County to expand treatment of inmates while making room for more

By JILLIAN JONES
Register Staff Writer

Dozens of officials from Napa County’s criminal justice system gathered on Monday to adopt an innovative new approach to reducing crime.

The plan allows for the limited expansion of the Napa County jail while focusing efforts on treatment, and not just punishment, of criminals.

The Napa County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Monday to expand the already overcrowded jail by 89 beds and to keep the facility at its current downtown Napa site. The expansion will allow the county to meet its 2025 projected need of 360 beds. Currently, the jail can handle 277 people.

County officials say construction will be complete in the next three to five years, and will include central facilities large enough to allow for the expansion to 500 beds.

It is unclear whether the county will move to remodel the current jail facility or undergo completely new construction. The Board of Supervisors directed staff to explore financing options before proceeding with construction plans.

This expansion provides for 100 beds fewer than what the county projects it would need if not for a radical set of programs aimed at reducing recidivism, or the tendency of criminals to re-offend.

Rather than continuing to build “more and bigger” facilities, “at some point we have to try something different,” said Napa County Assistant District Attorney Lee Philipson.

As part of the move toward treatment programs for criminals, the board voted Monday to establish the Community Corrections Service Center, a day center for offenders at the downtown Hall of Justice. There, about 50 criminals will undergo programs in motivation therapy, anger management, domestic violence management, substance abuse intervention and relapse prevention, as well as classes in life skills and parenting skills.

“These practices look at the whole person … as well as the issues of their criminal behavior and help them to change that,” said Napa County Chief Probation Officer Mary Butler.

In some cases, day center programs will take the place of jail time. In other cases, they will reduce the length of a given sentence. A typical program will last between three to nine months.

The goal is to help offenders successfully re-integrate into the community.

“If all you do is punish an offender, you don’t reduce recidivism,” Mark Carey, a consultant to Napa County, said Monday. Punishment alone, he said, “doesn’t get at their thinking patterns … (and) doesn’t give them any skills. … These programs we’re talking about do.”

County officials predict a 30 percent drop in recidivism rates as a result of the new programs.

Napa County Assistant CEO Britt Ferguson said the estimated $1.3 million annual investment in the treatment programs will save taxpayers millions of dollars by reducing crime and expensive jail time. It would cost $11 million to build for the 100 extra beds the county would need without the programs, and another $1 million in staffing, according to county officials.

“Taxpayers rightfully demand that we be prudent with their tax money,” Napa County Sheriff Doug Koford said. “With these programs, we are being as effective and efficient with their dollars as possible.”

Koford said the programs will also allow the criminal justice system to work more efficiently.

“If we can lower our recidivism rate, it lowers our crime rate and reduces the Sheriff’s deputies’ case load. It’s a win-win for the community,” he said.

Philipson said this new approach “is much more comprehensive than those in other counties in the state and elsewhere.”

“We are ahead of most jurisdictions,” Ferguson said.

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