Hamilton County unveils jail reentry program
Three Hamilton County Jail inmates attending an electrical vocational class.
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- Inmates at the Hamilton County Jail now have the opportunity to learn to help their post-incarceration life.
A study by the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that roughly 43 percent of all released from state and federal prisons were rearrested within a year.
This is a cycle that can devastate families and communities, something that maybe reentry programs can tackle.
The first reentry programs at the jail have officially opened with the electrical and cosmetology programs having launched.
The classes, teaching up to five inmates at a time for eight weeks, are being conducted in collaboration with Chattanooga State’s TCAT program.
The program is being housed in a former Hamilton County Highway Department building adjacent to the jail.
The program is being funded through $250,000 from the county’s opioid abatement fund, designed to break the cycle of recidivism.
Hamilton County Sheriff Austin Garrett said, “That ripple effect, by investing in them, a trade for a livelihood, you can’t put a price on that.”
“This is us intervening often in a cycle of recidivism to say, “You’ve made mistakes, your county cares about you, we want you to exit in a better place than you entered this facility,” said Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp.
Jail staff know there will be challenges but are optimistic at its potential impact.
“My hope is I never see them again, and that they never go back to jail. Realistically there is going to be bumps in the road, and some of these people are going to have problems. They go home to the same issues they had when they came to jail, it’s often not very good situations. There’s going to be issues like that, but if we can just give them a good foundation, and teach them some skills and life skills and vocational skills, and get them to a point where they can function as normal people, that’s what we want, that’s our goal,” said Scott Michels, the Reentry Programs Project Manager at the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office.
The Sheriff’s Office says the next program to come online is welding in about 8 months.
