Tri-County Corrections held their regional board meeting this week, and Executive Director Andrew Larson had several positive reports to give the board. The first was substantial numbers in the juvenile center which averaged 12.2 juveniles in May. Larson said that was in large part due to efforts of the staff to work with non-member agencies to educate them about the services provided on the non-secure side such as programs for youth, including gender-specific programming.
Larson also updated the board that the remodel they had approved for the jail in April has been completed and thus far has been successful in alleviating congestion in the jail intake area as hoped. “At the April board meeting the corrections board did approve my request to turn a storage room back in the jail into kind of a multipurpose room,” said Larson. “It’s a room that can be used for attorney meetings, ITV purposes, training space. Our Assistant Jail Administrator, Lieutenant Phil Schroeder, had drawn up a schematic of what the space would like. Working with Polk County Maintenance and some subcontractors they were able to get that wrapped up fairly quickly. The space is done and has been a huge blessing for us. It’s really helped to take some of the load off the intake area with some of the congestion in there with all the attorney’s or other professionals whether it be law enforcement, probation, staff needing to interview people, disciplinary hearings or ITV appointments. It’s been very much a positive addition to that space.”
The Northwest Regional Corrections Center (NWRCC) is also going through a bit of a reprieve during the last week after averaging 96 percent capacity, which equates to a daily average of 192 inmates, the first five months of the year. The jail population this week dipped to just 78 percent capacity or 156 inmates. “Every once in a while we do see a little bit of a dip in population, and that’s what we’ve seen this morning and even a little bit next week,” said Larson. “I think our population this morning is about 156 and that’s down considerably with our average throughout the year of 192. That’s 36 inmates down. Now some of that is the result of several being sent to prison in the last couple of weeks. Usually, when we end up shipping ten people off to prison in a relatively short time that has an impact on our population. As much as I would love to say our numbers are going to stay down, I’ve done this long enough to know that this is likely just a blip in the radar and not, unfortunately, an indicator of a longer-term trend.”
Corrections continue to struggle with turnover, a trend that dates back four or five years said, Larson. “It’s tough to know what the cause is of that,” said Larson. “Some of it is just as the economy is doing well there are more job opportunities, so the pool of candidates we have to select from shrinks. From a generational perspective, the shift work, the weekend work, and overnights are something that isn’t very appealing for some. Others enjoy that kind of thing, but it’s something that does make it hard to compete. The staff we’ve got have done a good job, they’ve stepped up to pick up the overtime shifts that are needed. But the issue of turnover in and of itself has continued to be a real challenge in and of itself has continued to be a significant challenge because of the amount of time we have to spend training people.”
Jail staff at NWRCC receive more than 200 hours of training before they are able to work on the jail floor. Currently, corrections are looking for 4-5 fulltime staff and 1-2 part-time staff between the jail, juvenile center and probation with an additional three positions opening soon due to resignations.
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