Supervisors approve grant-funded pilot program for jail

In unanimously approving a $460,000 grant Thursday for a pilot program at the Carson City Jail, the Board of Supervisors hope to help incarcerated parents and their children break cycles of crime.

“I just want to say thank you for finding this and bringing it forward. It gives us another page in the playbook of avoiding ‘wash, rinse and recycle’ … we know that doesn’t work,” said Supervisor Maurice White.

The federal grant funding will be sub-awarded to the Carson City Sheriff’s Office through the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS). The grant will be effective from Dec. 1 through Sept. 30, 2025, and will be used for equipment, training and a grant-funded family case worker position at the jail. There is no local match requirement. The program will focus on parental education and at-risk children of incarcerated parents, providing resources for families to prevent child abuse or neglect and avoid the foster-care system, according to CCSO.

The new program would work with other CCSO programs, including the Forensic Assessment Services Triage Team (FASST), which helps bridge a gap in mental health services, and the Mobile Outreach Safety Team (MOST), which assists people in crisis.

According to preliminary data provided by CCSO and analyzed by DCFS, the Carson City Jail saw 3,778 inmates in 2021 and 2022 not counting repeat offenders. Over the two years, inmates self-reported a total of 5,169 children potentially affected by their incarceration. Nine inmates in that time frame were pregnant, two with their first child.

“This pilot program is to identify at-risk families when the parents are arrested, and — this is all prevention — they do not have an active child crime case, like child abuse or child neglect,” said CCSO Assistant Sheriff Daniel Gonzales. “So, it’s any crime other than that, to provide services to these families.”

Gonzales later told the Appeal a good example is a DUI arrest. What happens to children the next morning when a parent is in jail? The new program would help connect affected children with the right resources, he said.

“As we know, there’s an intersection between child welfare and parental incarceration,” DCFS Social Services Chief III Kelsey McCann-Navarro told supervisors. “It’s a growing concern not only in Nevada, but throughout the United States.”

McCann-Navarro said the pilot program will be voluntary for inmates.

“We’re looking at providing parenting classes or soft skills to that family, a case manager to help transition them out when they get released, and then hopefully, ultimately, reduce recidivism,” she said.

Supervisor Stacey Giomi pointed to a juvenile services program in Clark County as a good model for early intervention.

“They do two things: they work on juvenile offenders on intake to get them before incarceration,” he said. “So, nonviolent juvenile offenders go through the special program, and then children of adult offenders also go through the program. And it’s remarkable that they’re able to identify and sort of stop the progression and the continuation of violence or substance abuse.”

Giomi recommended the board receive updates on the pilot program as part of the jail’s regular reports.

“We’re going to find out some stuff that we don’t know,” said Gonzales. “The grant is robust, and it allows us to go down those avenues where we identity situations that probably weren’t at the surface. I think this is scratching it, and there is need.”

In other action:

• Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution adopting the 2023 Community Source Water Protection Plan.

Developed with Resource Concepts, Inc., and the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, the plan was adopted by the board in 2015 and makes the city eligible for grant funding. It details areas of source water, incorporates other plans like Public Works’ Wellhead Protection Plan, examines potential contaminants and sets goals and strategies to protect the city’s water resources.

“Water is taken into account with everything the city does, with development, with all of it,” said Supervisor Lisa Schuette. “I just think it’s a fantastic report.”

The plan can be viewed online: https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/2265186/2023-11-02_Final_CSWPP_2023_update_BEFG.pdf

• As part of the consent agenda, supervisors unanimously authorized the purchase of 27 vehicles for several city departments for a not-to-exceed amount of about $3.2 million.

The purchases were planned for and funded through the fiscal year 2024 Capital Improvement Vehicle Replacement Program.