Sheriff Jeffrey Brewer has only been Emanuel County’s chief law enforcement officer since January 2021, but his office has already implemented — and seen the success of — some programs previously unprecedented in Emanuel County.
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Brewer served as a trooper with the Georgia State Patrol for 32 years, rising from a radio operator to the rank of lieutenant at the time of his retirement. “Retirement” didn’t last long, however, and Brewer began working with the Emanuel County Sheriff’s Office under then-Sheriff Tyson Stephens, both in the court department and as a prison administrator.
Working in prison was an eye-opening experience for Brewer, who has spent most of his career in law enforcement interacting with individuals in an entirely different capacity. The relatively small prison, which housed about sixty inmates, had a limited staff, so much of what Brewer learned he learned through experience. He said the only advice he was given was that he had to “learn everything himself.” And he did.
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During the nearly four years he worked in prison, Brewer had the opportunity to interact with offenders on a personal level. “They won’t tell you what they did or didn’t do,” Brewer said, laughing. “But they will tell you what got them to where they are now and what they would rather be doing, things like that. Like the rest of us, they just appreciate it when someone is listening.”
Emanuel County Vocational Training Programs
After Brewer’s victory in 2020, he and his administration got off to a flying start with a variety of things he promised during the campaign. Ironically, career programs and prison education were not included among these campaign promises.
Sheriff Jeffrey Brewer and Chief Deputy Nick Robertson sat down with TheGeorgiaVirtue earlier this month to discuss implementation of both at the Emanuel County Jail.
Brewer says the idea came to fruition after an Emanuel County delinquent was placed in the Washington County jail so he could complete the GED program as a condition of his sentence. Upon completion, Sheriff Joel Cochran placed a picture of the man in the newspaper with his GED proudly displayed. Brewer said he appreciates how proud individuals are of their achievement, prompting him to consider how ECSO could implement a similar program.
While a secure prison and strict operational procedures are priority #1, both Brewer and Robertson shared their approach to county jails. “Prison is the last resort. Yes, sometimes we have to lock someone up, but that’s not all,” Robertson said. “Helping people get out and stay out is part of that, too.”
Brewer told TGV he reached out to Marion Shaw, a former prison sheriff’s office administrator and also a former school system superintendent, about starting a program in Emanuel County. They associated with Southeastern Technical College, where Shaw’s brother, Ronnie Shaw, works as an instructor. STC offered to provide the formal GED program, books, and an on-site instructor. Pineland Telephone then provided the facility with an independent connection for the computers used for pre- and post-testing. Now the GED program is taught on-site in the prison’s multipurpose room as a teacher-led classroom learning program. To date, 18 offenders have graduated.
Pictured with Captain West Bedgood
Photo: Emanuel County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page
The program was so successful early on that ECSO partnered with Southeastern Tech to also offer the forklift operator certificate. The week-long program immediately attracted the interest of several participants and to date fourteen people have received the certificate.
Photo: Emanuel County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page
(Pictured from left to right: Instructor Billy Shaw, Edward Jenkins, Dashown Hawkins, David Hood, Jr., Venchia Brown, Lavana McCoy and ECSO Coordinator Marion Shaw.)
In addition to the certificate or diploma, Brewer says, the office ensures achievements are shared on ECSO’s social media accounts – with permission, of course. The small tokens of appreciation have been well received by the community and provide additional opportunities for positive reinforcement for those with the accomplishments.
Although the Emanuel County Jail houses around 100 inmates at any one time, not everyone is eligible to participate. Prison officials work with STC to evaluate inmates based on their pending charges, length of incarceration, and behavior behind bars to determine if they are a good fit. Their readiness is also essential. The majority of the participants are convicted criminals, so they cannot be forced into anything they are not interested in doing. Still, no program has lacked in appeal, which Brewer attributes to the STC and ECSO’s partnership, along with the Shaw brothers and prison administrator Captain West Bedgood.
“Many of the participants didn’t have the encouraging people in their lives telling them to go ahead and complete a program or get trained in something,” Brauer said. “When they see that someone is encouraging them and giving them a chance because they can do it if they try, it gives them a level of confidence they’ve never had before. And we see that in these programs.”
Additional extension
Sheriff Brewer and Chief Deputy Nick Robertson both expressed their hope and willingness to expand the types of programs offered to those at their facilities. However, the expansion is somewhat limited in terms of location and time. Programs must be taught on-site because the controlled environment limits smuggling issues and the resources that would be needed to transport multiple people outside of the facility. The prison is also limited on what equipment can be brought into the facility for on-site training, one of the reasons the forklift training was well-suited.
Because the programs are mostly offered to people whose cases are pending, the length of their stay is not certain. The different periods of imprisonment make it difficult, at least for the moment, to offer programs lasting several months or years.
For now, Brewer, Robertson and prison staff are focused on raising awareness of the opportunities available to them.
“90-95% of the people in our prison aren’t bad people, they just made a bad decision,” Brewer said. “We’re not doing this to show off or to acknowledge ourselves – it’s for them. And to give them a tool to make different choices in the future.”
Vocational training programs in rural prisons
Career opportunities in prisons, while growing in popularity, are still relatively new, particularly in rural Southeast Georgia.
Whether offered in prison or in prison, and regardless of pre-sentencing or post-sentencing status, statistics consistently show that inmates who receive general education and training are less likely to return after release, and with significantly more likely to find employment than their peers who do not have such opportunities.
According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics study of more than 404,000 offenders in thirty states, 67.8% of offenders are arrested again within three years of their release. That number jumps to a whopping 76.6% by the five-year mark. However, the same study shows a 43 percent reduction in recidivism rates among offenders who attend education and training programs because of the impact on reentry.
It has also proven to be cost effective. One study showed that for every $1 invested in incarceration training, taxpayers saved $4 to $5 in post-release reincarceration costs. Other studies have compared crime reduction between education and simple incarceration, with the former being nearly twice as successful.
