High costs at a taxpayer-funded program for recently released female inmates started by and named for Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson’s wife are getting a closer look amid worries over gang and crime woes plaguing the county.
Leslie’s House, named in honor of Johnson’s wife, Leslie, was designed to ease female inmates back into society. The program has reportedly spent an average of $30,000 on each of the women during their stays, which are rarely longer than six months.
The program began in May 2005 and has provided a place to stay and a variety of social services to about 30 women who have left the county’s jail, said Vicki Duncan, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, which oversees the program. The county owns the home, at an undisclosed location, which can house as many as five women at a time.
The county spends about $300,000 annually to provide services catered to each former inmate, said a source close to the program, who asked not to be identified because he wasn’t authorized to speak about the county’s budget.
Duncan said she could not confirm the amount but said the county provides funding as well as services, including building maintenance, meals and around-the-clock staffing. She said one of the staff members is a corrections officer, theother a civilian; combined they’d likely make around $85,000 a year, according to the county’s Web site.
With the County Council moving forward with a task force to examine the county’s crime and gang prevention spending habits, some members told The Examiner the program come under the magnifying glass.
The county has several programs designed to fight the rising tide of gang violence, but critics on the council say there is little coordination and questionable spending.
“We are looking at nonprofits and county programs to see if they can be effective in violence prevention,” Councilman Eric Olson,
Duncan said Leslie’s House grew out of Leslie Johnson’s interest in the lives of female inmates. Duncan said Johnson remains active in the program, visiting with the women around the holidays
and meeting with each new arrival.
The women are chosen for the program by a board that chooses a “rehabilitation” plan for all of the county’s roughly 1,500 inmates. The women aren’t allowed to stay longer than six months without getting special permission, and some stay for much shorter periods, Duncan said.
