Taking the next step: Dana Simons, Next Step executive director, Chris Shelton, and Eric Diaz discuss plans for the new Next Step Cafe on Dec. 9, 2019, for when they plan to move the cafe portion of their operation to The Deming in downtown Terre Haute. Tribune-Star file/Austen Leake
Taking the next step: Dana Simons, Next Step executive director, Chris Shelton, and Eric Diaz discuss plans for the new Next Step Cafe on Dec. 9, 2019, for when they plan to move the cafe portion of their operation to The Deming in downtown Terre Haute. Tribune-Star file/Austen Leake
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Editor's note
EDITOR’S NOTE: In a special report, the Tribune-Star takes a deep dive into the rationale of building a new Vigo County Security Center, focusing on conditions of the current jail, details of its population and community efforts to stem incarceration. Today’s story is the second of two parts.
Despite a long-time overcrowding issue in the Vigo County Jail, judicial leaders have continued to seek alternatives to incarceration when possible.

And that means some people accused of felonies won’t see the inside of the jail. Rather, they are ordered to appear in court in the future.

For instance, the Vigo County Prosecutor’s Office has directed city, county and state police to write tickets for people found in possession of marijuana when that possession is the person’s only criminal offense. No one is to go to jail in Vigo County simply for smoking or possessing marijuana.

Some people caught in the act of burglary, also, are not taken to jail. They are given a date to appear in court to face a criminal charge. Burglary is a felony, but if the alleged crime does not involve violence to a person, the suspect is released with a court date.

Those examples are some of the ways the local system is trying to keep pretrial, non-violent offenders out of jail.

Other relief for overcrowding has come through the use of the Vigo County Community Corrections program and facility.

Located a block southwest of the courthouse, the community corrections program covers a variety of services and rehabilitation programs intended to create positive changes in and for participants.

Locally, a community corrections program was established in October 1990. Current programming includes work release, electronic monitoring and community service restitution.

Work release participants live at the facility and are scheduled to go to work or out for medical appointments.

Electronic monitoring participants live in their own home and must remain at home unless they are working or have medical or other certain verifiable appointments.

The Community Service Restitution program is an opportunity to perform community service hours at a nonprofit agency as assigned by community corrections.

Bill Watson has overseen Vigo County Community Corrections for more than two decades. Watson’s expertise is wellknown.

“When I call the Department of Corrections and mention that Bill Watson wants something, that gets their attention,” state Sen. Jon Ford said recently during a conversation about Vigo County’s jail situation. “Bill has earned a lot of respect at the state level, because his ideas work.” Local judges agree.

Watson’s duties changed somewhat in 2020 when he was named director of court services in a move by the Vigo County judges to improve efficiency in handling criminal cases in the jail and courts. The court services program unifies adult and juvenile probation, community corrections and the pretrial services program. Programming has grown and adapted through the years to provide services to offenders and to keep low-level felons out of the state prison system by keeping local residents in the community. The program also handles some substance abuse evaluations and drug screens. Utilizing community corrections to move low level offenders out of the jail, while maintaining a watchful eye on their activities, was part of the local court system’s strategy to help ease jail overcrowding.

Rather than just replacing a substandard jail, county leaders wanted to see more services and programs offered, Watson said.

In February 2021, community corrections implemented a dual diagnosis program that offered services to offenders whose alleged criminal activity can be linked to mental health and addiction issues.

By the end of 2021, Watson reported the program was showing positive results because those participating lived at the community corrections facility where structure was available.

“What we are doing now is working,” Watson said. “When people are released, they go to probation and stay in touch with their social workers, who do follow-ups with them.”

Those in the program are assessed and receive medication, counseling and other services. Past experience has shown that if left on their own to find treatment, housing and employment, many of those offenders would feel overwhelmed and end up back in jail due to their mental health or addiction issues.

Watson credits the Vigo County Council with budgeting $580,000 to community corrections for the program. The Indiana Department of Correction kicked in another $300,000. That funding is being used for staff, training, medication and other support of the participants.

County Council member Aaron Loudermilk said he feels the council has been proactive in recent years, looking for ways to reduce jail population and fund jail construction.

Now in his sixth year on the council, Loudermilk said he feels county leaders have long been reluctant to raise taxes, particularly for a jail.

“There’s always heartburn over it,” he said. “But when I came on the council, I feel the county had been kicking the can down the road for so long we couldn’t do that any more.” A second jail assessment was ordered, and it confirmed an earlier study showing a larger jail was needed, Loudermilk said.

In recent years, county leadership has directed more funding to not only community corrections, but to problem- solving courts. Some of the programs, such as drug court in Division 5 and mental health court in Division 6, have been in place for more than a decade. Veterans court was implemented in 2016 to address needs of veterans who entered the criminal justice system. Family recovery court was added in 2021 to Division 3 through a connection with juvenile court to help parents get their lives on track.

Those programs are making a difference as they focus on specific issues and involve case workers providing needed services.

“The judges are very knowledgeable in evidence- based practices and understanding about services and treatments,” Watson said.

He notes that 12 years ago, the county jail was used as a de facto detox center due to the methamphetamine epidemic.

Defendants were frequently housed in the jail for several months pending trial, meaning they were serving their sentence while they awaited resolution of their cases. But they received little assistance in overcoming the issues that led to incarceration. Many re-offended once released and eventually were sentenced to state prison.

