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| Dakota County inmates get support once outside |
| By twincities.com - Maricella Miranda |
| Published: 03/12/2012 |
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Purvis Ray said that when he went to jail last year for felony drunken driving, he was unemployed and struggling with an alcohol addiction. Ray, 41, of Apple Valley, served 120 days in the Dakota County Jail in Hastings. A month before his release, the county prepared Ray for his return into society by helping him find a job, medical insurance and chemical dependency treatment. Ray used a team of experts from across county departments to find the resources. After his release, the county again checked in on Ray to see if he needed more help. "Being incarcerated, you don't have a lot of doors open to you - which doesn't give you a lot of opportunities to survive," Ray said recently at his home. "Just being released, you're eventually starting all over and don't have a lot of resources to turn to." Ray found help through the county's Jail Re-Entry Assistance Program, known as RAP. The new program works to discourage ex-convicts from reoffending by helping them find services in the community for housing, substance-abuse treatment, health care, child-support assistance, employment and more. The program starts a month before offenders leave jail and continues for up to 90 days after release. "Our goal is to hopefully have them never come back to the jail and not commit any new offenses," said Tim Cleveland, the county's deputy director of community corrections. The program has helped 47 former inmates since its start in June. Many needed health care, chemical dependency treatment, and job and housing assistance. In this first year, 13 who completed the program have served a total of two days in jail since their release. Preventing inmates from re-offending also means less expense for taxpayers, said Matt Smith, county director of financial services. How much less is the question. County staff recently began collaborating with the Bush Foundation to track the return on taxpayer investment. The foundation is using a private consultant to help the county measure the areas in which it could net savings by keeping inmates from re-offending - including the jail, the court system, law enforcement and county departments. The county expects to have findings from the eight-week project in late spring. "We're happy to have it be a guinea pig," Smith said. "We want to try to measure how much bang for the buck we're going to get, exactly where those bucks will be, and when." Read More. |
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