility help the ADAMHS Board serve the inmates?:

“I anticipate that the new facility will afford us the opportunity to not only increase the number of individuals served but also expand the length of time that treatment provided, which we know increases an individual’s chance of maintaining sobriety after release. I also believe the new facility will provide an environment much more conducive to rehabilitation.”…Kim Fraser

We need more convincing that spending $300 million on a new rehabilitation model is warranted. It just seems like our society is promoting more and more drug use. Open borders allow for illegal drugs to flood our communities, and the legalization of marijuana will ensure that any “Public Safety Center” is never devoid of customers.

Unfortunately, the ADAMHS Board is just putting a Band-Aid on the problem, and that is not their fault. The basic problem is a fundamental declining of morality that has permeated our society. When we destroy the family, babies and morality a society will collapse. Without a strong religious foundation, we have no chance to reverse our current slide into the abyss. In our opinion, we have chosen the wrong path.

We have been granted a tour of the existing jail facility later this week. We will report on our “walk thru”, and share any insight that we have about the existing facility.