By Nick Buglione
"We're going to continue the Saturday hours," said David Chauvin, a spokesman for County Executive Thomas Suozzi. "It seems to be working."
Citing safety, traffic and financial concerns in rebuffing the pilot program, which began on April 1 and ended in September, members of the Nassau County Jail Advisory Committee told the Herald that the introduction of Saturday visiting hours did not have the negative impact they once thought it would.
"It's not the disaster we thought it would be," said Richard Cardozo, committee member and president of the Carman Community Association. "We'd just as soon go back to the weekdays schedule, but so far it's been livable."
Under the pilot program, visiting hours shifted for six months from Monday to Friday, noon to 8 p.m. slots, to a Tuesday to Saturday schedule. From Tuesday to Friday, visiting hours stayed as they were, while on Saturday they ran from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Now, those hours remain in place.
Allowing weekend visitation has been viewed as a way of making the 832-inmate jail's environment more humane, which was the recommendation of a federal investigative report last year following an incident in which two guards stomped an inmate to death.
"There's been a push for this for some time," Tony Cancellieri, deputy county executive for public safety and labor affairs, said last April. "There were requests upon the county, even under the previous administration, to have full visitation on Saturday and Sunday, which is the case in most correctional facilities."
The Jail Advisory Committee, however, was initially afraid that visitors would inundate the usually quiet surrounding community with Monday hours eliminated and Saturday hours replacing them.
Yet, Nassau County Sheriff Edward Reilly's decision to allow only inmates with last names beginning A through M to see visitors on one weekend and N through Z on the following, kept numbers down.
"They're doing half the alphabet, and that's [making a difference]," said Helen Meittinis, a member of the Jail Advisory Committee and president of the Community Association of Stewart Avenue. "The sheriff is really doing a great job with that."
Since financial cutbacks had called for the removal of some security in and around the jail last April, concerns over safety were also raised but have since been assuaged.
"The security measures were initially taken away, but they have been reinstated. They have increased some security in the parking lot," said committee member Richard Bivone, who is also the vice president of Council of East Meadow Community Organizations. "There were really no incidents, and it's working."
Bivone went on to note that the Jail Advisory Committee, formed in the early 1990s to give community members a platform to air out grievances regarding the jail, was angry that the pilot program was put in place without their knowledge or input. They were also upset, he said, that the county executive didn't meet personally with them on this issue.
"The county executive has met with us three weeks ago," Bivone said. "We stressed that we stand together as community leaders, and we would like to be involved in what happens to our community. We did get our point across and the county executive is working with the Jail Advisory Committee."
Nevertheless, both sides were troubled over financing visiting hours on Saturdays, as guards working the weekend would have to be paid overtime. According to Chauvin, the switch will not cost the financially-strapped county any extra cash.
"Obviously, that was one of our concerns," he said. "It's not going to cost us any more money."
Chauvin added that the county's decision to keep Saturday visiting hours in place does not mean that their position could not change in the future.
"We're going to continue to assess the situation," he said. "If we see significant problems in the next few months, [we could reconsider]."
