WHEELING, W.Va., BELMONT COUNTY, Ohio — As long as there have been criminals, there have been repeat criminals.
It’s called recidivism, and it can cause a strain on law enforcement and increase public safety fears.
According to a study from the U.S. Department of Justice, around 43 percent of prisoners released were re-arrested within a year — 66 percent within three years.
Over a span of 10 years after release, 82 percent had been arrested again.
“Recidivism is a problem. It’s a problem for all facilities. You have people that get out of jail and ultimately come back,” Chief Deputy James Zusack of the Belmont County Sheriff’s Office.
Locally, this issue can be seen on both sides of the Ohio River. The Wheeling Police Department and the Belmont County Sheriff’s Office can name several examples of repeat criminals.
In the first 8 months of 2023, Wheeling police dealt with one individual 72 times, with 14 arrests and six citations for a total of 20 charges.
In Belmont County, another person has been jailed 11 times since 2021.
For law enforcement dealing with understaffing, this creates added frustrations, like concern for personal safety while pursuing these same people over and over.
“That person is still walking around wreaking havoc,” Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger said. “That’s unacceptable in my opinion. The community looks upon the police department as the responsible entity for making sure their streets are safe. And we take that very seriously.”
So where does the buck stop?
And can these problems be fixed?
When an arrest is made, the police officer writes a report that is delivered to the prosecutor’s office. A case is built, and eventually, a judge hands down a sentence. Each entity relies on each other for the judicial system to function.
“The report is incredibly important. From there, a lot of times we work with the police officers, or the detectives involved in the case and make suggestions,” Ohio County Prosecuting Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Shawn Turak said.
“What did this witness say? Perhaps we need to look further into other people involved that might have more information for us. Sometimes investigations can take months, sometimes years. It just depends.”
The investigation is where things can get complicated. Everything is case by case, and depending on the pending charges, the suspect can get out on bond — and hit the streets again and re-offend before they’re even sentenced on their original charge.
But this is constitutional, a legal right and part of the slow turning wheels within the justice system.
“It’s imperative that we monitor who’s offending while they’re on bond,” Turak said. “That’s a different kind of recidivism, but it’s the same concept. It’s someone that’s getting into trouble that’s already been accused of getting into trouble. We have to be mindful and watch that that doesn’t happen. If it does, we need to address it.”
“First of all, one of the things this office does is when we get a case is we find out if that individual has been in front of us before. We look at criminal histories,” Belmont County Prosecutor Kevin Flanagan said.
When it comes down to it, the only one to blame for recidivism is the individual re-offending.
Addiction can be a big reason criminals continue to reoffend, and it is very prevalent in the area, specifically with one drug.
“Fentanyl has totally changed how we do things in our office,” Flanagan said. “People think that we are having more overdose cases because people are doing more heroin or methamphetamine or something like that. And that is simply not the case. It is this influx of fentanyl, a much more potent, much more powerful and much cheaper drug as well.”
While addiction is running rampant, and recidivism seems to be on the rise, what steps are being taken to try to reduce the problem?
“Bigger sentences,” Turak said. “Recidivism will not occur when someone is incarcerated.”
“The bottom line is the person has to want to get help,” Zusack said.
“A lot of folks in our criminal justice system are elected. We should look at starting to take back our streets,” Schwertfeger said. “Let’s make Wheeling a safe place. It benefits everybody.”
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