The local Madison County Consortium of the judiciary, State’s Attorney’s office, Public Defender’s office, Probation Department, Veterans’ Assistance Commission, Chestnut Health Systems and TASC, Inc. intends to utilize Adult Redeploy Illinois funds to increase staff and expand services within the Madison County Alternative Courts. The additional programming will improve local capacity to identify, screen, assess, supervise and treat offenders through each of Madison County’s three current Alternative Courts (Drug, Mental Health and Veterans). Madison County will target a population of Class 3 and 4 nonviolent felons for Adult Redeploy Illinois resources.
Only offenders who are under consideration by the State’s Attorney for a sentence to Illinois Department of Corrections will be considered for the program. From this population of IDOC-bound non-violent offenders, there will be four avenues for referral to eligibility screening/assessment conducted by Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities, Inc. (TASC) and eventual acceptance into the Adult Redeploy Illinois program if deemed eligible. The paths for case entry include 1) agreement between the State’s Attorney and the Public Defender, 2) at Petition to Revoke hearings, 3) within Presentence Investigation reports, and 4) through probation’s Pretrial Division’s review of criminal histories of offenders entering county jail.
Once TASC has declared an offender eligible, he/she will be assigned to the Adult Redeploy Specialist in the Alternative Courts. This officer will complete the Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) risk/needs assessment. At this time the offender will be assigned to the appropriate alternative court (Drug, Mental Health, Veterans.) All Adult Redeploy participants will engage in treatment and services at the level and intensity that matches the assessed need. New and enhanced services to be implemented include: creation of a new adult redeploy specialist probation position to provide risk/needs assessment, case supervision and monitoring for offenders admitted to the program; additional assessment by TASC, including specialized tool based on Texas Christian University instruments developed to track the outcomes of offenders in substance abuse treatment; and data collection and follow-up reporting by Jewell Psychological Services. Additionally, there is the creation of a new full-time position devoted to recovery coaching and employment/education services and a new trauma-informed group treatment intervention for male offenders. Other program innovations involve additional urinalysis, the provision of incentives to engage offenders in the form of gift certificates and meal vouchers, and bus tokens to assist offenders with transportation. There is also a training module offered by TASC for project stakeholders which will focus on substance abuse, mental health matters and veterans issues.
Madison County’s local planning body is confident that our system’s capacity to identify and address the criminogenic needs of the targeted population of Class 3 and Class 4 felons meeting Alternative Court criteria will be greatly improved through the intensive application of specialized supervision, enhanced assessment, trauma-informed treatment, recovery coaching and employment and education services. The program model is specifically designed to allow this population to remain safely in the community while addressing issues relative to criminal behavior; thereby, reducing Madison County’s IDOC commitment rate of 80 offenders from this target population by at least 25%, or 20 offenders.
Award: $250,000 (18 months – July 1, 2011-December 31, 2012)
