Benefits Of Our Program
Why Sentencing Services is a Good Investment
A contribution to Sentencing Services is an investment in the future of your community,
because every offender who fails to turn around his life today is guaranteed to cost your
community tomorrow. It’s a case of pay now, or pay more later.
Although it is a statewide program, Sentencing Services is required to have both monetary
and grassroots support at the local level. In other words, local people have to put
their time and money behind their dreams of a crime-free community.
As any shareholder knows, you have to make an investment before you can reap a dividend.
It is the same with people. Sentencing Services provides an opportunity to bring real
change to individuals who may not have had much of a break in life so far. More than 90
percent of the offenders in this program are indigent. When you contribute to Sentencing
Services you are making an investment in the future of an individual and in the future of your
community.
Sentencing Services is a better investment than prison because:
The information provided to judges:
Informs the judge of the defendant's rehabilitation needs;
Informs the judge of available resources;
Informs the judge of current motivation and risk areas.
Why Pre-Trial Services is a Good Investment
The projected long-term outcome for the Pre-Trial Release Program is to facilitate the
reduction of the population of the county jails of the 15-B Judicial District in an
expeditious manner with considerations for community safety. It is our mission to
provide information to criminal justice officials so that discrimination against a defentent’s
right to Pre-Trial Release is prevented.
The short term measurable results are the numbers of releases, supervised and unsupervised,
secured by the program’s effort. Since August 1995, Pre-Trial Services has
expedited cases in the jail by coordinating a hearing each week for those inmates being held for certain
misdemeanors. These inmates are virtually all released either to program
supervision or by being sentenced to the time already served. Pre-Trial Services also
provides a significant cost savings to the counties by reducing the number of incarcerated
individuals awaiting trial. This cost savings can be calculated by multiplying the per
day cost of incarceration by the number of days an individuals incarceration was reduced as a
result of the program's efforts. |
