Study shows jail repeats cut in half

The Allegheny County Jail Collaborative, a partnership of local governmental agencies, has… The Allegheny County Jail Collaborative, a partnership of local governmental agencies, has helped cut the rate of recidivism – going to jail multiple times – by 50 percent, according to a study led by a Pitt professor.

Hide Yamatani, associate dean in the School of Social Work and lead researcher for the study, estimates that because the Collaborative has cut recidivism rates from 33.1 percent to 16.5 percent, the county saves about $5.3 million a year.

Yamatani calculated this figure by taking the jail’s annual budget and dividing it by 365 days per year and the jail’s bed capacity, 1,850.

He found that the jail spent an average of $68.87 per bed per day and then multiplied it by 45 days, the average length of an inmate’s stay in the jail. Therefore, one inmate costs the county about $3,104.

This means that for every dollar the county invests in the Collaborative it saves about $6.

But despite the savings, the money won’t go toward repealing the controversial drink tax.

Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato said the money saved goes straight back to the county jail.

“It goes to [the jail] because the cost of living goes up every year,” Onorato said. “It goes toward the cost of running the jail.”

Onorato said the Collaborative’s ability to save the county money is just one its many benefits.

The Collaborative – run by Allegheny County Jail and the Allegheny County departments of health and human services – provides exiting inmates with drug and alcohol services, mental health services, employment and training services, hunger and housing assistance, GED preparation classes and help with budgeting, relationship management, parenting skills and computer literacy.

Although he said he is usually critical of studies like Yamatani’s, Onorato said he was grateful for this study because it illustrated the Collaborative’s effectiveness.

“If this program wasn’t in place, the population would be much higher in this jail,” he said. “That’s one of the largest problems – the revolving door mentality in some of these jails.”

Law enforcement officials agree.

Cpt. Bradley Flood, who works in the county jail, said that the collaborative makes his job easier because fewer people walk through the jail’s doors.

Repeat visitors, he said, know how the jail functions and use it to their advantage. They request favors or more food. Some of them go on to file lawsuits against the jail.

The study also showed that the Collaborative defies national trends. Citing research from Pitt’s Center on Race and Social Problems, Yamatani said black people in Pittsburgh have higher rates of arrest and crime victimization compared to their counterparts nationwide.

Yamatani writes in the overview for his study that black people in Pittsburgh comprise more than half of the total number of arrestees, nearly two-thirds of persons arrested for serious crimes, more than two-thirds of persons arrested for violent crimes and more than half of persons arrested for property crimes.

Yamatani’s study showed that, despite the disparity, there is “no statistically significant difference in the recidivism rates” between black and white people who were treated by the Collaborative.