VIDEOCONFERENCING, DRUG COURT AMONG WISH LIST FOR MATURING 'CRIMINAL TEAM'

SUNBURY -- Northumberland County's criminal case management team has made a
lot of progress since its inception in mid-2003.

Now, in a leap forward, the group is hoping to formally organize in hopes
of receiving grant funding that would go toward videoconferencing, a drug
court and other improvements to the criminal prosecution system.

President Judge Robert Sacavage said a representative from the Pennsylvania
Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) recently attended a criminal
case management team meeting, and suggested that the group become a more
formal entity, which would make it eligible to receive grant funding
through PCCD.

The criminal case management team, formed as a recommendation of a needs
assessment conducted by the National Institute of Corrections, consists of
representatives from the county and district courts, the district attorney,
public defenders, adult probation, the sheriff's office, the prison and the
court administrator.

Sacavage said in its new form the team would serve as an administrative
agency, similar to a planning commission.

"It makes us all work more efficiently by communicating," he said.

One particular grant would pay 90 percent of a project cost, with the
county only required to pay 10 percent, Sacavage said.

"We figured the first priority should be videoconferencing," Sacavage said,
noting the time and money savings generated from a videoconferencing program.

The equipment would save time for arraignments that sometimes must be done
in the middle of the night or on weekends. It would also be helpful to the
sheriff's office and public defenders, Sacavage said.

"We are setting this as a goal for the upcoming year," Sacavage said in
discussing the plan earlier this week.

In the upcoming months, Sacavage said the team is hoping to make final plans.

By adding videoconferencing equipment, Sacavage said the criminal case
management team is not looking to add any personnel.

n Drug court plan

Another item on the team's "wish list" is the implementation of a drug court.

According to documents from Court Administrator Brandy Yasenchak, it would
be designed for defendants charged with illegal possession of drugs, forged
prescription cases and some property crimes who want to address their drug
abuse problem and turn their lives around.

Sacavage said there are approximately 10 to 12 drug courts in Pennsylvania,
with the closest one in Lycoming County. The program is an alternative to
incarceration and is weighted heavily on intense supervision and
rehabilitation.

Planning for a drug court will begin as soon as videoconferencing within
the county is a reality, so it wouldn't happen until at least 2006, he said.

Northumberland County Prison Warden Ralph "Rick" Reish said a great portion
of inmates at the facility are there for drug-related offenses.

Yasenchak said the team is also eligible to apply for multiple grants in
the same year through PCCD.

n Videoconference pluses

Other members of the criminal case management team, including chief adult
probation Officer Michael Potteiger, agree that videoconferencing will be a
big help.

Potteiger said the team was initially formed to address overcrowding at the
prison and a backlog of court cases. One way to help alleviate the
overcrowding problem is a pre-release center -- but that probably isn't
going to happen.

"Now, we have to look at other things that we think we need," Potteiger
said, adding that videoconferencing is among those needs. "I feel whatever
the (county's) match is doesn't outweigh the benefits of having
videoconferencing."

Potteiger said he learned that the Northumberland County Communications
Center recently acquired videoconferencing equipment to communicate within
a seven-county area.

"We will look at what they have and try to expand on that," he said.

Sheriff Chad Reiner said videoconferencing would greatly help his office.

"It would cut down on prisoner transports," he said. "It will affect the
police a lot. Hopefully, it will cut down on these nonsense transports."

For small police departments, Reiner said videoconferencing would cut down
on the time it takes to process an individual, including arraignment by
on-call district justices during overnight and weekend hours.

Reiner is hopeful mobile videoconferencing equipment can be used for
problem inmates being kept in the sheriff's office holding cell.

Reish agreed that videoconferencing equipment at the prison would help a
great deal, since it would eliminate the need to transport problem inmates
back and forth to the courthouse a few blocks away.

District Attorney Tony Rosini agreed videoconferencing would be a great
help, especially at the prison.

"We have problems at the prison with state inmates who are transported in
and arraigned," Rosini said. "Some of them can be done by video, and we
don't have to keep state inmates in our county prisons. It will make it a
lot easier for the people in the jail."

Rosini said he has reviewed studies done on drug courts and has spoken with
other district attorneys from counties that have drug courts.

"They have been very successful in cutting down the recidivism," he said.
"It's something I think we should be working toward. We have had an
increase in drug usage in the county, and this would be a great help."

Sacavage said videoconferencing and drug court are not new ideas.

"They were components of the pre-release center," he said. "No one's given
up on that idea. No one said (the pre-release center is) a bad idea."

However, Northumberland County is cash-strapped and the commissioners are
just trying to stay afloat financially, making for bad timing for the
creation of pre-release center.

"What can we do in the meantime?" Sacavage asked, noting that
videoconferencing is an attainable concept of the pre-release center, which
is why it is the No. 1 priority.

Yasenchak said the group has to appoint officers and other formalities in
order to be eligible for the PCCD grants

"We have to develop a mission statement and goals," she said. "We have to
keep minutes of all the meetings, which we do anyway. We've never done a
mission statement. We have to develop rules pertaining to our group."

Yasenchak said more information about formalizing will be available after a
Jan. 26 meeting.