Representatives from Merrimack County on Monday agreed to spend $6.8 million to turn the old jail in Boscawen into a state-of-the-art community corrections center, a move that many commended as a significant step toward stemming drug abuse and lowering recidivism, but that others denounced as overpriced.
The bipartisan delegation voted 22-6, easily surpassing the two-thirds needed.
“It’s an amazing day for the community, amazing day for the department and the staff that work there,” said county corrections Superintendent Ross Cunningham, who brought the proposal.
The facility, which should be completed by next year, will house 70 minimum-security inmates and provide both inpatient treatment and housing for work release. Graduates will then be monitored for a year as they transition back into the community.
Proponents, both Democrats and Republicans, are hoping to build on the success of a similar model in Sullivan County, which Cunningham helped create nearly a decade ago. Recidivism there has dropped to as low as 18 percent, Cunningham said, while the rate of reoffending in Merrimack County remains well over 50 percent. More than half of the county’s inmates have co-occurring issues, such as mental illness, and nearly all identify as substance abusers.
“It’s costing $35,000 a year to warehouse people in Boscawen,” Democratic Rep. Steve Shurtleff, the House minority leader, told delegates. “We know that they’re getting out of jail, they’re getting two weeks worth of meds, they use those up, then they’re back to self-medicating with street drugs, with alcohol.”
“We’ve got to break that cycle,” Shurtleff said.
But opponents argued that Cunningham hadn’t done enough to find cheaper alternatives, especially those closer to downtown Concord, where services and jobs are more available.
“Seven million is never cheap money,” said Rep. John Martin, a Republican from Bow. “I know exactly where the money is going to come from: the taxpayers.”
Peter Spaulding, also a Republican and chairman of the county commission, helped champion the effort last year, when Cunningham estimated the renovation costs between $1 million and $10 million. But he said he changed course after seeing the final estimate last month. Last week, he sent delegates a letter explaining his pivot, insisting that he still supports the concept of the project.
“It should be our policy to return these inmates to the community as better members of society than they were when first incarcerated,” he acknowledged, but added: “I do not believe that we have adequately explored available facilities in the area, especially in Concord.”
Rep. Diane Schuett, a Democrat who chairs the delegation, responded Monday by noting that multiple recent efforts to start private treatment facilities in the city drew stiff resistance from residents.
The vote Monday does not include projected operating and staffing costs, which will come before the delegation in the next budget cycle. Those include $514,000 for eight new guards and an administrative assistant, and about $50,000 for heating and other utilities.
Cunningham said demolition is expected to begin this summer and will be done by inmates. The department hopes to have a contractor signed on by the fall and to begin phased-in staffing next year.
(Jeremy Blackman can be reached at 369-3319, jblackman@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @JBlackmanCM.)