BEDFORD — In a single quarter, Lawrence County Community Corrections saved the county nearly a half-million dollars by monitoring offenders, instead of incarcerating them.
That was the word from Chad Shew, director of the program, who presented the Lawrence County Commissioners with a report for the final quarter of last year during Tuesday’s regular commissioners meeting.
Shew said, from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 8,247 days of adult electronic monitoring saved the county $445,255 in jail costs. During that same period, juvenile monitoring saved the county $53,595 versus sending juvenile delinquents to out-of-county detention facilities.
The following are additional community corrections statistics Shew presented:
• Offenders spent 2,999 hours serving eight local agencies: Bedford Street Department, Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence County, Goodwill, juvenile road crew, Mitchell Street Department, road crew and the St. Vincent Thrift Store.
• Through those work crew hours, using minimum wage figures, the program saved those agencies $21,744 in the three-month period.
• The various courts issued 2,474 community corrections hours to sentenced offenders from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31. Most of those hours were issued by Lawrence Superior Court II (1,858) and Lawrence Superior Court I (480).
• So far this year, through Tuesday, there were 166 program participants compared to 185 participants during the final quarter of 2018.
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