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| Major Michael Merican, right, speaks to members of the Maryland Department of Legislative Services at the St. Mary's County Detention and Rehabilitation Center. |
Following a
visit by criminal justice officials from Armenia last week, representatives of
the Maryland Department of Legislative Services visited the St. Mary’s County
Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018, to learn more about Pretrial
Services.
In 2014, 11
counties in Maryland had a formalized pretrial system. After St. Mary’s County implemented
its program, Kent County initiated the model and now five other counties are in
transition to offering some form of Pretrial Services.
The program
started in St. Mary’s County in November 2015.
Incarcerating
an inmate locally costs $150 a day, Major Michael Merican told the group. In
Pretrial Services, the cost per offender is $34.68 per person.
With a
capacity of 230 inmates, the St. Mary’s County jail costs about $10 million a
year to run, mainly in personnel costs, Merican said.
Bail has
been used to get out of jail in the United States since 1791, Merican said.
“Times have changed, but for some reason we tend to hang onto this.” Many
offenders can’t afford bail to get out of jail and the longer an inmate stays
in jail ahead of trial, the longer their sentence tends to be from a judge.
Pretrial
Services come with no cost to the offender and participants have the
opportunity to get the health services they need and keep their employment to
support their families.
“Some of
these people absolutely need help,” Merican said.
Many of the
jail’s inmates suffer from mental illness and addiction.
Bipolar
Disorder is “the one we see the most,” Kristi Larson, Detention and
Rehabilitation Center Mental Health Coordinator, said, while other inmates
suffer from schizophrenia, depression or anxiety.
Inmates typically
are self-medicating with substances and they are not getting proper treatment
outside of the detention center, Larson said.
“If you’re
not working with your mental health inmates, you’re not working your jail,”
Merican told the state officials.
By default,
the detention center is acting as the largest mental health facility in St.
Mary’s County, Merican said.
Across the
country, jails house or detain more drug addicts and mentally ill than the
common criminal in local jails.
In St.
Mary’s County, there are usually about 50 offenders under Pretrial Services,
under various forms of supervision, including mandatory drug screening,
meetings with case managers, wearing electronic monitoring units or under house
arrest.
In 2016, the
compliance rate in the program was 77 percent and so far in 2018 the compliance
rate still holds at 77 percent.
