By Al Benson
Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain said Thursday, Feb. 17, Kane County taxpayers were saved $4,911,000 over the last three years by his Department.
Al Benson/The Voice
In remarks to the Aurora Noon Lions Club a Luigi’s Pizza and Fun Center in Aurora, Hain gave credit for the savings to his office’s reduction of recidivism, which is convicts’ relapsing into criminal behavior, from a six-year average of 49% to 16% last year. Over the last three years, he said, the jail population has been reduced by 24% by his office’s implementing innovative diversion programs and assuming control of electronic home monitoring for Kane County.
According to Hain, his focus is on triaging, treating inmates’ behaviors, rather than just warehousing them. His office, he said, offers detainees many different opportunities to improve themselves and re-enter the community with employment and continued addiction counseling.
Hain said key services of his office include public safety, maintaining the jail and providing security for seven courthouses in Kane County.
Innovations, he said, include an addiction cellblock called a recovery pod. In the pod, inmates receive medically-assisted treatment to support and redirect drug addiction issues.
“It works,” Hain said in his Department’s 2021 annual report. Collected data indicates increased safety, decreased altercations, both inmate on inmate and inmate on staff members, and an 89% decrease in death due to overdose upon discharge.
Another innovation he cited is the Kane County Sheriff’s University in Aurora. A partnership with nonprofit Talented Tenth Social Services, Inc., the facility opened in September 2021 to offer inmates job training and drug abuse counseling. “These critical support systems provided by a public safety agency are essential to reducing stigma and building true police-community relations,” he said in a news release.
The University began with the Sheriff’s office’s providing forklift certification, OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 classes for detainees to help them receive jobs on release. In August 2020, the opportunities were offered to all County residents to help them receive training and find employment.
Hain launched the Free Job and Community Resource Board at the University to help county residents find background-friendly jobs and connect them with resources to help with barriers to employment. Purpose of the programs is to stop inmates’ cycle of crime to imprisonment and back to crime.
A February 16 press release reported Hain and County Undersheriff Pat Gengler will participate in the Maple Park Polar Plunge March 6 to raise funds for Kane County Special Olympics.