Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Luzerne County officials marked the fifth anniversary of the county’s progressive day reporting center in Wilkes-Barre Friday with tours and a cake.
Known as the Luzerne County Reentry Service Center, the county-contracted program housed in a commercial property on Wilkes-Barre Boulevard teaches offenders how to change their criminal thinking and behavior so they don’t land back in the county prison, largely through proven techniques involving role-playing.
Run by GEO Reentry Services, the program also helps the county because qualifying offenders don’t have to be locked up at a higher cost as long as they participate in customized programs and pass regular drug and alcohol tests.
The center program costs the county $38 per day as opposed to around $97 for lodging in the county’s crowded prison system.
County Correctional Services Division Head J. Allen Nesbitt was among the county managers who attended the ceremony.
“We’re looking forward to hopefully another five years. The number of people we’ve been able to send to the program has been increasing, and ideally it will continue rising and even double,” Nesbitt said.
The program is for eligible nonviolent offenders with no sex offenses who are out on bail, approved by a judge for early release from prison or given a last chance to stay out of prison on a parole violation.
An average 109 offenders have participated in the program in July, he said.
When offenders start the program, actuarial assessments indicate they have an 86 percent chance of committing another crime. By the time they leave, that likelihood is reduced by 42.2 percent, statistics show.
More than half of participants graduate, usually in around six months. Of the 178 participants who graduated from the program by August 2014, around 77 percent did not return to the criminal justice system, the center’s annual report says.
The center also is a one-stop shop for offenders to access help with employment, housing, finances, veteran programs and other issues they struggle with upon release from prison, county officials say.