GRANT AIMS TO REHABILITATE OFFENDERS

Rapists, murderers and other violent offenders jailed in Tennessee could be
eligible for a new program that includes treatment, counseling and
education aimed at helping them rejoin a community.

"Ninety-seven percent of the inmates are released into the community," said
Rae Ann Coughlin, director of prerelease programs for the Tennessee
Department of Correction. "If they're not released with intense programs
and enhanced parole supervision, they are a threat to public safety."

The Tennessee Bridges program will receive more than $1 million of a $2
million U.S. Department of Justice grant to the state. The grant is a part
of the Serious and Violent Offender Re-entry Initiative, under which 49
states received some funding.

"By educating and treating offenders, we are not only helping them improve
their lives, we are reducing the chance they will return to crime and drug
abuse," Attorney General John Ashcroft said this week.

Also under the grant, the Tennessee Department of Children's Services will
receive $936,000 toward a similar program for juveniles with a target
population in Shelby County, Ms. Coughlin said.

She said state budget cuts over the years had sliced nearly all of the
money for inmate programs.

The Tennessee Bridges program aims to help state prisoners with life skills
to keep them from committing more offenses, Ms. Coughlin said.

"Chances are, if a parole board had met with them, they would have seen
them as high risk and not granted parole," she said. "Then the inmate would
have expired their sentence with no supervision whatsoever."

The three-year Tennessee Bridges program has two parts. The initial phase
begins while an inmate is in a correctional facility, and includes
substance abuse treatment and counseling, if needed, and educational and
vocational skills training.

Phase two of the program reintroduces the offender back into the community
with "enhanced supervision," Ms. Coughlin said. Offenders will go to a
halfway house or support community and eventually should become employed in
the program's final year, she said.

To be eligible for the program, offenders must be under age 35, be willing
to parole to Shelby, Knox or Davidson counties, and must have served at
least 12 consecutive months. Only 300 inmates will take part in the program
in the first three years, Ms. Coughlin said.

Inmates will begin qualifying for the program as early as September, she said.