The head of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association and the head of the state’s prison system have exchanged letters critiquing a survey that the state agency had sent to its “stakeholders,” including Ohio prosecutors.

The survey created debate about reducing Ohio’s crime recidivism rate.

Louis Tobin, executive director of the prosecutor group, wrote to Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections Director Annette Chambers-Smith saying the survey was “an unqualified waste of elected officials’ time.”

Tobin wrote he had hoped to assist the agency to “better communicate its mission, impact and value to people across Ohio” and to better communication between the two groups.

“These are laudable goals and I was optimistic that the survey would represent an effort by ODRC to gain some insight into what you do well, what you do poorly and how and why prosecutors might have negative perceptions of those things,” Tobin wrote to Chambers-Smith.

Tobin states his optimism was shortlived, saying he was deeply disappointed at being asked to share such a survey. He criticized the survey’s “perfunctory questions that do not remotely begin to reflect the nuanced situations that prosecutors face every single day in enforcing the law.”

He said: “Instead the survey comes across as nothing more than an attempt to design a survey to paint a glowing picture of ODRC” with the agency apparently more interested in eliciting yes / no responses.

In a later dated Friday, Chambers-Smith responded by explaining the purpose of the survey and provided information regarding some of Tobin’s concerns about Ohio’s recidivism rate.

“We launched the voluntary survey to obtain information to help better guide in the future efforts to inform the citizens of Ohio about ODRC’s mission, vision and core values,” Chambers-Smith wrote.

Questions in the survey were about believing whether people can change, such as:”Do you believe people deserve a second chance?” and “Do you think that providing rehabilitative services to people in Ohio’s prison is a good investment?”

“The lack of room for nuance in these questions is absurd,” Tobin stated.

Chambers-Smith admitted, in retrospect, prosecutors and other court officials could have been given alternative questions.

“I can see that an alternate version of the survey for those directly involved in the criminal justice system may have been better received. I will keep that in mind in the future,” she wrote.

Chambers-Smith said the mission of her agency is to reduce recidivism, which would result in safer communities.

“Last year, we released about 18,000 people including around 6,000 who were released without supervision,” she wrote.

The prison system has begun to offer a wide range of educational and vocational opportunities to inmates, including career-technical, apprenticeships and advanced job training, she said.

“College is now available in all of Ohio prisons, including the high-security facilities,” she said.

Tobin complained, however, the survey doesn’t try to elicit information about whether the ODRC is accomplishing its mission of reducing recidivism.

“Instead the survey asks what amounts to a loaded question about what percentage of individuals we think are returned to prison,” he wrote.

The letter also criticizes ODRC’s recidivism report that showed the rate hovering in the 30 percent range since 2016. Chambers-Smith counters that that rate is better than statistics provided by 21 other states that show their combined rate for the same time period as almost 46 percent.

Tobin, in scoffing at the numbers, said he is afraid ODRC is using this survey to continue to paint a rosy picture about recidivism.

“Perhaps stakeholder perceptions of ODRC would be better if the agency focused on helping us protect the public, incarcerating those who our elected officials think deserve to be in prison and figuring out how to make the rehabilitative services you provide more meaningful and effective,” Tobin ends his letter to the ODRC leader.

In ending her letter to Tobin, Chambers-Smith thanked him for participating in the system’s communication and education efforts and to “best leverage” those efforts “to align with our mission.”

She said she is proud of the prison system’s work to “reintegrate returning individuals into society so they can help answer the workforce shortage that Ohio is facing.”