Hometown Helena Thursday, January 25th: Lewis & Clark County Criminal Justice Services
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Hometown Helena this Thursday, January 25th: Lewis & Clark County Criminal Justice Services | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
January 23, 2024 Greetings Everyone, We’re having a heat wave! The respite from the below zero cold all last week has been most welcome. On the bright side, I hope all those pine bark and spruce budworm beetles froze like ice cubes during the cold snap! This week Kellie McBride, from Lewis & Clark County Criminal Justice Services will be at Hometown Helena. Last September this agency issued its 'Five Year Report to the Community.’ A link to the full Report is included below. If you get a chance, please give this excellent Report a good read. In my humble, this is another local success story. https://www.lccountymt.gov/ In preparation for Hometown this week I went back through some of the stories in the Independent Record and from the television stations from roughly five years ago. There were several stories dealing with the L&C County Detention Center (otherwise known as the Jail). The stories reported on suicides in the jail, overcrowding in the jail, safety concerns for inmates and detention center staff, health and safety issues due to too many inmates and inadequate resources; the lack of staff, funding and space needed to offer mental health and/or substance abuse treatment services to inmates in the facility. One of those articles, from 2019 is reprinted below. December 8, 2019. KPAX The Lewis and Clark County Jail recently had a bond and levy passed which has allowed them to make necessary changes to their facility because of the overcrowding they see. Sheriff Leo Dutton in Lewis and Clark County says their goal is to provide space for more pretrial programs giving those who don’t need to be incarcerated another option. “Allowing people to come in and help these individuals learn how to read or learn different ways of conflict management having the time and the space to bring people in to do that. We just don't have that now. I allow the chaplains program in and AA. That's all we have room for and sometimes we don't have room for that. But this new facility will have dedicated space where we can bring people in and help them. And were going to have the opportunity for mental health counselors to come in and case managers and help them get on their medication and stay on the medication.” Undersheriff Jason Grimmis tells me.... The recent increase in inmates has had an effect on staff. “My heart goes out to the detention officers because they do have an extremely difficult job, especially right now with how many prisoners we’ve got in such a small capacity area. They’re stepping over prisoners and were still trying to make sure everybody’s… their well-being is good, the security of the facility is good, and maintaining control of the facility with that many people in there.” According to the undersheriff the current facility in Helena was designed in 1984 to hold 58 inmates. There have been some modifications allowing them to now hold 80 comfortably. As recently as last month there were 116 people inside the detention facility. Many of those people are pretrial… meaning they have been arrested on something serious enough to need to see a judge and are being held either because of the seriousness of the crime or they just cannot make bail. Which is a problem seen in cascade county as well. We’ve come a long way since then, as the Report to the Community shows. Kellie will discuss the Report and the progress made during the last half decade at Hometown this week. Nowadays, we speed through space and time. Our attention is constantly being directed to the next crisis, the next election, the next plague, or to an upcoming disaster of one kind or another. The ’three day news cycle’ has been subsumed by the 'never ending news’ coming at us from many directions and outlets all at once. We seldom cease paying attention to the incoming information long enough to reflect on our past accomplishments, or to recall the good things done that have improved our communities. Well, we’re going to stop the music long enough this week to discuss the progress made in one critical area in our community: public safety. There are many people and organizations and agencies to thank, and Kellie will no doubt do that this week. Among them are the L&C county Commissioners, the Sheriff, the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, a host of nonprofit organizations, and the officers who work in the Detention Center every day. So please join us this week for another great Hometown Helena…either in person on the 6th floor of the Montana Club, or virtually via the miracle of Zoom and the courtesy of Aja Rail and the good people at Pinion Global, Inc. You’ll be glad you did. Jim Smith 406-949-1002 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Please limit announcements and comments to 2 minutes. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Please bring new or gently used socks, hats, and gloves to this week’s meeting as a donation to United Way. Socks and mens’ large gloves are very needed. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hometown Helena - Thursday, January 25th, 7 a.m. @ The Montana Club & Live via ZOOM hosted by Pinion:
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The Hometown Helena Team is Jim Smith, Rick Hays, Kelly Cresswell, Emily McVey, Tom McGree, Peter Strauss, Ann Waickman, Haley McKnight and Matt Elsaesser | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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