Funding Prison Alternatives
Berrien County’s community corrections program will be able to house a larger number of felony drug offenders in a residential alternative to prison. News from the Herald Pallidium.
County commissioners recently approved an agreement to receive $572,137 from the Michigan Department of Corrections to provide residential services.
The funding, the same amount as in 2008-09, will pay for 33 beds in the Kalamazoo Probation Enhancement Program. The nonprofit KPEP operates a branch center in the former corrections center on Waukonda Avenue in Benton Harbor.
County grant coordinator Jenny Grimm said the state has agreed to provide an additional $20,000 to allow sentencing judges in Berrien County to send lower-level offenders to KPEP. They are convicted felons who could be sentenced to prison for up to six months under state guidelines.
Previously, residential services grant funding could be used only to cover KPEP costs as an alternative for people whose sentence guideline range was up to nine months in prison. The $572,137 grant will continue to be used for those offenders.
Grimm said more people sentenced in the county Drug Court will now qualify for a 30-day stay in KPEP as a condition of probation.
“This is a shortened version, but they will get all of the same programs,” she said.
No other residential program is available for people who fall into the lower sentence guideline range, she said. The stay in KPEP is typically 90 days for people who score higher on the guidelines.
KPEP provides men and woman with substance abuse counseling and its own cognitive behavior program called Successful Thinking. Residents also have access to GED classes and are expected to look for jobs. KPEP provides help in finding work.
Grimm said the state has not cut community corrections funding for several years. The funding helps counties operate programs that provide an alternative to sending people into the crowded and expensive prison system.
To help balance the budget for 2009-10, the state is closing several prisons.
In addition to the funding for residential services, the county will receive $60,000 for the electronic monitoring program (tether), $20,000 for substance abuse counseling, $43,897 for an employee who monitors the jail population and $31,700 for grant administration.
Community Corrections, Drug Treatment & Diversion, MI Kalamazoo County
Commissioners named rebuilding or expanding the aging jail as a top priority for 2009, but the struggling economy would make it difficult for a countywide jail tax to pass, Buskirk said. “I’m not going to ask the public to dig into their pocketbooks,” he said. “I got a pocketbook, too, and mine’s got a bottom.”
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