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Women’s jail program funds frozen

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

By Gerald Witt
Staff Writer

Guilford County suspended funding for a program designed to keep women out of jails and asked for a better plan to place more participants in the program.

On Tuesday, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners asked Summit House-Piedmont to determine how it can attract more than just eight women a year to its program, which received a $79,449 county grant last year.

Meanwhile, the men’s program at One Step Further received a $110,207 grant at roughly the same time, and that program had 72 participants in its first year.

The programs — meant to target inmates awaiting trial — were included in the 2007-08 budget as an effort to reduce crowding in the county’s jails.

“Something is working in one, and something is broken in the other,” said Commissioner Bruce Davis, comparing the two programs during a commissioners work session. “At some point, some red flags should kind of go up.”

One contributing factor to the disparity may be the makeup of jail population, which is dominated by men.

As of midnight Aug. 12, there were 105 women in Guilford County jails, compared with 850 men, according to the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office. Given that population, the ratio between men and women in the jail and men and women in the two pretrial programs are close: 8-to-1 for the jail, 9-to-1 in the pretrial programs.

But the amount of money spent in comparison to the number of people treated irked some commissioners, who would like the Summit House program to have an impact similar to the One Step Further program.

“We might be expecting more from a pool that just is low in numbers,” Commissioner Carolyn Coleman said. “It may be that we need to take a close look at the staff and whether Summit House can pare down its staff for the program.”

Commissioners told Summit House and county attorneys to find a way to direct more women into its pretrial programs. The program often has relied on courtroom referrals from judges for its programs.

“We’re not sure how to increase that number, but we heard that we could maybe go and screen people in the jail throughout the year,” said Lynn Parks, assistant director of Summit House. Parks suggested the possibility of going daily to see if more women from the jail could be included.

“We’ll just get together and see how we can reach more,” she said.

Staff writer Sonja Elmquist contributed to this report.

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com

HOW THE JAIL WILL BE BUILT

In other business: Guilford County commissioners on Tuesday settled on using the “construction manager at-risk” method to build the $115 million jail that voters approved in a May bond referendum.

What that means: Hiring a “construction manager at-risk” means a separate company will oversee, handle the risk and hire subcontractors for a project. This is different than the often-used method of raising a municipal building with the lowest bidder. Instead of going for the lowest bidder, advocates of the at-risk method say, Guilford County could hire what it feels is the best bidder. Through the at-risk method, county commissioners also would have a say on the subcontractors used, which does not happen in the design-bid-build process. The at-risk method also removes more of the culpability from the county when it comes to any construction-related lawsuits or problems.

What’s next: County attorneys will identify the requirements they want for a “construction manager at-risk,” which could include hiring minority and local subcontractors, or prior experience with jail projects. The project cost would increase about 0.25 percent more than using a design-bid-build process, according to Robert Meynardie, a Raleigh attorney that consulted with the board on how the at-risk process works.