Starke County Sheriff Looks to Add Re-Entry Facility in the Near Future

Posted on August 2, 2018
Author Anita Goodan, WKVI

The officials at the Starke County Justice Center are delivering skills and resources to the inmates in order to provide them with necessary information in order to re-enter society as productive citizens, but Sheriff Bill Dulin wants to take things a step further.

The sheriff wants to be able to provide that next step for those inmates in order to give them a better chance at being successful in re-entering the community.

He said he’s in the early discussion stages of building another facility on the justice center property.

“We could have a building here on the grounds of the Justice Center. We own 23 acres and we could have a 100-125 bed facility for a re-entry program and a work release center,” explained Dulin.

Dulin said the inmates that would utilize the facility would be approved by the sentencing judge upon their successful graduation from the Therapeutic Community rehabilitation program and the IOP.

“That would be locked-down, secure facility and they would be there for 90 days. They would go to work and we would supervise them, give them drug screens, and get their IDs and affairs in order so they could go back out in society and be a productive citizen rather than going back to the environment where they were.”

He mentioned that this opportunity would be a “game-changer”.

“Hopefully when they get out of here they can already have a job established. Right now we are giving them certain tools to achieve that goal but once we let them out, how are they going to get a job? How are they going to get their ID? How are they going to get transportation to different jobs? Hopefully this can eliminate that until they can get on their feet.”

No official decisions have been made. Sheriff Dulin hopes to talk to the county commissioners and county council about funding this proposal soon and obtain some grant funding to get the facility running in the next year or so.