By Dylan Goetz
mlive.com
FLINT, Mich. — From the first day the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office moved into the jail on Saginaw Street in 1988, the jail has faced overcrowding issues.
But now, for the first time in at least three years, the Genesee County Jail experienced no overcrowding in 2024.
It’s a stark difference from years prior, when the Genesee County Jail was overcrowded for 186 days in 2021, 278 in 2022 and 92 in 2023.
The jail faced 33 days of consecutive overcrowding in 2021, two stretches of 52 days and 41 days in 2022 and 23 consecutive days in 2023, according to data provided by the sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Chris Swanson credited the achievement to IGNITE (Inmate Growth Naturally and Intentionally Through Education), the inmate education program with a mission to reduce recidivism through education.
In operation since 2019, IGNITE has held dozens of graduations and influenced hundreds of inmates.
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The county jail is rated for 580 beds, Swanson said.
If the jail population goes above 580, by law the sheriff’s office has to report overcrowding to begin a process to lessen the strain on the system. If unsuccessful, the circuit court gets involved to adjust bonds and start doing early releases.
This is a significant achievement for the jail and its staff, Captain David Kennamer said.
“I cut my teeth on overcrowding,” he said. “For a decade of my career, the jail was constantly overcrowded.”
Swanson and Kennamer spoke about how less inmates make for less incidents and stress on the deputies, sergeants, lieutenants and captains that work at the jail.
Swanson cannot imagine a jail without an IGNITE program, he said.
“It would almost be like bringing house phones back in our houses – nobody has a house phone because we’ve moved on,” Swanson said. “The results are so obvious that ... I don’t know of a scenario where we’re ever going to say ‘Oh, we’re done with IGNITE. We’re going back to the way it was.’”
Swanson said the county must “stay the course” to have continued success in avoiding overcrowding in the future.
The Harvard study of Genesee County’s IGNITE program will soon be accepted in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Swanson said.
The sheriff will speak to the World Literacy Foundation at Oxford University about IGNITE’s success in April.
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