Jail transition center right for inmates and taxpayers

It makes sense from financial, ethical and public safety perspectives to provide a transition-planning resource center to many inmates being released from the Metropolitan Detention Center.

It makes sense in 2017. Just as it did in 2009. Because more than half of the people booked into MDC receive psychiatric services, and when they are released without treatment and a safe place to go, they often quickly re-offend, creating a revolving door of crime-arrest-jail.

Eight years ago, Bernalillo County drew heavy criticism for its policy of dropping newly released inmates Downtown in the wee hours without so much as a pay phone available to them. It came to a head after a young woman struggling with drug addiction overdosed shortly after the transport van dumped her in the dark.

So the county spent roughly $1.6 million renovating the old Downtown Metro Court building on Roma and the city kicked in $150,000 for a “public safety” processing center giving released inmates a safe place to make a call and start to get their lives back on track — and police and sheriff’s officers could save taxpayer time and money by taking arrestees to a central pickup site rather than all making trips to the jail, which is 18 miles from the city core. And only part of that happened. New County Manager Julie Morgas Baca says that, while Albuquerque police officers drop off arrestees at the center, sheriff’s officers still rack up around $2 million a year in overtime, plus vehicle wear and tear, driving to and from the jail from all corners of the county. And there are no on-site case managers to help ensure that just-released inmates plug into community services — everything from food stamps to follow-up medical and behavioral health care to housing. That makes it more likely they will steal your car or kick in your door and burglarize your home.

So now, eight years later, Morgas Baca is proposing and the County Commission is considering making the Transition Planning and Re-Entry Resource Center at 401 Roma NW a reality. This time, the tab is $300,000 for renovations, with a recurring operational cost of around $1 million a year.

It’s past time for the county to make good on its promise to do better by those inmates who quite literally have nowhere to go — or nowhere good — when they get out of the jail. And it’s important that all the ongoing and new efforts to assist Albuquerque-area residents struggling with behavioral health and substance abuse issues be integrated, streamlined and tracked so taxpayers know exactly what they are paying for and what they are getting.

Because on top of a potential total processing center tab, taxpayers are also spending: Around $61 million a year on MDC and its psychiatric services. At least $14 million a year for city behavioral health programs. Around $90 million a year in property taxes to the University of New Mexico Hospital, a portion of which is used for mental health programs.

At least $4 million a year for services to help people who struggle with mental illness or addiction, but are not in the criminal justice system.

Around $1.1 million, along with grant money from sources including the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance, to house up to 75 mentally ill homeless inmates upon their release, and work to get those men and women reintegrated into society. That program is supposed to include intensive case management, mental health counseling, life skills education, vocational services, access to public benefits and family unification assistance — many of the same things the proposed processing center is supposed to offer.

County Commissioner Maggie Hart Stebbins said last year that the county will require data on outcomes from and evaluate the effectiveness of programs for behavioral health. It needs to, and it needs to make that information public, especially now that there is a dedicated public funding stream. In 2015, county commissioners adopted a behavioral health gross receipts tax that rakes in around $17 million a year. A 2015 report from Arizona-based Community Partners Inc. on Albuquerque-area behavioral health services found that there had been little to no cohesiveness and accountability — in fact, at that time, the county couldn’t even cobble together a list of its programs.

For almost a decade, Bernalillo County has had the right idea and intention for helping released inmates get on a better path. For inmates, the public and taxpayers, let’s hope this time officials pull it together and help turn the jail’s catch-and-release into a catch-and-reintegrate program.