Local Nonprofit Spearheads Effort to Reduce Recidivism Rates

As cities throughout California brace for a possible influx of 40,000 inmates to local jails and community-based parole programs, one Rohnert Park nonprofit has already spearheaded a program to reduce recidivism rates in Sonoma County.

, a community-based service organization that provides counseling to kids, teens, and adults, as well as homeless outreach, job training and education — all located in a small trailer behind the shuttered Mountain Shadows Middle School — has already graduated their first class of formerly violent offenders from a new anger management program.

May marked the first month that SCAYD partnered with the Sonoma County Jail and the probation department to absorb parolees who are required to take some sort of anger management program upon release from detention. Out of the first class of 14 former jail inmates referred, nine graduated from the program, dubbed Aggression Replacement Training, said Jim Gattis, the executive director of SCAYD.

And the second class of the anger management program — touted as the first of its kind in Sonoma County — started Tuesday night. Gattis said 16 were referred, and about half that usually complete the program.

“There were so many people calling us and asking for anger management classes,” Gattis said. “So we called the probation department and asked to work with them to create an anger management class. These are mostly men who have histories of domestic violence, severe aggression problems and have been very violent in society as a whole.”

The program comes at the heels of a May 23 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that requires California to reduce the state prison population by as many as 40,000 inmates. Supporters said the Aggression Replacement Training program is as an example of counseling services that could be replicated throughout the state, in an effort to reduce recidivism rates, or repeat offenders who return to prison or jail, placing an even greater burden on the system.

According to the department of corrections and Gov. Jerry Brown's office, a majority of the prison population reduction could be achieved by a realignment plan outlined in Assembly Bill 109, which the governor signed in April. 

The realignment plan would divert low-risk offenders and parole violators from state prisons and into local jails or community-based programs — systems that opponents of the realignment say are overcrowded.

However, the high court ruled in a 5-4 decision last month that overcrowding in California’s prisons “creates unsafe and unsanitary living conditions that hamper effective delivery of medical and mental health care,” and that the state has “failed to meet prisoner’s basic health needs." 

The state currently houses nearly 144,000 inmates in 33 adult prisons that were built to hold 80,000. The state will need to release or transfer at least 34,000 prisoners to comply with the court’s order, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Matthew Cate said after the decision was made.

Gattis said SCAYD works with the men, who range from age 19-50, on basic communication skills that have in some way or the other been lost along the way. 

“So many of these guys have lost basic life skills and much of the time, they’re reacting out of violence because of their own history of abuse,” Gattis said. “Often times they themselves were beaten up as kids and they can’t identify the feelings associated with why they’re getting upset,” he said.

Gattis said in his experience, the participants' feelings of anger and rage stem from a range of emotions they're not used to dealing with, such as depression, self-conciousness, jealousy and even financial problems, to name a few.

The Aggression Replacement Training teaches former inmates things such as how to ask for help, apologizing, giving a compliment, identifying anger triggers, and listening to others before reacting. Gattis said the positive response rate from the first graduating class was 82 percent.

The class lasts for two hours a day, twice a week, for 10 weeks.

“So many repeat offenders lack problem-solving skills and management of their emotions,” said Sheralynn Freitas, the deputy chief probation officer for the County of Sonoma Probation Department. “Our recidivism rates are dismal — 70 percent — we need to try to do better.”

Freitas said the decision to release the prison inmates has left Sonoma County in a holding pattern.

“We’re going to have to develop lots of programming, similar to our partnership with SCAYD, for these parolees,” she said. “Our goal is, through realignment, to lower recidivism rates so that the community is better off, and public safety is enhanced. We have to invest in programs that change behavior in the long-term.”

Editor's note: Click on the video to the right to hear for yourself what Jim Gattis has to say. Bay City News also contributed to this report.