Sheriff`s Corner

Hello and welcome to the Sheriff's Corner. As you remember, last weeks Corner covered some of the problems we've been experiencing with "4 wheelers". This in addition to the theft of 4 wheeler complaints we see from time to time. In looking over the paperwork from the last several weeks, I've noticed that we are enforcing the speeding laws more aggressively and even had to seize a machine when the riders were found to not to be the owner. The owner didn't know the rider had the 4 wheeler.

Next, the Grand Jury handed down five indictments for first-degree murder to the five suspects in the Jake Langworthy case. This basically means that the Grand Jury found enough evidence to represent probable cause for the murder. Now that the Grand Jury has finished, the task of taking testimony and giving depositions along with receiving results from lab submissions and finalizing the investigation is underway.

Last for this week, is some information about the problem of recidivism or the problem of the re-offending criminal. I recently came across a study that looked at 272,111 prisoners from 15 states that returned to society in 1994. The research focused on four aspects that described recidivism. They are "re-arrests, reconviction, re-sentence to prison and return to prison with or without a new sentence. Their findings within the three years, 67.5 percent of released inmates were charged with a new crime; 46.9 percent were found guilty of the latest charge and 25.4 percent were sent to a correctional facility in response to their new offense. Considering all of the factors surrounding their behavior after being released a total of 51.8 percent of the inmates released in '94 were back in prison by 1997. While out the inmates committed approximately 744,000 crimes between 1994 and 1997.

These are pretty important statistics. They also show what happens here. We have people going to prison only to serve their sentence, getting out, re-offending and then going back in. More on this later. Take care.