Benton County’s jail is chronically overcrowded. Officials hope to improve the system in a way that addresses the needs of inmates and the community. KLCC’s Deonna Anderson has more.
The county launched a four-phase assessment of its criminal justice system. The appraisal’s purpose is to help investigate and identify improvements for the jail. Commissioner Xan Augerot says the goal is to come up with a better plan.
“High level outcome is that we will have across the residents of Benton County a vision for what the criminal justice system should look like,” she says. “That includes the whole range of programs for inmates in the system so that we can reduce the rate of recidivism and improve the quality of life for those inmates after jail and make our community safer.”
Augerot says the process will include interviews with stakeholders and data collection. Benton County will be having a public meeting on February 20th. A comprehensive report with recommendations is expected to be released at the end of 2018.