NONVIOLENT FELONS GET NEW CHANCE THROUGH COMMUNITY CORRECTIONS

Norman Askew remembers the code of street justice he used to live by:
"If somebody violates you, you're supposed to take his head off."

That was before the recovering addict and hustler from Birmingham's
Southside went to prison on a 40-year sentence for killing a man in
Indiana in a drug deal gone bad.

Now he works to keep other people from going down the same path in
their lives. He directs the outreach program for addicts at Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church and heads the community restitution division of
Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime.

That group falls under the umbrella of Jefferson County Community
Corrections, one of 19 such programs that serve about 1,200 nonviolent
convicts in 21 Alabama counties.

Gov. Bob Riley and the state Sentencing Commission are pushing to
expand community corrections programs to all 67 counties as a way to
ease jail and prison crowding, to punish nonviolent convicts somewhere
other than prisons, and to reserve secure lockups for violent
criminals. More than 1,000 inmates in state prisons qualify as
nonviolent felons for purposes of the programs, according to David
Horn, a state research analyst.

As Ralph Hendrix, program manager of TASC, puts it, "Community
corrections is separating the folks you are scared of from those you
are simply mad at."

The idea is that people who steal lawn mowers and credit cards should
be treated differently from those who shoot people, he said. "You save
hospital beds for heart attacks," said Hendrix. "That's what we've got
to do with prisons and community corrections."

Programs can include work release, victim restitution, community
service, electronic monitoring, drug testing and treatment,
educational services and misdemeanor probation, said Foster Cook,
director of Jefferson County Community Corrections and an associate
professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

The state prison system pays programs a subsidy of $5 to $15 a day for
diverting nonviolent felons from prisons, said Steve Hayes, executive
assistant to Prison Commissioner Donal Campbell.

Inmates pay 25 percent of their gross wages toward costs of the
program, 10 percent to pay court costs and 10 percent as restitution
to victims.

Outreach ministry:

Askew said he traveled a long way through drugs, alcohol and violence
before he found his way to Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where he
now heads the Wall Builder outreach ministry to recovering addicts. In
his job as community restitution director of TASC, he places many
recovering drug and alcohol addicts and other nonviolent offenders in
business, community service and other jobs throughout Birmingham.

He sends some offenders to Sixteenth Street and other churches for
community service, "but while they're doing that, the pastor talks
with them," he said.

Reginald Green got a job, with Askew's help, at a Precision Tune on
Valley Avenue. Green had been in and out of prison twice for drug and
property crimes when Askew told him he needed to get his life in
order, and Green decided to try.

"Today I'm buying a house. I'm married. I got a little girl. She's 5.
Everything's going better," Green said.

"I come to work every day. I work 10 hours a day, six days ... . I
feel a whole lot different. ... I really don't have to look over my
shoulder and worry."

Rick Martin, a supervisor at Precision Tune, said he knows the streets
and might have gone down the same road as Green except for the help of
people who cared about him. So he's glad to hire offenders Askew says
are trying to go straight.

"I kind of feel like it's the right thing to do, to reach out to
people that are just like I was," Martin said.

The Rev. James A. Gibson Jr., pastor of Greater Temple Missionary
Baptist Church in Elyton Village, two blocks from Legion Field, said
reaching out to offenders has been good for his community, too.

"They've helped me do everything from tend the yard to paint
classrooms to change light bulbs and ceiling tiles to even doing some
secretarial work," said Gibson.

"This area here was a place where drugs were sold. It was an area
where prostitutes walked the street," he said. "You will notice that
there is no graffiti on this building. There are no broken windows.
There is very little trash. What I'm getting at is that the community
has embraced the church, and these people tend to see the church as
their church."

Drug, mental court:

In Jefferson County, nonviolent offenders are directed to report to
the community corrections program for an assessment as a condition of
bond. Programs under the community corrections umbrella include Judge
Pete Johnson's drug court, Judge Virginia Vinson's mental health court
and a battery of educational, training and treatment services.

During a recent session in Johnson's court, a man in jail clothes
stood before the judge.

"Here's what you're going to do," Johnson told him sternly. "You're
going to get out of jail at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow and you're going to
stay at Shepherd's Fold. You've got to stay there and do what they
say. You've got to make this work." Shepherd's Fold is a residential
facility that provides food, shelter and clothing for up to 36 male
offenders trying to get back on their feet. Later, as Johnson waited
to cross the street for lunch, a woman ran up to him, called him "Mr.
Johnson," and thanked him for helping her get off drugs.

"Prison doesn't make people better," Johnson said later. "Most of the
time, I think there's a good chance it'll make them worse."

Since 1996, when Johnson's drug court opened, 1,263 participants have
graduated and 323 have gone on to prison. Offenders make routine court
appearances, have frequent drug testing, perform community service and
meet any other requirements Johnson deems necessary. If all goes well,
their charges can be dismissed at the end of the program.

Westley Marshall, 24, a drug offender who pleaded guilty in Johnson's
court, said that if not for the program, he would have headed to
prison for 10 years. Instead, he works at a recycling center on Second
Avenue North, sorting plastic bottles and newspapers.

The program required him to get his GED and driver's license, complete
100 hours of community service, stay employed for a year, pay a fee of
$25 a month and court costs of $1,500, submit to random urine analysis
and stay on the Intensive Outpatient Program at UAB for a year.

Vinson's mental health court, the only one in the state, works much
like Johnson's court, except charges aren't dropped at the end of the
program and participants are required to stay on medications their
doctors prescribe.

"They'll take their medication until they start feeling better, then
they think they don't need it anymore," said Vinson. "They go off of
it, and then it's just a cycle that keeps on."

TASC workers develop treatment plans for each participant and monitor
their progress, Vinson said.

Diverting felons:

Horn said diverting felons to community corrections in Jefferson
County has allowed the county to delay plans for a $50 million jail.

Jefferson County Commissioner Gary White said money paid toward Foster
Cook's community corrections initiatives has been well-spent.

"He is down here getting people out of the jails ... . Without that,
we would be in a heck of a mess," White said. The county is
considering building a minimum-security jail to house inmates at night
and let them work during the day, White said.

In Shelby County, the community corrections program includes a 100-bed
residential center and a work-release program that not only is
self-supporting, but also has returned thousands of dollars to the
county treasury.

Montgomery's new program is tackling a backlog of 450 inmates in a
jail designed for 305.

In DeKalb County, the community corrections program goes a step
further, not only diverting felons from prison, but removing some from
prison and placing them in community corrections assignments.

"We have come to the realization in this circuit that restoration of
another human being is very important to all of us," said DeKalb
County District Attorney Mike O'Dell.

The DeKalb program has about 100 offenders each on community
corrections and drug court programs, and about 2,500 on other court
referrals.

John T. Rice, DeKalb's first community corrections participant, today
is a court referral officer in the program.

"The program saved my life," said Rice, who had several drug
possession and burglary convictions, and alcohol and drug addictions.
"I was drinking every day until I passed out at night," he said. "I
started selling drugs to feed the alcohol and drug habit. And I got
caught in 1993."

Doug Parker, director of DeKalb's community corrections program,
himself a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, decided to give Rice
another chance. He took it and succeeded. When Rice had been sober for
three years, Parker hired him to work in the community corrections
program.

"I knew he knew what he was talking about," Rice said. "The people in
this program actually cared about what happened to me."