Organizations offer help to inmates during a transitioning event at the Clark County Detention Center, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020. The event gathers organizations, agencies and services into one area so that inmates who will soon be released can get help reentering society.
Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020 | 2 a.m.
Clark County Detention Center inmate Glen Harmon recites some of his poetry for anyone willing to listen at the facility’s monthly resource fair. He fancies himself as someone with a “Jerry Lewis” sense of humor and hopes to open his own card business after being released in March.
Harmon, who has been in and out of jail “countless times,” hopes the Connecting Access to Resources for Entering Society fair will help connect him to homeless services and ease his transition when he gets out.
“Programs like this allow us to see ourselves and make us more aware of what we should be doing,” he said.
The program started a year ago as a way to target inmates identified as homeless, said Corrections Officer Todd Laird, who was one of the founders of the initiative. Since then, the focus has narrowed to inmates who have 45 days or less left in their sentences.
“It gives them the opportunity to start developing a plan for when they get released,” he said.
Almost 600 inmates have participated in the program since its inception, receiving health care like vaccinations and mental health services, and getting acquainted with welfare and social services like the Electronic Benefits Transfer system and Medicaid. Many have been helped with securing out-of-state travel upon release.
The event in February included 28 social service partners, such as Clark County Social Services, Bridge Counseling and, for the first time, the Nevada DMV.
“That is one of those things that individuals have a hard time with, is if they don’t have an ID, then they can’t get a job and they may not be able to apply for housing through Clark County Social Services,” Laird said.
Mental health services are also crucial upon release, said Merle Sexton, a representative of Bridge Counseling Associates. He meets with inmates on the day they are released to continue the rehabilitation.
“It’s not 100% effective, but at least we make the effort to contact them because it’s a lonely place out there once you get out,” Sexton said. “When they leave CCDC, the main thing is to change their thoughts and feelings to be more positive. That’s critical.”
Michael McWilliams, who is serving a 90-day suspended sentence on drug-related charges, attended the event to get “all the help I can.”
While jail may provide homeless individuals a place to stay for a little while, not having any support upon release is only going to set them up for failure, McWilliams said.
“A lot of times you get out of jail and what makes people go back to using drugs and doing illegal things is they don’t have any help,” he said. “What they’re doing is definitely helping us to be independent.”
Individuals who participate in the event had a 28% recidivism rate in 2019, Laird said. The national rate is 44% after the first year of release, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. But there is still more work to be done locally, Laird said.
“We’re going to go back and ask them, ‘What are the challenges you had when you got out that brought you back to jail?’ So we can start targeting some of those individuals who have special needs,” Laird said.
Some individuals, he said, are resistant to mental health services, which results in a revolving-door effect where they’re in and out of the system. He hopes to mitigate those problems and meet any unfilled gaps.
Laird hopes to see the program expand within the Department of Corrections for inmates serving longer sentences, so they can start thinking ahead on a plan from the inside well before they’re released. Laird said the goal is to ultimately end the revolving door of homelessness.
“They’re going to remain here in the downtown corridor if they’re released and don’t have a plan in place,” he said. “Through this program, we hope to connect those individuals before they’re getting released onto First Street and then going, ‘OK, what am I going to do next?’”
