JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A prisoner who failed to return to a work-release program Tuesday evening was spotted early Thursday morning and is back in the Duval County jail.
According to the Jacksonville police, Officer McEwan spotted Brown at a bus stop near the 6500 block of Ramona Boulevard on the Westside. Brown was arrested and has been charged with escape, loitering, consumption of alcohol on city property and falsely identifying himself to police while detained.
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Brown,49, escaped from a transitional housing facility in Jacksonville where he was serving a year sentence for cocaine possession.
He's the third work-release prisoner in Jacksonville to escape in recent months. All three are now back in jail.
According to Florida statute, escape is a second-degree felony.
"It's hard to understand why someone would escape from a work-release program," News4Jax crime and safety analyst Gil Smith said. "It's very risky to do that because once they're caught, they could then have to fulfill the full term of their sentence, where as if they completed a work-release program, then some of their sentence may be reduced."
Smith said the work-release program isn't just beneficial for inmates, it saves taxpayers money. He said nonviolent offenders are usually the only inmates considered for these programs.
Some of the work the prisoners do is cleaning up trash along the highway or cleaning an office. Sometimes they hold civilian jobs.
In Brown's case, he was working at Pita Pit. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said he never returned to the Community Transition Center after his shift.
