POUGHKEEPSIE – Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro and Sullivan County Legislative Chairman Luis Alvarez announced on Tuesday that they will put their heads together regarding each of their respective county’s new jail projects.
(l-r) Pattern President Jonathan Drapkin, Molinaro, with other county executives Michael Hein (Ulster),
Steven Neuhaus (Orange) and Louis Alvarez (Sullivan)
At the Pattern for Progress County Leaders Breakfast, Molinaro said Dutchess, which has just opened a new stabilization center connected with the jail project, will be focusing on an entire reevaluation of what a jail should be.
“What we’re finding is, far too many people who enter the criminal justice never leave the criminal justice system, and I would say the numbers for those living with mental illness, addiction, minority populations are higher than anyone else,” said Molinaro. “What Dutchess has been focused on is a shift in the whole paradigm: prevention, intervention, diversion, transition.”
Molinaro said the county will be providing more services for job training, improving mental illness treatment and addiction support in an effort to reduce recidivism rates.
This is something Alvarez has seen first-hand during his years in law
enforcement in the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office.
“What really bothered me is to see the people returning back to
the same jail,” Alvarez said. “I knew them. When I used to
be a crime investigator, I knew these people. Now, you see the father,
the grandfather, the son; generations after generations coming back to
the same jail and there was nothing to rehab them. There was nothing to
really give them a future. They couldn’t even balance their checkbook.”
Alvarez said wants his county’s new $80 million jail to reflect the same improvements proposed by Dutchess, and to that end, Molinaro and he will begin swapping ideas, working across county lines to benefit each other’s incarcerated populations and ultimately, benefitting both of their constituencies.
“We write together,” Alvarez said. “We talk together. We’re always sitting and putting our heads together to get whatever we can to help Sullivan County. That’s what we’re doing as soon as this [Pattern breakfast] is over.”
Alvarez hopes that working with Molinaro, he and his county manager can learn how to implement the new ideas planned for the Dutchess facility in Sullivan.
Also participating in the Pattern forum Tuesday were Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus and Ulster County Executive Michael Hein.
Ulster County’s Law Enforcement Center, which opened a decade ago, was notorious for coming in a year late and millions over budget. That was two years before Hein was elected as Ulster’s first county executive.
