CCNO Pushes For End Of Work Release Program

Offi­cials at the Cor­rec­tions Cen­ter of North­west Ohio are con­tin­u­ing to dis­cuss the pos­si­ble clo­sure of the work release pro­gram at the regional jail.

Jim Den­nis, CCNO Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, pro­vided board mem­bers with addi­tional sta­tis­ti­cal infor­ma­tion but said the pro­gram is still not cost effi­cient to keep oper­at­ing. He said in 2013, there were a total of 136 inmates who par­tic­i­pated in the work release pro­gram. So far this year, there have been 54 total par­tic­i­pants.

Den­nis claims two elec­tronic mon­i­tor­ing diver­sions — GPS and TAD — pro­vide more intense super­vi­sion than plac­ing an offender on work release. The GPS sys­tem (global posi­tion­ing sys­tem) actu­ally tracks the loca­tion of the offender at all times. The TAD sys­tem (trans der­mal alco­hol detec­tion) pro­vides alco­hol test­ing to ensure that offend­ers com­ply with all mon­i­tor­ing reg­u­la­tions. Work release allows unsu­per­vised travel and requires more staff time to scru­ti­nize the work and travel schedules.