Ohio's probation system is too fragmented and the state cycles too many low-risk offenders serving short sentences through the prison system, a report to be released Monday finds.
The study also says offenders who commit minor drug and property crimes are often supervised for years, while inmates who pose a high risk to public safety are released from prison without supervision.
A story from the AP says, the state's probation system is "fragmented into overlapping and disjointed agencies without any uniform standards" for monitoring inmates on supervision, according to the study by the Council of State Government Justice Center.
The analysis also confirms something Ohio officials have known for years: a large number of offenders cycle through prisons with sentences of just a few months, placing a costly burden on an already strapped agency. One reason for this cycling: the minimum sentence for lower level felonies is six months in Ohio, compared to one year in many other states.
"We're essentially running the biggest jail in the state _ in the prison system," Ed Latessa, a criminologist at the University of Cincinnati and one of the study's researchers, told The Associated Press.
Click here to read more of this story from the AP.
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