Dual diagnosis, drug court, pretrial programs, and the courts’ hiring of a licensed clinical social worker to assist offenders demonstrates the local justice system’s focus on rehabilitation rather than incarceration, Watson said. And it shows that county leadership is committed to more than building a newer, larger jail, he said.

“The new jail addresses the needs internally that they can’t do now — classification based on needs, risk level of violent or non-violent and mentally ill. The ability to separate out and house according to needs is huge,” Watson said. “And, it is important that offenders are treated as humanely as possible.”

Time between arrest and court

Another change for the local judicial system came with the implementation of pretrial services as a result of the state’s Criminal Rule 26, which addressed holding people in jail on high bonds before they were convicted of a crime.

That rule encouraged trial courts to use risk assessment results and other relevant information about arrestees to determine if the individual presented a substantial risk of flight or danger to self or others in the community.

Vigo County had provisional certification of its Criminal Rule 26 pretrial program in 2021, and it is on track for full certification in 2022. The pretrial program works by making sure that everyone who is booked into the jail is seen by pretrial screeners — seven days a week. Those screeners gather specific information that lets the judges know something about the offender, including who is appropriate for a pretrial release and what level of supervision is needed.

Within the past year, the program has served several hundred people and the average stay in jail for people newly booked in has been reduced from four days to a day and a half, Watson said. State funding was used to hire two screeners, and the county funded another screener position. The county council then decided to fund a fourth screener.

This means that everyone who goes to jail is evaluated before they go to court. Those deemed appropriate will be released without posting bond and with an assigned court date.

The screeners track people who are released, reminding them of court dates, requiring periodic check-ins, and notifying the court if a person is not in compliance with the release conditions.

“The beauty of this is that people don’t have to have money to get released from jail,” Watson said. “This clearly shows the courts and prosecutors are getting the appropriate people out of jail.”

This program results from a statewide change in the judicial system, encouraged by Indiana’s Chief Judge Loretta Rush, who pushed for the pretrial release program.

The local justice system reforms have allowed sharing of resources and information, Watson said, and a unified case management system links probation and pretrial release into a statewide network.

Addressing juvenile offenders

Another change in the local justice system affects juveniles. Vigo County officials funded a juvenile drug court program with $39,149 for 2022 to providing treatment and resources to youths in an effort to prevent them from becoming adult offenders.

Traumatic events experienced at a young age are a prime reason for juvenile drug use. Deb Kesler in Vigo County Juvenile Court has researched the topic, and presented the need for a juvenile drug court to county officials.

“These kids are often escaping the trauma in their home life, whether that is sexual abuse, beatings, family dying in front of them,” Watson said. “And they’ve never dealt with it, so they deaden their fears and emotions through drug use.”

The new juvenile drug court is another example of trying to unify systems to help people and divert them from the justice system.

“We’re doing tons of things other than building a jail, and putting people in jail,” Watson said of the multiple efforts in the local court services system. “We are actually going directly at the needs of the people in the corrections system.”

In the dual diagnosis program, for example, staff use psychiatric evaluations, medication and telemedicine psychiatry to get participants evaluated in 24 to 36 hours and started on medications the same day. The social workers enroll inmates in insurance programs to pay for these services, and they help them get IDs and other services. Since February 2021, the program has assisted more than 80 people. Some are still in treatment. Some have moved on. It’s a six-month process. “We have people in the program for six to eight months who couldn’t last 10 days without such assistance in the past,” Watson said.

Unfortunately, methamphetamine use is still a major issue locally, and it is the top drug connected to criminal cases in Vigo County.

“Meth is why we addressed the dual diagnosis system,” Watson said. “It’s easily obtainable. It has an immense high, is highly addictive and is used to self-medicate. Many of these people use drugs to deal with a mental health issue.”

Community buy-in

Community buy-in on a social services level has been one key move to get people out of the jail into programs that change lives. That buy-in has come from local agencies such as United Way of the Wabash Valley, Mental Health America, and the growth of the recovery community.

A network of recovery has been created in the Wabash Valley during the past 10 years, due mostly to the growth of independent start-ups and collaboration with existing agencies.

Dana Simons, a founder of Next Step Foundation, expressed amazement and pleasure at the growing opportunities for recovery she sees in Vigo County now, as opposed to when she first moved here from California in 2013.

Simons saw a huge disadvantage for women who were released from the county jail after their arrest on drug charges. Many of those women had nowhere to go except back into the home environment that supported their drug use.

As a ministry, she and husband Ron joined with others in the community to establish Next Step Foundation in a former church located at Sixth and Washington streets. It began as a residential program, providing support, education and training to women with addiction issues. Through the years, the program has expanded to assist men, and has grown with the purchase of nearby houses renovated as safe spaces for people to recover and rebuild their lives. The need for recovery opportunities also has been addressed by more agencies and organizations. Now, the recovery community has the 90-day treatment program at Hickory House for women, as well as sober living communities known as Truman House, Odyssey House, Club Soda, Hamilton Center’s Oak Street and others. Those organizations have an impact on recovery, but the sober housing need remains larger than what is available.

Mental Health America also provides housing and works with the community corrections program to assist people in the dual diagnosis program. And Reach Services has a program that addresses veteran homelessness.

Another newer program is the community-based referral system set up to address client needs, such as housing, health care, substance use and mental health care. United Way also has created impact councils to focus on a variety of issues as a way of reducing poverty in the community. Its Substance Use Disorders Impact Council focuses on approaches to supporting prevention, treatment and recovery solutions.
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