Re-entering a hot potato

COEUR d’ALENE — Efforts to sidetrack a prison re-entry center planned for Kootenai County are gaining steam, although not everyone is opposed to the measure.

Since the Legislature appropriated $12 million for a pre-release center in North Idaho earlier this year, the state has been looking for possible sites for a facility.

Prison re-entry centers provide a place where inmates — once approved for the prison release program — find jobs in the communities they left when they went to prison. Also known as halfway houses, the re-entry centers provide a supervised environment that includes counseling, job placement services and financial assistance programs to help inmates adjust to life outside prison.

They can also tax community members who fear the worst. Walkaways from the facilities are not unheard of, and people worry they have no control of who is housed in the centers.

News of the latest plan by the state reverberated among residents including Hayden City Council member Matt Roetter, who was instrumental in killing a plan 20 years ago to put a re-entry facility in Hayden.

In a presentation to the Hayden Council last month, Roetter said the proposed project for North Idaho isn’t a good fit for Hayden. He asked the council to petition the state to ensure Hayden is not among the cities being considered. The council opted to simply gather information. So far no action has been taken.

“People don’t want it here,” Roetter said. “That’s the message.”

Meetings beginning last summer to oppose Idaho Department of Correction plans for a 130-bed North Idaho center have drawn capacity crowds in Athol, Bayview and Coeur d’Alene. A meeting Wednesday drew about 50 people at the Mica Grange Hall, while another meeting is planned at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Rathdrum Senior Center.

Deborah Rose, a vocal opponent of building an early release center in Kootenai County, said the facilities don’t have a good track record.

Rose said figures she received from the state say the recidivism rate is 83 percent after nine years. That statistic is a general prison rate, however, and not the rate of recidivism for prisoners going through re-entry programs like the one earmarked for North Idaho.

“This proposed facility will import a significant amount of crime into our county,” she said Thursday.

Other locals, however, see a re-entry center for North Idaho convicts as a way for them to return to the fold of their families and acquaintances after serving time.

Coeur d’Alene City Council member Dan English, founder of the Anchor House — a halfway house for juveniles which later joined the Idaho Youth Ranch — said he encountered similar fears from the community when he started the teen program in the 1980s.

“We had people concerned about what’s going to happen to their neighborhood,” English said Thursday.

The program, which became a successful state model, still provides guidance for youth as they make the transition into crime-free adulthood.

“We made a point to be very good neighbors,” English said.

A re-entry program is a necessary first step for former criminals who want to go straight, find jobs and live a normal life, he said.

“These folks are highly motivated. They are highly employable. They don’t want to goof up,” English said. “And that’s good for everybody.”

Once they’re released from prison, former inmates will return home anyhow, English said. But without a re-entry program, they’ll come back without the social skills, the counseling and the job component an early release center offers.

Speaking at Thursday’s Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce function, Gov. Brad Little echoed English.

“The population we’re talking about are going to come back,” Little said during a question-and-answer session at the luncheon. “The question is, What are they going to come back with? Are they going to come back with the skills that will help them return to society with the ability to work and be productive members of society? Or are they going to come back with no skills, leaving them open to fall back into a cycle of poverty and crime? If we give them these skills, they are the least likely to re-offend.”

The Department of Correction has four facilities in southern Idaho and is building another one in Twin Falls. Because a significant portion of the state’s inmates are from North Idaho, having a facility in the Kootenai metro area makes sense, said Josh Tewalt, director of the department.

“We’re trying to do it because we think it will help people transition successfully into the community,” Tewalt said. “Our intent is to put the resources where they’re needed.”

It doesn’t, however, make sense to Ann Seddon, who attended Wednesday’s meeting at the Mica Grange.

Seddon said the corrections department hasn’t made any promises about who the center would house. Because residents have no say in the matter, she worries it could house violent criminals and sex offenders. In addition, the department isn’t saying where it plans to build the facility.

“I have a big heart,” Seddon said. “I believe in people getting themselves straight, and getting back into society, but I don’t think this is the way to go.”

Rose said corrections hasn’t been forthcoming and has not answered many of the questions regarding location and who will be housed in the facility, that she and others have put forth.

“There’s going to be an element of secrecy because they know we don’t want it,” she said.

In an email from the Department of Correction, spokesperson Jeffrey Ray said there have been no new plans, a location has not been decided and that the process, once it starts, will take time.

“We’ve said from the beginning that this will be a long process,” Ray said.

In an earlier interview, Tewalt said the Kootenai facility will not house sex offenders or violent criminals and that the beds are reserved for inmates on a competitive basis. Only inmates with the best track records need apply. No facility will land where it is not wanted by the community, Tewalt said.

“Communities in North Idaho may decide this isn’t the right fit, and that’s OK,” he said. “These centers have to be embraced by local communities because we are not interested in building one if it’s not going to be successful. That’s counterproductive.”