LEWISBURG — Union County spent $850,000 on housing prisoners outside of its tiny jail on the ground floor of the historic county courthouse last year.
And last year’s prisoner population is lower than this year’s, the county commissioners said.
On average, there are more than 70 prisoners the county is responsible for, but only 36 beds at the county lockup.
It could be nearly $1 million in 2011 to ensure a roof is over every prisoner this year, Commissioner Preston Boop said.
That’s led the commissioners and other county officials to look at other ways to punish and rehabilitate lower-risk offenders that doesn’t increase the overall prison population.
Boop and Commissioner John Mathias were joined by Warden Douglas Shaffer and 17th Judicial District Judge Mike Sholley a few weeks ago in a visit to the county jail and a “day reporting center” there.
Though not exactly what the commissioners had in mind, the Franklin reporting center in Chambersburg essentially is a mid-step between incarceration and release. It provides counseling, job training and drug testing.
Union is exploring the possibility of creating its own reporting center that would offer a full-day program that would offer job skills training and other programs, then several hours of community service.
In Franklin, the cost of handling an offender at the treatment center is about $30 per day while it costs about $65 per day to house someone in the county jail there, Mathias said.
“Our incentive is that it’s less cost and a more humane way of dealing with people,” he said.
Added Commissioner John Showers: “And more constructive.”
Union is still in the exploratory stages and does not have a location picked out. But the Franklin center was “nothing more than a converted garage,” Boop said.
Union County staff would be trained to run the facility. Already Shaffer has expanded his staff at the county jail and created new positions to begin programs aimed at reducing recidivism, or repeat offenders clogging up the county jail.
And by focusing on non-violent offenders — those arrested on drug charges, bad checks or retail theft, for example — it keeps the dangerous criminals further isolated.
“There’s no good reason why (non-violent offenders) should be locked up with violent offenders,” Boop said.
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