Marsha Hinton: She Takes Charge of Popul

Article Tools Print This Page | Comments(0) | Suggest a Story

By Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Published: 08/06/2003

Even for someone who has worked years in alternative housing for jail inmates, Marsha Hinton's new job will be quite a challenge.
Hinton's new job requires nothing less than to try to get a grip on the ever-burgeoning population of the Allegheny County (Pa.) Jail. It's a daunting task. The jail population is hovering near the capacity of 2,400. More inmates can be housed there by doubling up in cells, but those options are limited.
Hinton last Monday became Allegheny County Common Pleas Court's first jail population control coordinator. It's her job to help lessen the jail's population by finding and matching up suitable inmates with alternative housing outside the Second Avenue lock-up.
'It's exciting,' Hinton said. 'Hopefully, we'll be able to manage the jail population for the judges.'
The job, which pays $58,633 a year, developed through discussions among county officials about how to cope with the jail population, which has grown steadily since the jail opened in 1995 to replace the old overcrowded jail on Ross Street.
Hinton was appointed last month by President Judge Robert Kelly.
Hinton, 53, is familiar with the workings of the county's criminal justice system from the 26 years she worked for the Program for Female Offenders, an alternative housing program located in Oakland. Hinton also worked for the county in the early 1990s as a coordinator of alternative housing.
The mission of the court's jail population control coordinator is threefold, said Tom Green, criminal court administrator.
First, Hinton will have to locate inmates who may be eligible to get out of jail. This week, she received files on 628 inmates who may be eligible for alternative housing or some other form of release, such as home detention with an electronic monitor.
Those inmates will have to be closely examined for criminal history and prior behavior, Hinton said. Violent offenders will not be considered, she said.
'If they're being detained for kidnapping or something like that, I'll just go to the next one,' Hinton said. 'The judges can eliminate some.' Those who have violated probation won't be eligible.
The next step will involve finding alternative housing. There are less than a dozen sites in the county in which inmates can be placed as an alternative to jail, so Hinton will try to coordinate openings in the alternative sites with placements from the jail.
The third duty is to reduce the time inmates spend in jail. For example, someone may end up in jail because of a probation violation due to a misdemeanor offense and the coordinator could help speed the jail time by helping set up a court date, Green said.
'It's a big task, but I think Marsha's up to it,' Green said.
Hinton, also a member of the city's Citizen Police Review Board, knows firsthand the grief of a crime victim. Her only child, Tyrell, was shot and killed in April 1996 as he sat in a car with some friends in Larimer. The shooter, James Mitchell Jr., was sentenced to life in prison on July 1998.
Hinton said she will try to move inmates with drug and alcohol problems from jail to alternative programs where they can get some help. She estimated that about half the inmates who are eligible for alternative housing can be helped by such programs.
'If you don't address the problem, we just recycle them through the system,' she said.

Comments:

No comments have been posted for this article.

Login to let us know what you think

MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search