San Juan Safe Communities, with assistance of the Farmington Police Department, is leading the effort to discover nonprofit resources that would help released jail detainees assimilate into the community.

The topic was presented during the March 7 Community Relations Commission meeting at City Hall, with Police Chief Steve Hebbe leading the discussion.

“It is a little uncharted ground. We have a vested interest in not wanting to arrest the same folks,” Hebbe said. “We want to arrest the bad guys and keep them in jail.”

The idea, broached by a Leadership San Juan class, would be to bring recently released detainees to an orientation day to introduce them to all types of services to help them be successful in life.

“Coming back into society, it shouldn’t just be getting released from detention: You’ve been bad, it’s over, goodbye, good luck,” Hebbe said.

Hebbe said the project has good potential.

“They need to register with probation officers. If they are a sex offender, they need to register,” Hebbe said, pointing out if they don’t register, a warrant will be issued and they go back to jail.

People Assisting the Homeless might be able to talk to them about housing, while Path Builders could be there for those who need to line up a job, Hebbe said.

To prepare, the Farmington Police Department plans to host an April 2 summit at the Farmington Civic Center.

Commissioner Deb Dumont wanted to know whether the summit was open to everyone, She said she would “like to reach out to the nonprofits in Durango and to the helping groups on the Navajo Nation.”

“We are thinking of expanding it,” Hebbe said. “It started out as nonprofit, and then people in the helping field started showing up.”

Assistant City Manager Shana Reeves said the summit would bring together a myriad help groups.

“The summit is bringing all of these groups together – to have trainings. This project would be a subset of that. The resource gathering is to support this project. They are all collectively there and then, can turn their attention to this.”

Dumont said she could see this summit continuing with different projects in the future. “That player group would be the one that would essentially keep moving forward with different projects.”

Hebbe pointed out the police department did a summit last fall, and it focused on “nonprofits” that needed leadership training.

“Now we’re back to who’s coming to this – maybe we should expand it – but here is a project over here: Can we get them to focus on that,” Hebbe said.

“I think it’s a great idea because once people are released they have so many barriers,” Commission Cheri Floyd said.

Newly appointed Commissioner Alyssa Begay said she works with the Farmington Women’s Business Center, and the organization “had a program where we went to a women’s detention center and had a financial ability summit. Our clientele is growing with people who are being rehabilitated back into society. I really love this. I am excited.”

Hebbe said work still needs to be done before bringing in the released detainees.

“We are not sure of the time frame or how often they would do this,” he said.

Hebbe added they will have to meet with the warden to plan the logistics and further determine what services can be done “for those people who are getting released.”