HAMILTON COUNTY, Ohio — In Hamilton County, there's a new way to supervise violent criminals to prevent them from reoffending.
The Hamilton County Adult Probation Department recently launched a new risk-based supervision model, which determines supervision and services based on an individual's likelihood to reoffend.
"What we are looking to do is reduce the number of individuals that recidivate on probation," Chief Probation Officer Tiana Johnson said.
Johnson said it wasn't an overnight change. She said this new model has been in the works for the past three years.
Chief Magistrate Tom Beridon said they're hopeful it will improve public safety in the county.
"We'll also be giving more requirements for our probationers, more things for them to do to get better, to make sure that they don't reoffend and make sure there isn't recidivism," Beridon said.
Learn more about how the new model will change how offenders are supervised in the video below:
However, not everyone is convinced that will be the case, including Sarah Heringer, the wife of Patrick Heringer, an Over-The-Rhine gym owner who was killed in his home last month.
His killer, Mordecia Black, was in prison for nine years for felony assault and aggravated riot convictions.
Black was to be on supervised release for three years and three months beginning Jan. 8, but he disappeared from his halfway house in mid-February after cutting off his ankle monitor.
In an open letter she posted on Facebook, Heringer called the new model "a dangerous shortcut that puts all of us at risk."
Beridon said he sympathizes with Heringer and understands that her loss is traumatic.
He said that the Probation Department didn't handle Black's case, but instead it was handled by a different department.
He said it was important to emphasize that the recent incident was not related to the launch of the new model.
"This is not a response to that," Beridon said. "This is something that, as Director Johnson said, that's been worked on for the past three years and we're just moving into implementation now."
Beridon and Johnson said the new model will also reorganize all current parole officers. They said the officers will be centralized in one hub and will be sent out to high or moderate-risk individuals when they need to.
They said it will allow officers to better serve the community.
But Heringer also disagrees with that. In her post, she questions that decision and said it "removed the last layer of common-sense oversight."
We asked Johnson if taking officers out of communities where they've built trust and connections for years would be moving backwards. She said the new model will do the opposite.
“We are increasing and enhancing and strengthening community safety with this model," Johnson said. "We would never compromise community safety for the benefit of the implementation of any model.”
Johnson said the model has seen success in other Ohio counties like Cuyahoga and Franklin. That's why, she said, she believes it will work here.
You can read more about the new model and how it works below:
