Community corrections program director provides update to commission

By LEAH INGRAM EAGLE

Shelby County Commissioner Lindsey Allison said that Julius Cook, the executive director of the community corrections program in Shelby County, does a yeoman’s job with a very, very difficult task.

Cook addressed the commission during its Feb. 13 meeting and gave an update and overview of the program.

He said the quasi-government agency, which is actually a nonprofit, provides alternative programs for sentencing in the county.

He said that the state Department of Corrections is releasing people at a very high rate (most with six months or less on their sentence), and local counties are becoming responsible for supervising them.

“What we're seeing is already some of those people are being re-arrested,” Cook said. “What we want to do here in Shelby County is provide services on a grand scale, so that we can holistically treat these individuals that are coming in and out of prisons and jails. What we can do is we can handpick those individuals that are in prison who have no disciplinary issues and bring them back and reintegrate them back into society.”

They used to have a work-release facility, which Cook said was a “difficult challenge.”

“It got to the point where it was more than we could actually deal with, due to the population that we serve,” Cook said. “Our population is no longer low-risk and we could just not supervise them the same way in that facility.”

About two years ago, the program went to the newest trend of electronic monitoring, which Cook said has really taken off, with about 50 people currently in the electronic monitoring program.

The community corrections program also offers drug court, mental health court and veteran’s treatment court programs, which Cook said are important to help treat the individuals holistically.

“Ten to 15 years ago, the individuals in drug court, mental health court or veteran’s court would have never been in prison,” Cook said. “Now they've been in prison two or three times.”

Other programs offered include the prison diversion program, DUI deferred program, a pretrial release program, community service, visitation and exchange services, drug and alcohol testing, court referral and probation.

For education and treatment services that cannot be provided in-house, the program refers to treatment facilities throughout the state of Alabama and also uses local provider Central Alabama Wellness.

Cook said about 65% of the program’s budget is client pay — their clients actually pay fines and fees to participate in the programs. Another 10% is contracts and grants and the remaining portion comes from the county, which provides the program approximately $270,000 each year.

“Our budget usually hovers around $1.6 to $1.8 million a year, and we have about 20 employees that provide all of these wonderful services,” Cook said.

Commission chairman Kevin Morris said it was refreshing to have Cook come and speak during their meeting.

“You can immediately sense not only the passion, but the care for what you do,” Morris said. “And in no time do I feel like you're checking boxes or you're truly taking this as an effort.”

Morris added, “I do think we as a county continue to look at partnerships that we know just can't be filled everywhere else. We don't have that ability to sit back and say, ‘Well, not our problem,’ but it is our problem. … Because the type of things that you mentioned — those individuals go back into the population, and these things become repeated and impact the very quality of life we've been working on.”