Center Turns Down Worst Offenders Work Release Center Likely To Continue Rejecting Level Ii And Iii Sex Offenders

Brownstone Work Release, which fought its neighbors in City Hall, Superior Court and in the Legislature, is shying away from a fight over its residents.

Supervisors at the work release center said Thursday that they will likely continue rejecting Level II and III sex offenders, rather than incite their neighbors.

“I don’t want a fight,” said Bruce Kuennen, director of Second Chance, the private contractor that runs the men’s work release center in Spokane. “I don’t have any agenda to push any more sex offenders into work release or into Spokane.”

Kuennen asked a community advisory board Thursday to decide whether the work release center at Third and Browne should begin taking sex offenders at the highest risk of reoffending. After nearly an hour of discussion, the group agreed to continue talks and forward a recommendation to the city hearing examiner in September.

The work release center for men, formerly the Cornelius House, had accepted Level II sex offenders for years. But three years ago, the city hearing examiner, in approving a new facility at Third and Browne, attached a condition allowing only Level I offenders, or those who appear to pose the lowest level of risk. The city will review that decision this fall.

Last year, a six-month investigation by The Spokesman-Review found:

Spokane County has more sex offenders per capita than six of the state’s 10 largest counties. An analysis showed that four out of every 10 sex offenders released here from prison came from somewhere else.

Almost half of the high-risk sex offenders are living downtown and are not under supervision.

Although the work-day routine and close monitoring of a work release center is considered a way to help all offenders move from prison into the community, state officials appeared neutral about extending the opportunity to include the higher risk offenders.

“I think the restriction is fine,” said Debra Conner, community corrections supervisor at the Brownstone.

Patty Marinos, director of the nearby Dynamic Christian Academy and the Brownstone’s most vocal critic, said she understood the authorities’ desire to be able to better monitor offenders as they become part of the community. But she also understands the fears of parents.

The work release center is within six blocks of Dynamic Christian and Discovery School, where children are closely supervised by adults. But it is also near Lewis and Clark High School and a skate park where teens are mostly unsupervised.

Mostly, Marinos is frustrated by the lack of information on recidivism and released felons relocating to Spokane.

State Rep. Lynn Schindler, R-Spokane, was behind measures to get the state to study the impact of felons on Spokane or send released offenders back to the county of conviction. Both attempts failed.

“No other county seems to see that we’re a rarity,” she said from her Valley home Thursday. “That’s why the study is so important, to prove that we really are in the throes of a problem.”

The Brownstone opened in January 1998 to house up to 64 state and 20 federal inmates. Second Chance is negotiating a lease to move the federal offenders to a building on West Broadway and to eventually boost the number of men at both sites.

The Brownstone houses inmates serving the last four months of their prison sentence. Offenders must hold a job, pay $12.50 a day room and board, provide written accounts of their time and undergo frequent and random drug and alcohol testing.

Eight felons have escaped the downtown center since last November. Six have been caught and returned to prison.

Convicted thief Jerrell Robinson, 56, and Warren Clark, 45, convicted of a drug offense, left for work together on Feb. 25. They have not been seen since.

This sidebar appeared with the story: Background Work release center the brownstone, which opened in January 1998, houses inmates serving the last four months of their prison sentence. Offenders must hold a job, pay $12.50 a day room and board, provide written accounts of their time and undergo frequent and random drug and alcohol testing.