COLBERT FINALIZING COMMUNITY-BASED CORRECTIONS PROGRAM

TUSCUMBIA - Colbert County is moving closer to beginning its Community
Corrections program.

Presiding Circuit Judge Hal Hughston received a resolution from the county
commission last week supporting the venture.

Community Corrections involves a variety of programs for nonviolent
criminal offenders. The programs allow offenders to serve their punishment
in their own community.

The concept is designed to help reduce the population of the state's
correctional facilities.

Most programs include projects such as work release and suspended work
release, drug court, pretrial diversion and electronic monitoring.

Colbert County has actually had one facet of the program, drug court, in
place for more than a year.

Hughston said the community corrections board is setting up the actual
corporation and is awaiting operating money from the state Department of
Corrections.

"We've been spending a good bit of time putting this thing together,"
Hughston said.

Community corrections reduces the cost of incarcerating criminal
defendants, while providing opportunities for rehabilitation, the judge said.

District Attorney Gary Alverson said he sees community corrections growing
in the future.

Alverson estimated that eventually, more than half of the people in the
corrections system will be in some type of community-based program.

"It's an umbrella that includes a variety of different remedies and
punishments," Alverson said.

Unlike prison, Alverson said community corrections offers not only a way to
incarcerate a person, but also means by which to rehabilitate them and
collect restitution and court costs from them.

"Plus, they're in this community rather than miles away," he said.

He also said community correction will be more flexible than the
penitentiary system.

"Hopefully, at some point in the future, your penitentiary system will be
freed up for the much more serious and violent offenders," Alverson said.

One drawback, however, is that recidivism is high among the type of
offenders that are normally considered for community corrections.

At the same time, though, Alverson said community corrections can provide
help for the underlying cause of many of those offenses, which Alverson
said is mainly drug and alcohol abuse.

"Those issues can be dealt with in a community corrections setting," he said

Hughston said the county is completing renovations in the old county health
department building off Water Street in Tuscumbia for use as an
administrative facility for the program.

"The building is close to completion," Hughston said.

Hughston said he is optimistic the county will receive its funding from the
Department of Corrections. While he could not say exactly how much the
program would receive, the judge said it would be sufficient to begin the
program.

The idea is for the program to eventually be self-supporting through the
payment of fees by the defendants.

The community corrections program will be overseen by a board of directors
that will include Hughston, Circuit Judge Jackie Hatcher, District Judge
George Carpenter, Alverson, Sheriff Ronnie May, Tuscumbia lawyer Ben
Gardner, who will represent the defense bar, and county Commissioner Emmitt
Jimmar.

"We have a well-balanced board," Hughston said.