The economic crisis of recent years has required the Legislature to make difficult cuts to balance the budget. A significant part of what makes this complica-ted is that more than two-thirds of the budget is constitu-tionally or federally protected, leaving only a small portion of the budget which can actually be cut.
One such unprotected area is the Department of Corrections, which over the past few years has seen some dramatic cuts and is now facing elimination of its Community Corrections Officers (CCO) division.
Through programs such as Earned Early Release, many of the low-risk offenders who were imprisoned are now on the streets. Presumably, low-risk offenders are the least likely to offend again. But now, due to the current budget crisis, it has been proposed that medium- to high-risk offenders be released and the responsibility to monitor them passed on to the counties.
Counties are ill-equipped to handle some of these offenders, leaving many communities facing the prospect of higher crime rates.
State CCOs are trained professionals who have a strong base in understanding how to best deal with medium- to high-risk offenders they currently supervise. The role of CCOs is not only to supervise offenders, but they are often their only access to social services, like chemical dependency programs. Access to programs like these are vital to successful re-integration into society.
CCOs maintain a detailed report on the offenders, including current and past family members and associates, physical and mental health, and patterns of criminal behavior. This information can be relevant in not only preventing future crimes but also aiding law enforcement officers in criminal investigations.
The job of a CCO is complex, and any wholesale transfer of these responsibilities to the counties or cities would lead to many offenders being overlooked, causing greater costs to the community and in the long run ultimately the state.
In my 25 years as a commissioned law enforcement officer, I have found state CCOs to be extraordinarily professional and remarkably knowledgeable about all aspects of the people they are supervising. It’s this accountability and attention to detail that makes the system work, and the bad guys know it.
The success of supervision by CCOs is based solely on whether or not an offender commits a new offense. However, the rates of recidivism do not paint an accurate picture of their success or failure. Many of the offenders CCOs oversee are medium- to high-risk, meaning regardless of their supervision they are more likely to offend again. But proper surveillance and enforcement reduces the number of new violent offenses.
When individuals are released from prison, whether it be due to an early earned release or an attempt to save the state money, the sentencing structure is based on the premise that supervision is an alternative to confinement. But if we release individuals without a disciplined and competent system in place to supervise them, crime will increase. This ultimately does not save the tax payers money.
The number of offenders who are under supervision has already decreased dramatically in past years. If we continue to allow shortened sentences and limited community supervision, we will destabilize the judicial process and create a situation in which the possible punishments for a crime no longer deter individuals from breaking the law.
CCOs are vital to ensuring that the laws that we have put in place are respected and followed. Shifting this challenging task of supervision to local communities will put us all at risk.
We face the challenge of creating a balanced budget, but we should not risk the public’s safety by transferring the supervision of offenders from our highly profession CCO program to one at a local level that has not been tried or tested with offenders who clearly pose a risk to society.
State Rep. Christopher Hurst represents the 31st Legislative District and is chairman of the House Public Safety Committee. He is also a veteran 25-year law enforcement Officer and was commander of a 15-city Homicide and Violent Crimes Task Force.
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