Do the time, do another crime?

A study group of law enforcement, judicial and county officials are finding that sticking some criminals in jail to deter them from committing more crimes often backfires.

The county's Criminal Justice Committee met Thursday with a law enforcement expert who has offered counties across the country some do's and don'ts for programs designed to stop criminals from repeating their offenses.

Mark Carey, a nationally recognized law enforcement consultant, spent part of the week talking to county officials. Local law enforcement leaders have been meeting for months about ways to maintain public safety and reduce the risk of jail overcrowding.

"There is a right way to do this business," Carey told the Napa County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. "If you think that punishment is reducing recidivism, it's not."

A criminal in jail is prevented from committing crimes while he's there, he said. But for some criminals, the jail experience leaves them more likely to commit criminal acts when they're released.

Carey said the logic is as complex as the reasons some people commit crimes in the first place -- family issues, anger problems, beliefs about society.

Studies show some so-called high-risk offenders will never benefit from any treatment program. If the county tries to put low-risk offenders in programs designed to help them keep their noses clean, the training may have the opposite effect. For mid-range offenders, though, the programs work.

Carey does not advocate letting criminals run free. Instead, he said, studies show that jail time -- combined with treatment -- works to reduce the rates at which mid-level offenders commit more crimes, what criminologists call recidivism.

"What he's emphasized is this: If you're looking at trying to reduce recidivism, what does the evidence show is the best thing to do?" said Brit Ferguson, county assistant CEO and member of the Criminal Justice Committee.

Step one: Don't mix the really bad with the not as bad. Carey said just as good parents wouldn't let their children associate with bad elements, it's also not good to take low-level offenders and lock them up with high-level ones.

"What I usually see when I go through jails is populations that shouldn't be mixing together talking about things they shouldn't be talking about," he said.

Step two: Know what doesn't work.

Carey said the research shows that programs based on military models do not do the job.

Instead, treatment programs have to be designed to change the way criminals think, otherwise the offender is likely to commit more crimes despite any opportunities to do otherwise.

"If you take that same offender and give them a job, they will likely get fired, in fact they will likely use that job to commit their crime," Carey said.

Still, once a county has the right treatment programs, it has to know which criminals will benefit the most -- or its money will be wasted.

Carey said for low-risk offenders, simple punishment may be the best deterrent. Mid-level offenders are the most likely to benefit from treatment.

Ferguson said one consultants' report isn't a sure bet to change county policy, but it could change the tenor of discussion among the Criminal Justice Committee, which is scheduled to submit its final report to the Napa County Board of Supervisors in coming months.

"One result of that might be we need additional jail beds or one result would be we need different kinds of jail beds," he said, adding more low-risk beds might help keep low-level offenders away from higher-level ones. Or perhaps, he said, the county needs treatment programs. "I think there's a sense in the Criminal Justice Committee that we want to explore and understand what will prevent people from committing more crimes."

Whatever the group decides, Ferguson said, it has made one final decision so far: Keep meeting and keep talking. The group -- including representatives from the Napa Police Department, Napa County Sheriff's Office, the Napa County Department of Corrections, the probation department, public defender's office and Napa County Superior Court -- has been doing that since 2005, when it was first charged with coming up with long-term plans for the county justice system.

"Just getting together and talking about what we want has proven to be a positive thing," he said.