The Sandusky County Jail in northern Ohio is relatively small. On average, about 80 people are incarcerated there and most don鈥檛 stay for more than a year.
So, for a long time, there wasn鈥檛 much investment in educational programming.
鈥淭hey had tried off and on for a few years with a GED program,鈥� said Deputy Caren Nemitz. 鈥淭hat didn't really gain any traction.鈥�
But recently, that鈥檚 changed.
A couple years ago, the Sandusky County Jail was the first in Ohio to launch a program called , which stands for Inmate Growth Naturally and Intentionally through Education.
IGNITE started in 2020 at a county jail in Flint, Michigan. The sheriff there wanted to shift the jail鈥檚 culture and reduce the rate of people returning to jail 鈥� called recidivism. So they started offering courses to teach skills like financial literacy and parenting.
Since then, the National Sheriff鈥檚 Association has adopted the program and it鈥檚 spread to more than 25 jails across the country.
Ohio jails launching IGNITE programs
In Ohio, the and County Sheriff's Offices each launched IGNITE programs at their jails this spring.
鈥淲e're using the program as a cornerstone to focus on education, along with different mental health services, to help fight generational recidivism,鈥� said Lieutenant Dustin Timberman, director of inmate services for the Washington County Jail in Marietta.
There, he says long-time corrections officers sometimes see members of the same family cycle through the criminal justice system.
鈥淭hey're seeing not only grandkids, but great-grandkids of people who they've initially started dealing with when they were in their infancy of their careers,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o if we can help people get to a point where, once they get released, they can go and better their lives, then it will help them and it will help their families, so that we don't see different generations of them coming in repeatedly.鈥�
The IGNITE program focuses on education to tackle problems like this, but specific courses vary depending on each location鈥檚 needs and the availability of local resources.
鈥淪o it looks different for every site,鈥� Nemitz, the IGNITE program coordinator with the Sandusky County Sheriff鈥檚 Office, said. 鈥淭here are some sites that are bigger and they have a lot of money. And there are some sites like ours that are really rural. We don't have a lot of funding.鈥�
In Sandusky County, IGNITE includes a pathway for people to get their GED.
Victor Aguilar is one of a handful of students aiming for that diploma. He participates in weekly classes, where he practices skills like reading comprehension and finding the mean, median and mode of data sets. He鈥檚 hopeful the free education will help him find a job as an electrician when he gets out of jail.
There are also courses that focus on teaching life skills: anger management, job interviewing and substance use.
鈥淲e have a lot of people with drug issues and then they have mental health or a trauma aspect to that too,鈥� Nemitz said. 鈥淭hat's the part I've been focusing on is working in education and support for that.鈥�
Opioid Remediation Grants
Sandusky County鈥檚 IGNITE program has been funded with grants from the United Way and a local Mental Health and Addiction Services Board. Now, it鈥檚 being supplemented with a $172,291 from the state attorney general鈥檚 office.
Since , the office has allocated more than in opioid settlement funds to nearly two dozen jails through that grant program. It鈥檚 intended to get incarcerated people access to treatment and reduce the number of fatal overdoses in Ohio jails.
An of people in jail nationwide have substance use disorders, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and in the past four years, of the roughly 200 deaths in Ohio jails were attributed to substance abuse.
Nemitz said the Sandusky County Jail plans to use its grant money to add to its substance abuse programming and to help with medication-assisted therapy. Both, she said, could help incarcerated people hit the ground running once they鈥檙e released.
鈥淸We are] facilitating that reentry back into society, instead of just opening the door and saying, 鈥楢ll right, there you go, don't come back,鈥欌�� she said. 鈥淭hat doesn鈥檛 work.鈥�
Success of IGNITE
Researchers from Harvard, Brown and the University of Michigan found those who enrolled in the program in Flint gained, on average, in reading and math.
They also found a single month of the program reduced weekly instances of misconduct in jail by half and, longer term, it reduced one-year recidivism by almost 25%.
Michael Hill, one of the first to participate in IGNITE at the Sandusky County Jail, attests to its influence.
鈥淔or me, and I can only speak for myself, without that program, I probably would be, I can't say dead, but I probably would still be incarcerated,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 probably would still be spiraling down that drinking path. I probably wouldn't have no confidence in myself to move past my mistakes.鈥�
Using the job interviewing skills and connections he gained through the IGNITE program, Hill now works with a packaging company in Sandusky County.
Now, with added addiction support, he hopes more people will find the same success.