Office run by GEO Reentry Services will provide those on probation or parole with services needed as they rejoin society
By Elaine Williams
A new Lewiston center is part of an effort by the Idaho Department of Correction to help convicted felons avoid violations of their parole.
The office is being operated by GEO Reentry Services, part of an international company that has a $6.39 million contract for the 2022 fiscal year with IDOC to run seven “connection and intervention stations” throughout Idaho, said Jeff Ray, a spokesman for the IDOC, in an email.
That money pays for the contractor to assist as many as 700 individuals in Idaho at any given time who are on felony parole or probation, including 50 from north central Idaho.
The Lewiston office of Geo Reentry Services opened July 6.
IDOC hosted a media open house at the center Wednesday to introduce it to the community.
It is at 1002 Idaho St., next door to the IDOC District 2 Probation and Parole office, an arrangement that has a number of advantages, said Katie Morris, a program manager with GEO Reentry Services in Lewiston.
Parole and probation officers can walk the clients they assign to the program across the parking lot to a reception area of the center where they can make an orientation appointment that happens within 48 hours of the referral.
The center provides numerous forms of assistance to felons identified as having the highest likelihood to violate the terms of probation assigned to them, said Summer Overberg, manager of IDOC District 2 probation and parole in Lewiston.
“This provides a really great intervention,” she said.
Center employees identify what would put offenders at the greatest danger of violating the terms of their probation or parole, then form a plan with them to prevent it from happening.
They might help clients complete a GED diploma, learn approaches to finding friends who support them in a healthy lifestyles, and even, in one case, supporting an offender who wants to eventually acquire a business where they work, Morris said.
That effort includes financial and communication skills education.
Some attend support groups developed around specific topics, such as parenting or anger management.
This provides a really great intervention.
Kate Morris, GEO Reentry Services program manager
Most of the individuals referred to the center now reside in the Lewiston area, but efforts are underway to make the services available throughout north central Idaho, perhaps with a virtual online format.
“It’s tailored services based on individual needs,” said Evette Navedo, statewide manager for GEO Reentry Services.
Typically clients spend six months working with the specialists at the centers, but the length of time varies.
“If they’re ready and willing to change, that’s going to be the determining factor,” Navedo said.
The work GEO Reentry Services employees do is similar to what parole and probation officers offer all of the offenders they supervise, Overberg said.
But encouraging felons to stay off drugs, obtain jobs or attend classes are responsibilities probation and parole officers juggle with caseloads that, in this area, average 65 to 70 offenders, while they make sure individuals don’t pose a danger to the community, she said.
The network of connection and intervention stations is separate from a previously announced IDOC 100- to 130- bed work release center, which the Idaho Legislature funded in 2019.
That center, Overberg said, would be a place where offenders would be assigned after serving prison terms close to the time they were scheduled to be released.
No updates are available on that center, Ray said.
Williams may be contacted at [email protected] or (208) 848-2261.