KDOC cuts to community corrections threatens Wichita public safety | Opinion
When it comes to community corrections funding, Sedgwick County has a problem, which means we all have a problem.
Following a shady process, the Kansas Department of Corrections has created a new formula for allocation of community corrections grant money that has Sedgwick County staring down the barrel of a $2 million cut in a $5.2 million program.
Community corrections provides supervision, counseling, drug treatment, mental health care and other support to convicted felons — to keep them out of prison and, it is hoped, lead them to a life without crime.
It’s a good program.
But Sedgwick County bears the brunt more than any other county in the state. Of roughly 1,100 convicts in the county’s program at any given time, about 300 are from other counties. Sedgwick County is required to take them.
So essentially, what the state is doing is dumping felons here from all over the place, and then cutting the funding to deal with them.
That’s unfair and it’s unacceptable.
If the funding isn’t restored, the county will have to cut staff and services. Without them, public safety will be put at risk.
“Community corrections has been developed to supervise folks who otherwise could be in prison, so everybody is a felon of some sort,” said Russell Leeds, assistant county manager. “That could be a low range forgery felon, all the way to sex crimes, aggravated robberies, aggravated burglaries, aggravated assaults, gun crimes, things like that, and everything in the middle.
“Every offender gets an assessment, and then the higher the risk, the more services, supervision and attention from us that they get. So somebody who is high risk takes much more time and they need much more services.”
That’s common sense. What isn’t is the new funding formula.
While Sedgwick County is slated to lose $2 million, Johnson County stands to gain almost $840,000.
It’s eyebrow-raising that JoCo is the only populous county that had a say in this. Seats on the committee that formulated the formula went to a select group of judicial districts, including the 10th, Johnson County.
The 27th District, Reno County, was the next most urban.
All the rest of the participating judicial districts are in lightly populated rural areas, including the 8th District made up of four counties in the Flint Hills; also a group of three districts, 15, 17 and 23, clustered in the far northwest of the state; and Districts 31 and 11, representing eight counties in the extreme southeast corner of Kansas.
Not exactly a representative group. And interestingly enough, they all get more money under the formula they created.
Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter is level-headed and not given to hyperbolic statement-making. But even he said “I find it atrocious, to be honest with you.”
Boosting Johnson County’s funding while cutting Sedgwick County really burns, he said.
“Johnson County does not have the crime rates we have here,” Easter said. “They’re the richest community in the state of Kansas. They only have about 1080 (jail) beds, and at any given time, they’re between 600 and 800 inmates. But yet they ship their parolees to Wichita.”
By comparison, Sedgwick County maintains about 1,400 jail beds with 1,100 to 1,200 inmates at a time. On top of that, Sedgwick County has about 950 in community corrections, compared to about 770 in Johnson County, state records show.
“For about the last five years, between Wichita Police Department and us, we have told legislators that the practice of sending parolees to Wichita when we have our own issues, and these parolees are committing more crimes in our community, is not something that we appreciate, and it needs to stop,” Easter said. “Well now, they’re going to cut this funding and still ship us inmates from Wyandotte, Shawnee, Johnson (counties).”
The cruelest cut is behavioral support funding, which helps offenders with substance abuse and mental health issues — vital to getting them back on the straight and narrow.
It’s the difference between a program that turns criminals into productive citizens and one that just shuffles paper.
“We receive about $600,000 today” for behavioral supports, Leeds said. “That is cut by over 50% under this new proposal.”
Not every judicial district even wants that money, Leeds said. “We’ve had judicial districts say ‘(We’re) not going to use it. (We) don’t have the ability, we don’t have the providers, whatever. They don’t apply for it.”
If a judicial district doesn’t use its allocated funds, the money isn’t available to other counties that are taking up the slack, but is returned to the state general fund, Leeds said.
Another problem with this scenario is that KDOC and state law have set a goal for community corrections of a 75% success rate. Over the last four years, Sedgwick County has landed between 52% and 58%.
Part of that is how KDOC measures success.
If an offender completes their probation period, that’s deemed a success. If a judge closes a case, that’s also a success. If an offender dies while in the program, another success.
In fact, client deaths are a significant factor in the county’s improved success rate for the current fiscal year that started with July, said Lori Gibbs, deputy director of adult programs for the county.
“We had five client deaths in August,” Gibbs said. “They don’t go to prison. Not going to prison is successful” in KDOC’s eyes.
Gibbs left little doubt what she thinks of that.
“We would love to see KDOC adopt different measures of success — something like recidivism, perhaps,” she said.
She’s right. The ultimate measure of success or failure is whether the people who go through community corrections are safe to be around, not whether they report to required meetings and say the right words.
The County Commission held a special meeting Thursday to draft a letter of complaint to KDOC, Gov. Laura Kelly and legislators.
It’s a start. But I wonder if it will be enough.
Perhaps Sedgwick County should think about taking a break from community corrections, cut the program back to the bare minimum required by law, and start offloading clients to places like Overland Park, Olathe, Lenexa, Shawnee and Leawood.
They’d probably like it up there.
