Franklin County renews Day Reporting Center contract with BI Incorporated

By BI Incorporated

Published: 06/08/2009

| Company Profile | CorrectSource

Article:
CHAMBERSBURG, Pa.—June 8, 2009—BI Incorporated announces that Franklin County has renewed its Day Reporting Center contract with BI through 2014. After opening in 2006, the Franklin County Day Reporting Center has won national, regional and local praise and awards for providing significant relief for jail overcrowding, helping to tackle chronic criminal behavior and generating large savings. BI, the nation’s largest provider of technology, treatment and prisoner reentry services for community-based corrections, has operated the innovative center since it opened in April 2006.

The Franklin County Day Reporting Center delivers a unique combination of intensive supervision, treatment and training to offenders reentering the community after a period of incarceration and to probationers and parolees referred to the program in lieu of incarceration. BI’s programs are cognitive behavioral treatment programs operating under evidence-based principles. Most participants have drug and alcohol issues.

Franklin County has garnered a best practices award from the National Association of Counties, and more recently an award from the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania for reducing its jail population and implementing the Day Reporting Center.

Specific highlights from Franklin County during the first three years of the DRC include:

The county has reduced its jail population from 376 in 2005 to 330 in 2008 and only 290 thus far in 2009.
Increased efficiencies in the jail system reduced the average length of stay for inmates 10 days, resulting in major savings.
Franklin County’s day reporting center manages an average of 125 participants a day.
The assessed risk of probationers that go to the day reporting center (objective pre- and post-risk tests are assessed), dropped more than 20 percent.

Specific elements of the day reporting center include daily check-ins, sophisticated electronic compliance technology, drug testing and intensive case management. The program focuses on issues and behaviors that often lead to criminal activity such as substance abuse issues, negative thinking, lack of education and unemployment. By addressing these challenges, offenders reenter the community with better relationship building, life and work skills, reducing the likelihood of re-offense.

BI’s intensive three-phase approach works to stabilize an offender’s return to the community while also revamping their values and patterns of behavior and thinking over time. Additionally, the program helps reduce recidivism when compared to traditional offender programs; targets 100 percent employment or full-time school enrollment upon program completion; generates significant savings for taxpayers through lower incarceration costs; and alters the program participants’ attitudes and behavior through group treatment and training.

The day reporting center is located at 550 Louden St., Chambersburg, Pa., and is open six days a week.

About BI Incorporated (www.bi.com)

Established in 1978, BI Incorporated is the leading technology, treatment and supervision company in community corrections today. BI contracts with more than 1,000 governmental agencies nationwide, supporting them with a full continuum of intensive supervision technologies and community-based cognitive behavioral reentry programs for adult and juvenile offenders. BI’s ISO-certified national monitoring center, owned and operated by BI, provides 24/7 expert support supervision services exclusively for governmental agencies. BI works closely with local public corrections officials to cost effectively reduce recidivism, promote public safety, and strengthen the communities it serves using evidence-based practices in a community setting.

Source: BI Incorporated