Overseen by Custody Assessment
The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department Custody Assessment pre–release program provides a range of intermediate sanctions and programs that enables the Department to supervise and assist carefully selected inmates during transition from the House of Correction into the community under conditional pre–release status at a fraction of the cost of traditional incarceration. Only those inmates who present a minimum level of risk to the community – based on their offense, criminal history, and institutional behavior – and who are eligible by state statue and institutional policy can be classified to the community. The SCSD has a Field Supervision Unit that supervises these offenders.
Community corrections participants must follow a rigid post–release plan including reporting regularly to a Field Supervision Officer, being subject to substance use screens, improving their education and employment skills, and staying out of trouble. Community corrections sentences demand much from the offender. Failure to satisfy the requirements of the sentence will have swift consequences including reincarceration.
The Division develops community partnerships with other law enforcement agencies, government agencies and private and non–profit service providers to develop rigorous programmatic and security protocols to ensure that inmates released to community corrections are held accountable for their behavior and treatment.
The Sheriff’s Department is continuously working on initiatives that provide corrections officials with the flexibility needed to be successful in integrating offenders back into society. These include:
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- McGrath House for women and Brooke House for men provides halfway house services for the Department’s returning offenders. Inmates released to these facilities are closely supervised as they make their return to the community. Brooke House is the site for an intensive federally funded reintegration program that is based on a comprehensive case conference system where offenders receive intensive services and interventions as they make their way back into society.
- The Common Ground Institute is a 10–week instructional program divided into two 5–week modules. Each section is designed to enhance and fortify employment skills that will aid our population in making a successful transition back into society post incarceration. The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department is taking a pro–active approach to reducing recidivism, in part, by placing an emphasis on vocational education.
The SCSD also provides comprehensive discharge planning services to all sentenced inmates starting from the date they enter the facility. This allows the men and women committed to our custody to have an opportunity to have a successful re–entry to our neighborhoods.
