Security for prisoners on work release programs from the Edgartown house of correction is likely to be tightened up following an incident this week in which a prisoner caught a bus to visit a friend and girlfriend instead of going to work.
Quincy A. Young, who was serving a 30-month sentence for drug and firearms offenses, was allowed out on Sunday to attend a work program at the Farm Institute in Katama. He was supposed to catch a public bus to get there.
But instead he boarded another bus to West Tisbury, where he visited a friend whom he hoped would house him after his release from jail. He then visited his girlfriend, who lived nearby.
Mr. Young was apprehended peacefully within hours after he failed to turn up at work, by police and prison and sheriff’s department officers who surrounded the house on Meadow Farms Road.
Mr. Young now faces a charge of escaping from custody and has lost his work release privileges, but yesterday Dukes County Sheriff Michael McCormack said he believed Mr. Young planned to return to jail all along.
He said Mr. Young missed the bus which was supposed to take him to Katama. The next bus was bound for West Tisbury.
“The information I have from the officers who interviewed him was that it was purely a spur of the moment thing, and that he figured he would take advantage of being out, to secure his housing once he was released, and then see his girlfriend real quick,” Sheriff McCormack said.
“I don’t believe there was any intention not to return to the jail. He was taking advantage of being outside, to take care of some personal business.
“The girlfriend was urging him to get back to work. He was planning on doing that, I believe, but we got him before that.”
Sheriff McCormack admitted it was unusual that a work-release prisoner was allowed to take public transport to a job.
“With most of the individuals who are on work release, the employer is required to pick them up. But the Farm Institute didn’t have the ability to do that, so the alternate plan of taking the bus was put in place,” he said.
There was one other prisoner also allowed to catch the bus, he said, to work at an Edgartown plant nursery.
“But I think the bus is off the table, from this point on,” he said. “We are reviewing the situation, but I think the outcome will be that we’ll go back to the normal practice that an employer will have to pick them up and then return them.
“And if the employer can’t do that, then they are not going to be deemed suitable,” he said.
Mr. Young, 29, was sentenced in late July after pleading guilty to charges of distributing cocaine, receiving stolen property and defacing the serial number on a firearm.
The escape came less than two weeks after Sheriff McCormack was re-elected, following a campaign in which jail security, particularly in relation to work-release prisoners, was made an issue by his main opponent, former state police Sgt. Neal Maciel.
Mr. Maciel claimed lax oversight had resulted in prisoners returning to the jail with contraband, mainly drugs. He advocated routine strip searches of returning day-release prisoners.
Sheriff McCormack denied the need for such a measure, saying it would breach the trust built up with prisoners preparing to go back into society. He defended the work-release programs as a step toward re-integration and a means for prisoners to earn some money toward their needs when they got out.
Sheriff McCormack said after his apprehension, Mr. Young was found to be clean.
“He was tested on his return and there was no indication that he had taken any sort of drugs,” he said.
“It was apparently just a spur-of-the-moment decision to attend to some personal business. He wasn’t thinking, that’s the bottom line.
“The thing is, if he had run it by us, we would have been happy to assist him in securing some housing. Housing is one of the key things that we are concerned about when somebody gets released.”
This article appears in November 12, 2010.
i say we punish that prisoner real good. no dessert after supper, no guns or drugs and take away his Xbox for a week! unless that “breaches the trust” we have with convicted criminals.
And where did this criminal immediately head to as soon as they let him out of his cage, West Tisbury Ground Zero for Martha’s Vineyard’s Liberals!
Maybe all the MOVEON.ORG members there can rally to get the jail moved to their town and also give them a job once they get out!
My main concern at the moment is for the safety not only for my wife’s but for the safety of my two small daughters with all these harden criminals roaming free and traveling all over our island at will and then not even being searched when they return from their work furloughs! I wonder how much it cost us taxpayers to track him down and to now give him another public defender to get him out of this?
Well, it seems the only option we now have now other than waiting Six years for another election is to get this Liberal McCormack (D) recalled. I think possibly once a terrible crime which will eventually happen is committed while they are out and about that just might trigger the recall and also a major law suit.
Mr. Young’s work-release job was at the Farm Institute, which runs programs for children. Most parents would think twice about allowing their kids to go to a location where they might come in contact with convicts.
@ Bruschetta..i say take it one step further and take away the new FLATSCREEN t.v. and cable thats in the cell !
I am Very familiar with the Recall Process for elected officials! I recalled one here back in 1996.
It is actually quite a simple process to begin and your town clerk can lead you in the right direction in ten minutes tops!
You basically just have to get a certain amount of signatures to begin the process and it will take on a life of it’s own real quick!
There are many more serious reasons now to recall McCormack than the reasons I had to recall the elected official in my town!
You would immediately start off getting signatures of all Neal’s supporters and I am quite sure many of McCormack’s supporters have serious buyers remorse now and would love to clear conscious for voting so stupidly!
IF I see that somebody is seriously going to pull the papers for his Recall I will help in any way I can!
(Make sure if you do pull the papers that you let the press know Immediately!)
The people of Martha’s Vineyard spoke clearly about who they want to be Sheriff. Anyone who doesn’t can run around and look like a damn fool if they want to, and wave all the recall petitions they want. But please let us know when you are going to be doing that so we can take pictures to better remember your silliness
Too funny. Wow a convicted felon serving time on Marthas Vineyard. How nice it must be to have room and board and the run of the island at the expense of others! Such a soft sentence for Cocaine and carrying a fire arm? And what other crimes has he committed while on the island that have been covered up due to the low security that the sheriff’s department has and whatever deal he made to be there? He was just securing his living arrangements for when he’s released. How will he then support himself living on MV? Let me guess. The punishment was a joke, and he knows it.