COVID and changes in incarceration rates have led to phaseout of programs, but they’re still operating at state prisons 

By Rhianwen Watkins-Granite State News Collaborative

Work release programs have been phased out at New Hampshire's county jails, the result of a shift in the criminal justice system that has reduced the number of eligible prisoners.

As incarceration rates for lower-level offenses have dwindled, jails lack the numbers of inmates needed to continue their work release programs.

When those programs were up and running, jail attendants say, they helped inmates transition back into life after their sentences more easily. They gained job experience, time management skills, meaningful social interactions, improved mental health, and employers whom they worked for even offered them jobs after their sentences ended.

Work release programs give inmates the opportunity to work both within the facility and out in the community under supervised conditions. The opportunity to take part must always be granted by the court, and typically inmates become eligible after a specific amount of time in the facility.

Sometimes work release takes the form of an inmate going back to a job they previously held before incarceration, but often it entails helping out in the community in other ways.

The Rockingham County Correctional Facility in Brentwood had a work release program in operation in the past, said Superintendent Jason Henry. The program typically involved work for municipalities and nonprofits, doing jobs such as painting, fixing roofs, assisting with construction projects, cleaning recycling centers and cemeteries, among many similar jobs.

Henry said 14 days has been the typical period used to assess readiness to go out into the community.

So what led to the decline in the work release programs?

“COVID took a big bite out of it, because of the risk of inmates day after day coming in and out of the facility, especially during the first year to 18 months of the pandemic,” said Superintendent Douglas Iosue of the Cheshire County Correctional Facility in Keene. “One thing that changed was eligibility for work release was temporarily suspended, and it's not really caught back on.”

Beyond that, most of the people held in New Hampshire's county jails were awaiting trial, and and due to a shift in how courts are operating, inmates have either been receiving shorter sentences or are not sentenced at all for lower level-offenses, such as petty theft and minor drug offenses. This leaves fewer and smaller jail populations to run work release programs.

In addition, New Hampshire has increasingly turned to alternatives to incarceration, including enactment of its bail reform laws of 2018, which required judges and bail commissioners to determine someone’s safety to the community before placing them in jail before trial and requiring bail. 

The purpose was to reduce the number of people in jail before actually being convicted of crime. Many were not a danger to the community and were being held in jail without the financial means to pay bail or have someone pay it on their behalf, wrote Frank Knaack, policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union New Hampshire, in an April 2023 article advocating for bail reforms.

There were other changes to the court system too —  including the increased use of drug and mental health courts, according to Anthony Naro, senior attorney with a focus on criminal defense at Bernazzani Law in Nashua.

Those courts typically apply to higher-level offenses and repeat offenders. They are three- to four-year programs that seek to focus on rehabilitative services for individuals struggling with drug addiction and more serious mental health issues. Rehabilitation includes mandatory counseling, regular drug testing and strict court supervision.

Naro said bail reform laws and alternative courts have helped lower crime rates, contrary to many beliefs, as jail time without rehabilitation often produces repeat offenders, versus treating drug and mental health disorders head-on, since they are seen as the root causes leading individuals to commit crimes in the first place.

According to data from the N.H. American Civil Liberties Union, total crimes committed statewide were 60,447 and total arrests were 33,481 in 2018, the year the first bail reform law in New Hampshire was passed. The most recent available data shows a drop in statewide crimes to 49,289 and a drop in arrests to 23,767.

Between 2018 and 2021, there was an 18.4 percent drop in crimes and a 29 percent drop in arrests. 

“The last resort should be to take away someone’s liberty,” Naro said.

But the bail reform laws have drawn criticism, particularly from law enforcement agencies. That led to the passage of House Bill 318, which Gov. Chris Sununu recently signed into law. It tightens some of the reforms contained in the 2018 law. It remains to be seen what the new law’s effects will be.

Varied opinions of work release

Many people have varied opinions about the shift away from heavy incarceration, and about work release programs by extension.  Iosue of the Keene facility thinks terminating work release has been a positive shift.

“We don't like it, not just because of COVID …. but it also is a very risky practice to allow people in and out of the jail day after day in terms of introduction of contraband into a secure correctional facility,” he said.

He favors electronic monitoring, a method jails use to monitor individuals through an ankle bracelet that tracks their location using GPS. In these circumstances, the individual lives at home and is allowed to go to a place of work as long as they are being monitored.

When asked if a monitoring bracelet could hypothetically be used for work release for individuals residing inside the facility to mitigate the instances of contraband coming into the facility, Iosue said it would not be ideal.

