Klamath County Community Corrections

Sanctions

Klamath County Jail-Sanction Beds

As we do each year, Community Corrections will continue to purchase bed space in the Jail from the Sheriff.  These beds are utilized for our offenders sentenced to 12 months or less.  Senate Bill 1145 passed in 1995 funded the transfer of these offenders to the County. This partnership created Local Control; providing flexibility in determining the best use of local resources in the supervision, sanctioning, and management of our offenders.

Electronic Home Detention

This program allows many of our offenders to serve their jail sentences at their residence, thus allowing them to continue with their employment and/or treatment programs.  Home detention utilizes an electronic monitoring program, which notifies the Home Detention Officer of  unauthorized departures made by an offender from their residence. The program is equipped with GPS monitoring, which allows our staff to track offenders in the community.  If an offender does violate the home detention program, or does not follow the strict guidelines placed on them, they are subject to arrest.

Public Service Work Crews & Community Service

This program has been a true asset to the community both as a tool holding offenders accountable through public service work, and as an alternative to custody as part of the Community Justice model.

However, although Public Service Work crews have become an expected component of Community Corrections, and are Court ordered, they are not required by statute and are not specifically funded. 

Road Work Crew:
To provide some context, the following summary is specific to projects relating to Public Works – Road Department in 2009:

  • 1,461 community service workers, including supervisors participated
  • 135,889 pounds of trash and garbage collected
  • 3276 Large bags of litter collected
  • 726 tires (6% Increase from 2008),
  • 71 appliances (12%increase),
  • 34 overstuffed items: sofa’s, mattresses, etc.(17% increase)
  • 32  illegal dump sites cleaned up (31% increase)

This crew also completes road clean-up twice a month for Solid Waste by maintaining the Southside Bypass between Hwy 97 and Hwy 39, the area by the landfill transfer station, collecting:

  • The Expressway was cleaned 22 times last year.
  • Over 14,000 pounds of trash was collected and taken to the landfill (separate from above road totals).
  • 530 large bags of litter were picked up.

Forest Work Crew:
Through previous funding secured through Title II & III grants, our crews will continue to work in the forests under the direction of the Bureau of Land Management and Federal Forest Service.

Title III funding comes to Community Corrections through agreements with the Winema National Forest and the Bureau of Land Management. The crew completed 14,980 hours on State and Federal Lands including 12 miles of barbed wire fence removal, fuels reduction, and watershed restoration projects in the Chemult and Chiloquin Ranger Districts, and Bureau of Land Management.

Community Service:
In addition to revenue generating projects, the following was provided to non-profit and public agencies during the first 9 months of 2010:

  • 13,252  community service hours provided to private and public non-profit agencies such as:
    • Crater Lake Parkway
    • Disabled American Veterans
  • Landrum Wayside Memorial
  • Firewood splitting & delivery for Energy Assistance Program through Klamath Basin Senior Center (145 cords)
    • Fair Grounds, Museum, and  weeding of Court House & Government Center
    • National Guard
    • Gospel Mission
    • Sports Park
  • OIT
  • Children’s Museum
  • Snow Shoveling-Senior Citizens, Museums, Ross Ragland
  • Bike Path
  • YMCA, raking leaves
    • CASA & MADD, mailings
  • Based on minimum wage of $8.40 per hour 13,252 hours of community service equates to $111,316.80.

 
It is important to recognize the community benefit of this program and the valuable work skills learned by our workers.  Research has confirmed involving offenders in activities that enhance their employability is linked to a reduction in new criminal behavior.