Jail reintegration manager helps inmates get back on track

Jul. 29—For many people who get out of jail, it can seem like there is nowhere to go, especially nowhere safe from stimuli that could push the former inmate back to offending again.

The Haywood County Sheriff's Office hopes to combat this trend with the help of a new program designed t help keep people from going back to jail. Enter rehabilitation program manager Bob Cummings.

"He's got a heart for people," Haywood County Sheriff Bill Wilke said. "He understands what self-sacrifice means and achieving the goals that make this community better. There could not be a better person for this job. This man has my great confidence. He is doing an incredible job."

Cummings is a jack of all trades. He is a deacon in a Ukrainian Orthodox Church and a kung fu master instructor, the latter of which prompted a chance meeting between Wilke and Cummings.

"We had a lot of good times," Wilke said. "His storefront was in my district in West Asheville. I liked to park my car and get out and walk, and I met him in that district. What Bob would do is he would use kung fu as a means to reach underprivileged kids and families in West Asheville and use it as a way to teach life skills. He did this at a great expense to himself. He would put me in a red suit and beat the snot out of me. We formed a bond there."

Reaching a turning point

Becoming the rehabilitation program manager is a position that has been in the works for most of Cumming's life. Even before getting into the substance abuse recovery field, Cummings got first-hand knowledge of how things work.

"I'm a pretty old guy, but I was a young man just doing stupid things," Cummings said. "I had no direction. My dad had died, and my mother was doing her best to raise two kids. I began using it, and it began to get serious. There was a high school teacher named Nelson Bennett who, when I was a stupid kid, befriended me, and he is the one who introduced me to the outdoors."

Cummings said it saved his life. He said that he doesn't think that God necessarily writes a plan but that he does guide things down the right path.

"My turning point was I'm either going to kill myself, or I'm going to believe somehow that this life Nelson Bennett tells me is true is true," he said. "So I recontacted Nelson, and we began talking. He introduced me to this group of men in the Baptist church. They were men who took me under their wing. They showed an interest. They weren't judgmental."

From there, he went into Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous, righting his ship. After that, he took a position at Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

"Somewhere down the line, someone told me they were hiring at the mental hospital in Chattanooga," he said. "I thought, 'Mental hospital? That sounds fun.' I got hired on, and as crazy as it was, I began to find a place for my empathy. I was offered a position working substance abuse and loved it. It gave me a chance to give back some of what I had been given."

That kickstarted his 35 years of working in substance abuse recovery.

"I started working in the substance abuse industry about 35 years ago," he said. "That was back in the days when if you were in recovery, you could quote the 12 steps and sign your name, you became a counselor."

He worked with child protective and homeless services and as an assistant director of Rescue Mission in Asheville and Knoxville, Tennessee.

"Bob brings immense qualifications into that position to make that happen," Wilke said.

He also became a certified substance abuse prevention consultant.

"I eventually began to look beyond the treatment and more finding the sources of the issues and problems," Cummings said.

Cummings also worked in a few high schools in Western North Carolina. He would bring in coffee and doughnuts in the morning to help bring in students to avoid having them out and about getting into trouble in the mornings.

He and his wife also purchased outdoor equipment to help disadvantaged students who had spent little time outdoors. They took them canoeing, rock climbing and camping.

But the federal money that funded Cumming's preventative work dried, forcing him to move on from a career he enjoyed. Cummings moved on to Red Oak Recovery, where he worked before coming to the Haywood County Sheriff's Office.

"I've tried to break out of the profession a few times, but I can't seem to do it," he said. "I keep coming back."

Welcome to Haywood County

Since joining the Haywood County Sheriff's Office in his new position on May 22, Cummings' primary goal is reducing inmate recidivism, i.e., keeping inmates from returning to jail once they're released.

Cummings works to link inmates with available resources, including substance abuse treatment, and ensure they can help cut down on failure to appear charges by making sure inmates make it to court on time. One major challenge is helping service-resistant inmates.

"The unfortunate reality is that we have a large service-resistance population for which those programs are not taken advantage of. The other part of Bob's job is to work with that service-resistance population and reduce that resistance to reintegrating in a productive way to our local community," Wilke said.

One of the biggest issues with reaching this community is making people believe they can improve their lives. It's something that Cummings said he has to do through actions rather than words.

