The Franklin County Prison Board recently appointed a new jail warden for the Franklin County Jail whose previous experience suggests a strong focus on reentry programming—an emphasis in Franklin County and the county’s GEO Reentry Services-run day reporting center.
In an article for the Public Opinion, Assistant County Administrator Carrie Gray said of the new warden, William Bechtold, “We think he’d be a good fit because he has a focus on treatment and cognitive behavioral intervention,” adding that a lot of the programs at Florida’s Coleman Federal Correctional Complex, where Bechtold previously served as warden, dovetail nicely with programs at the Franklin County Jail.
Bechtold, who has 30 years of experience in corrections, told the paper, “I think one of the things that was really attractive to me was Franklin County is one of the counties that isn’t chasing inmates for the profit. They’re one of the few that have been very progressive with reentry programs to actually reduce the crowds in the jail.”
GEO Reentry has worked with Franklin County for several years to provide reentry programming and now runs the GEO Reentry program in Chambersburg. The center provides day reporting, cognitive behavioral therapy and employment-readiness and life skills training to prepare participants for their successful reentry into society.
The Franklin County reentry program has been a model for other counties in Pennsylvania. Since being implemented more than 10 years ago, it has been able to reduce jail overcrowding, reduce recidivism in comparison to traditional probation, and has also helped the county to build a much smaller jail than planners had originally estimated. Franklin County has received awards and accolades from the industry for its progressive approach to adding flexibility into its correctional system.
GEO Reentry’s approach is designed to help reduce recidivism while providing more cost-efficient solutions to rehabilitating offenders and maintaining public safety.
To learn more about our approach, click here.