ANSON COUNTY — With prisoner rehabilitation on his mind, Executive Directive of Safer Communities Ministries Daryl Oliver addressed Anson County Commissioners Tuesday night to introduce Safer Communities to both the Board and the greater Anson County area.
Oliver said, “We know how difficult it is to help someone re-enter our society from jails and prisons. We have been in existence over forty years working in recovery, re-entry and family services. We currently got a grant from the government to help us with this thing. After four years of collaboration with SPCC, and many others interested in serving the justice involved community, SCM began working as an intermediary agency focused on establishing a state recognized work re-entry council for Anson and Union counties.”
According to Oliver, the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections has provided crucial start-up funding for the council, providing the funds needs for SCM to expand its re-entry program.
With this needed funding, SCM has hired a case manager, a re-entry specialist and a local re-entry counsel coordinator.
Oliver announced, “We currently run an office out here across from Atrium Hospital, beside Feed My Lambs. I was contacted by them because so many people come in suffering from drugs and alcohol abuse and then they go across to Feed My Lambs with nowhere to go. They offered to rent me an office there. I said, ‘Okay, let’s try,’ and I was amazed. We got it last year; we opened in January.”
So far, Oliver says, “We have had one person we have helped with transportation. We have helped three get jobs. We helped four with ID assistance. We have helped four with food assistance, helped two with Medicaid benefits, two with prescription assistance, seventeen with peer support and three families that have been given resources such as food and power assistance.”
Additionally, SCM assists individuals who come out to their office, from probation to parole. Oliver said, “They test dirty at probation or parole, and they come out to our place and say, ‘They sent us out here. They said you could get us help.’”
From there, Oliver says, “We get them in long-term treatment programs — we got two this past month and it is just amazing. I am so grateful for our good sheriff [Scott Howell] and what is going on here. He lets us come into the county jail every Monday and every Thursday. On Monday we teach opioid education. We teach things like the Samaritan Law; if someone OD’s in your presence, you can call the police, and they can come, and they cannot arrest you if you use drugs.”
Oliver says his organization focuses on teaching users not to use drugs alone and to always have Narcan.
He said, “We give Narcan out and we work with them because we want to help the individual right where they are at.”
Oliver says the people they encounter at his office are often at their worst.
“Most of the people we deal with are at the bottom. They have made bad choices and they are ready to turn their life around. That is our goal — to help them turn from tax liabilities into law-abiding, taxpaying citizens.”
To that end, Oliver says in addition to teaching opioid education on Mondays, his group also spends Thursdays at the jail.
He said, “On Thursdays when we go into jail, I send four men chaplains and two women, and they give us the full run of the whole jail for several hours. It is just unbelievable the impact. We are making such a difference here in our county jail that Richmond County has called over here and said, ‘We want this in Richmond County Jail.’”
Oliver says SCM has had a presence in the Union County Jail for 25 years.
He explains the SCM program makes a difference in not only the lives of the individual but also to the county’s bottom line when it comes to housing inmates.
“Our program makes a difference because it costs $100 a day to house an inmate. We teach life skills in the Union County Jail, three hours a day four days a week, to men and women. Those who come through our program and do not return to jail, save Union County $1.87 million over a four-year period. Our recidivism rate is 15%. The state rate is 40-50%. You [can] see the difference we are making by helping those individuals,” said Oliver.
He added, “75% of incarcerated parents will have children who will one day follow them into prison. Our goal is to work with the families. We want to build this program up in the community. We have a grant, those run out from time to time, and our goal is to build this up so big in the county the county wants to one day take it over. I am just here laying the groundwork and letting you know what we do.”
Oliver acknowledged and thanked commissioners and County Manager Leonard Sossoman for their previous assistance in obtaining opioid funding, as well as state funding for SCM.
