Mahoning County Replaces Community Programs With Satelite Feed
For fourteen years, the Community Corrections Association has delivered academic and life-skills training to inmates at Mahoning County OH jail. But no more.
Since 1994, CCA has provided academic instruction and life skills training for Mahoning County jail inmates. Its offerings have included substance abuse education, anger management, domestic violence prevention, parenting classes and remedial classroom driving instruction to get driver’s licenses reinstated. In a May 2 letter to the Mahoning County commissioners and county Administrator George J. Tablack, Richard J. Billak announced his agency would terminate its $110,000-a-year contact with the county May 30.
After CCA leaves, the jail will offer the programming for inmates using newly installed satellite reception equipment and software, said Alki Santamas, director of jail services in the sheriff’s office … Santamas said he did not know the cost of installation of new equipment and software at the jail, but he said it was reduced because the jail already had a rooftop satellite dish and cabling for law enforcement instructional TV. He said the annual cost of the satellite programming for inmates will be $1,195 …
The programming received via satellite can be put on TV sets in day use areas or in classrooms in each of the jail’s inmate housing units or recorded for later use, Santamas said. “We have to have it available for them, but it’s strictly voluntary for them to be enrolled in it,” he said of instructional and life skills programming … After satellite programming replaces CCA, Santamas said the jail will use live instructors from the state’s Adult Basic Literacy Education program for academic instruction and a live instructor from One Stop to teach job readiness; and it will expand the use of volunteers for Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous groups.
See the full article at Vindy.com