"So many of the people I deal with here just don't believe they can do better," Cummings said. "I talked to a guy yesterday with a record this dadgum long. And I said something like, 'What do you need to thrive? Why do you keep coming back?' And he said, 'Because I'm a mess up, and I can't change it.' You can't just say, 'You can do better,' because that won't have an impact. I have to treat him like I believe he can do better."

A big part of doing this is treating everyone with respect, Cummings said, noting he has not been a part of a single negative interaction with an inmate. He said he hears the jail employees speaking compassionately about what they can do to help the inmates even when supervisors and inmates aren't around.

"If I'm working with people here, there's no judgment," Cummings said. "These are just people. People struggle. People hurt. Some people make decisions that make them struggle and hurt more. Some people take that and say, 'I'm not going to do that again.' Some people take it and say, ' Oh God, this is all I am. This is the best I can do in life.' Part of my job is to redirect that and to let them know you don't have to do that."

Shift in approach

Previously, the Haywood Pathways Center provided reintegration services for jail inmates, using grant money to fund two peer support specialists. Pathways' counselors were given unaccompanied access to the jail, something Wilke said he was strongly advised against by legal counsel shortly after taking office.

"The liability of having visitors provide services under the control of a grant, not under the Sheriff's administration, is a practice that opens our county and its taxpayers to significant liability," Wilke said.

Wilke began having a detention officer accompany the peer support specialists when going about the jail and interacting with inmates. But it made more sense to bring the reintegration services in-house with a sworn officer.

"Not only does this further protect Haywood County from liability and reduce the potential for injury or harm to people or resources, but no additional staff are required to assist him in his duties, making our reintegration efforts much more efficient and cost effective," Wilke said,

Pathways is not completely out of the business of helping the inmates within the jail, however. Haywood Pathways Executive Director Director Mandy Haithcox said the two Pathway's counselors that used to work within the jail now work with clients once they've come to the Pathways Center. She said they are willing to work with the jail to help inmates during their re-entry as needed."We're open to partnering when we can, but so far that opportunity hasn't presented itself," Haithcox said.

Faith-based help

With Cummings background as a deacon in a Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Wilke's strong faith, it is no surprise that faith is a part of this revamped program.

"There's a sensitivity about faith issues in the community today," Wilke said. "I've had to intentionally look past that sensitivity because I've found that faith leaders within our community who have a true heart to help and share the love of Christ as He intended is very beneficial to helping folks understand that this isn't just a program that gets you back into society, but it's a program that shows that as a community we care about you and want you to succeed."

The sheriff said they have one of the largest jail ministries in Western North Carolina, boasting 80 volunteers who put in 400 hours of time in the second quarter of 2023. WIlke said that they are not exclusive to any denotation and not even exclusive to religious leaders.

"The message I want to send is you're going to be held accountable for the things you do," he said. "But the other side of that message is that all sins can be forgiven if you accept that, which is the message of true faith leaders, and that you can actually go back into the community and be a person that changes their behavior because you know you are serving a better purpose ... We're not here to convert you. We're here to offer you in love all the things we're offering others."

Cummings said a major goal for the expanding program is to have four full-time staff members working alongside him on his reintegration goals

"The biggest goal is to have four well-trained, paid staff members who spend all day long classifying, helping, supporting, counseling, getting people into treatment, having classes here, having groups," he said. "I want four people whose whole thing is we're going reintegrate and prepare people to leave ... When I do things, I need to do it completely and do it right. At this time, there's simply not enough 'Bob' to go around."

Thriving in a new setting

Cummings will also become a sworn detention officer, which will help with his duties. Non-sworn officers must be escorted and supervised in the detention center. It will also prepare Cummings for any situation that could arise and give him the authority to detain inmates.

Wilke also said that he hopes this opens up a path for other detention officers to work more closely with Cummings and influence the reintegration program in the future. The detention center is hiring officers who could one day become a part of all of this.

"My hope is at some point there will be a career path for detention officers that can do that and are qualified," Wilke said. "Bob is cutting a path for those folks who will come behind him and model the program."

As for Cummings, having just passed his two-month mark as reintegration program manager, he says things are going great, and he feels right at home.

"I came on board in May, and I'm absolutely thriving," he said. "I can't describe how much I love it here."