“I guess we could,” he said. “Part of it is the cost of ankle monitors. Part of it is having the ankle monitors in the facility ... taking it on and off each time they go in and out would be labor- and time-intensive.”

Other superintendents remain proponents of work release.

Henry said he would like to see Rockingham County’s program get up and running again, but there is a hitch.

“In order to work with this program, you need robust-sentenced inmates and we just don't have that,” said Henry. “Ninety percent of my jail is pretrial.”

He said he feels that, while once too many people were being incarcerated, the courts have swung too far in the opposite direction.

“They still committed crimes and need to be held accountable,” Henry said.

In Worcester, Mass., County Sheriff Lew Evangelidis explained that inmate populations are declining in Massachusetts as well. He feels similarly to Henry.

“I’m always very concerned about victim’s rights. I think they're being forgotten. I think unless people have been victimized by a crime, you don't understand how it impacts you, your family, your community, " said Evangelidis. “But I also believe in giving people second chances and rehabilitating people.”

But Attorney Naro has a completely different outlook.

“Science shows that more jail is not going to help,” Naro said. “I don't think you solve a problem by creating another one,” he said in reference to work release. “People who shouldn't be serving long sentences are no longer serving long sentences. That's a good thing.”

He added: “Six months to a year — that can be devastating on your life. Going to jail for 30 days can be devastating. Thirty days is long enough to get evicted from your apartment, to miss your rent, to lose your job. It’s just long enough to hurt.”

Naro said he thinks  that the need for work release is not there anymore. The focus should shift toward creating and upholding strong pretrial programs in New Hampshire county jails to further reduce sentences. 

This would include rehabilitative measures for pretrial individuals, such as mandatory counseling, regular drug testing, ankle monitoring to supervise them while they go out to look for jobs or continue to work at jobs they already hold, or attend school if enrolled. Some may reside at the jail, but the goal would be to allow them to stay at home as long as they are wearing the ankle bracelet at all times.

“If you do well on pretrial supervision, chances are that, at sentencing, you're going to have a better chance of staying out in the community,” Naro explained. “You can say to the judge, ‘look, I’ve succeeded — you can give me probation, because I can survive and succeed on supervision, because I've done it for the last six, seven, eight months.’”

Some jails in New Hampshire already have pretrial programs, including Merrimack, Rockingham and Strafford counties. 

“We conduct a lengthy evaluation process to see if they meet our requirements for participation,” Henry said about Rockingham’s pretrial program. “The person needs a job, a safe place to live, and is subject to electronic monitoring. We will do home and work checks and drug screenings.” 

In addition to the pretrial program, the Rockingham correctional facility is also creating a new community corrections complex that would accommodate a 90-day in-house treatment program. This would allow individuals who want to dedicate themselves to rehabilitation to live separately from other sentenced individuals. Henry’s goal is to include a work-release component to the treatment program, to allow the individuals to go out into the community.

The project is set to be completed around June 2025.

Programs remain in state prisons

Though work release has come to a halt in county jails, New Hampshire state prisons continue their work release program.

That program includes three transitional housing centers and a transitional work center, said Nicholas Duffy, director of rehabilitative services for the state Department of Corrections. 

The transitional work center — the TWC — offers work release at a relatively high level of security, allowing inmates to pick up jobs within the prison facility, such as working for the facility warehouse, doing maintenance, cooking and other upkeep positions on the facility grounds. Inmates are typically allowed to go to the TWC two to three years before their minimum parole date.

The next level is allowing inmates to go out into the community to work for employers. These individuals typically reside at transitional housing centers. For some inmates, this happens after proving their readiness in the transitional housing center, or as permitted by the court after a certain period of time — typically one year before  their minimum parole date.

These workers are monitored through cellphones that the facility gives them to track their location as well as through check-ins with prison personnel throughout the day. In addition, job checks are conducted to ensure inmates are at their place of work when they are supposed to be. 

The inmates are also required to do drug testing and stay consistent with treatment programming, said Duffy.

“We're making sure that they're doing everything they need to do to be successful upon release, and some people aren't going to meet that expectation, and they're going to end up getting sent back to the prison, or TWC, depending on the level of production,” he said. “They know that they're taking a risk anytime they're not where they're supposed to be.”

Duffy said that overall, inmates respond well to work release and are enthusiastic about taking part.

“You don't get many people saying they don't want it,” said Duffy. “Most people want to engage in it because you're getting those freedoms and people want to have more control of their lives.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.