State sets deadline for probation fixes

12-20-2009 Ohio:

State prison officials have given the Hamilton County Probation Department six months to fix the division that handles the worst convicts, or it will no longer pay for the program.

That deadline comes after the state reprimanded the department in the fall when studies showed Hamilton County's intensive probation program was so ineffective that convicts in it are more likely to commit crimes than others convicted of similar crimes who were never supervised.

Hamilton County's 29 percent success rate was the worst of any urban county in the state - despite getting the largest chuck of cash, those studies showed.

Prison officials told the department to shape up or they would take away the $1.7 million they give the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court for the program designed to keep people out of prison. Ongoing talks between the county and state prompted the state earlier this month to set a deadline.

"We are requiring they make changes and accomplish certain things and it has to be done by July 1 or their community correction act prison diversion funding will be in jeopardy," said Linda Janes, deputy director of the prisons' Division of Parole and Community Services.

The changes include better assessment of people between conviction and sentencing, in order to put them on the proper level of supervision; and improved case planning based on the assessment.

Mike Walton, who oversees Hamilton County's Probation Department, said the county last week trained employees on a new state-approved risk assessment system, which will be used in making sure people get the proper level of supervision. The probation department will also work with the pre-trial division - which already does risk assessments for bond purposes when a person is arrested - to do case planning for the most intense cases, Walton said.

"That plan will then be handed off to the (Intensive Supervision Probation) officer," Walton said.

Walton does not view the deadline as a threat. Cutting funding, he pointed out, would mean most of the people on intensive probation would be sent off to prison - which the state is trying to avoid.

The program was created to keep people out of prison, which is more expensive than rehabilitating people in a community setting.

Counties deal with two types of probation. One is traditional oversight of low-level criminals who don't need to be locked up. The second, at issue here, is intensive supervision probation which is paid for by the state, managed by the court, and is considered the last chance for people who would otherwise go to prison. People in the program have committed violent crimes or are sex offenders. In Hamilton County, 23 intensive supervision probation officers oversee between 68 and 80 convicts, according to the program's supervisor.

Part of the program's success is measured by how many people complete the program and stay out of prison.

In other counties when a probationer slips up it means a stint in the county jail. But in Hamilton County, with no jail space available, that just isn't an option, explained Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Steve Martin, who heads the court's probation committee.

Here, when somebody slips up they either go back on probation or off to prison, he said.

Martin said the state and county have the same mission.

"Hopefully the ISP program stays," Martin said. "Even if we lock up more people than their arbitrary target, we are changing enough lives and keeping people out of prison to keep the program in place."

Hamilton County Commission President David Pepper, who criticized the program after seeing the study results, said he's encouraged that pre-trial is getting involved and changes will be made.

"This is the best of both worlds," Pepper said. "The state will continue to support us - which we desperately need - and hopefully there is incentive for the court to reform and improve the way it is doing things." ..Source.. Sharon Coolidge