THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 1, 1994 TAG: 9406290142
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Guest Column
SOURCE: BY A.C. BLACK JR.
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines
As a probation and parole officer, I felt warm feelings of prolonged job security reading the guest column by Paula Leary in Sunday's Clipper.
Ms. Leary very eloquently expressed what many legislators have dubbed the ``Not In My Back Yard'' syndrome. All citizens demand that government live up to its responsibility to provide public safety, but very few want the necessary prisons or jails built close to their homes and families.
It is this thinking that has contributed to the development of so many alternatives to incarceration over the past two decades - programs like probation and parole, Community Diversion Incentive, in-patient drug treatment facilities and half-way houses. So, as a member of one of those alternative programs, I suppose that I should be grateful to the people who share Ms. Leary's opinion about the proposed work-release center in the Greenbrier area of Chesapeake.
However, as a tax-paying citizen of both Virginia and Chesapeake who worked for Sheriff John R. Newhart for almost six years (about two of those years as a work release counselor), I must point out to Ms. Leary that, if correctional facilities aren't built somewhere, those same people she worries about being locked up in her neighborhood will soon be shopping (or, perhaps, shop-lifting) at Greenbrier Mall!
You see, Ms. Leary, if no one allows the expansion of such facilities into their locale, then the alternatives to incarceration must be employed. Maybe citizens will feel more secure if they don't know criminals are among them. But I would suggest that those might be false feeling in many cases. Knowing firsthand how rigorous the work release screening process is at the Chesapeake Sheriff's office, this is one citizen who would welcome such a center in his back yard.
Of course, I do have the advantage of knowing that such a facility would accomplish a two-fold purpose:
Housing and employing offenders with no violent crimes in their background, thus adding to the tax rolls instead of the tax-burden population.
Making room at the jail for a larger number of dangerous violent offenders.
During the six years that I worked for Sheriff Newhart, I remember only one person ``escaping'' work-release custody. He was recaptured and returned to the jail before the sun rose on the day following his escape. Interestingly, he was caught in a neighborhood that was about a 10-minute drive from the work-release center.
So, using Ms. Leary's geographic argument against moving the facility - saving the inmates a 10-minute drive would increase the chance of one being at large in her neighborhood - it would appear that having them close to her house would actually lessen the chances of them being at large there if an escape occurs.
You see, Ms. Leary, usually an inmate escapes in order to go to some specific place. If he is not a resident of your neighborhood or dating someone there, there is little chance he will linger close to where he is trying to flee. And, if he's attempting to get to Greenbrier, having the facility in Great Bridge would do little to deter his flight.
Ms. Leary makes much of Maj. David Newby's comments about the nature of the typical criminal that is housed in a Chesapeake work-release center. Perhaps - if he was quoted in context and correctly - he could have expressed the nature of their criminality in better terms than ``They are just like you and me. . . '' Maybe, Dave should have said they are no more dangerous to public safety than recently convicted city officials!
The truth of the matter is that most work release inmates are, at worst, irresponsible citizens who fail to pay court-ordered child support or fail to abide by other laws that are non-public-safety issues.
Sheriff Newhart has a screening process for work-release candidates that is typical of his overall operation. It assures that the public will be protected from any criminal that has a propensity to commit violent acts of any nature. I have personally seen inmates denied work-release status because of one prior assault-and-battery conviction.
As a citizen, I am convinced that the Chesapeake Sheriff's office will never intentionally compromise public safety for the sake of ``getting their numbers'' where they want them relative to program participation.
If abuses by future sheriffs are a concern for Ms. Leary, I would suggest that she and her neighbors ask the City Council to codify the screening standards set by Sheriff Newhart. With a city law to govern the screening, no future sheriff could prostitute the program to the detriment of the public's well being.
Finally, Ms. Leary closes her column by expressing a concern for property values and future expansion of Greenbrier. She correctly voices a concern that placing a jail annex in Greenbrier might well impact on such matters. I would suggest that she and her neighbors study the impact that the presence of the City Jail/Work Release Center and the Tidewater Detention Home has had on Great Bridge. Those facilities have been at the same locations for as long as I can remember, and Great Bridge has flourished. Perhaps the key is that all of those complexes have been well managed and recognized by citizens as necessary parts of an ordered society. To expand on a program that has added to the tax base, instead of taking from it, only makes sound economic sense.
In closing, let me make one final observation, expanding on my original premise. As long as the ``Not In My Back Yard'' mentality prevails in Virginia and in Chesapeake, a message will be sent to our legislators. That message will be, ``Tell 'em what they want to hear about public safety, but don't try to lock up more criminals.''
Today, it's only a jail annex in Greenbrier, but tomorrow it will be a new prison somewhere else in Virginia. As long as our citizens refuse to ``bite the bullet'' and bear all the cost of appropriately incarcerating criminals, we will suffer an escalating crime rate. And that, Ms. Leary, will certainly drive down property values more than any jail complex will ever do. MEMO: Mr. Black is a resident of Hornsea Road in Chesapeake.
by CNB