Grant helps prevent return to prison
By RYAN CHRISTNER
A financial gift to a local criminal rehabilitation agency is helping keep Kansas communities safe.
For the seventh year in a row, Northwest Kansas Community Corrections, 1011 Fort, has been awarded the Edward J. Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant.
Named in the honor of a New York City policeman who was killed while protecting a witness in a drug case, the grant was awarded through the Kansas governor's office, with the support of the Kansas Department of Corrections, and expires at the end of June 2009.
As a branch of the KDOC, the agency supervises criminals who have been directly sentenced to community corrections by the courts -- those who have committed felonies -- and offenders who have come into the community through parole after being released from prison.
With a total amount of nearly $150,000, the grant will help fund several rehabilitation services to prevent a relapse into criminal behavior.
John Trembley, director of NWKCC, said his office was responsible for about a third of that total and managed that sum with the help of Kansas Secretary of Corrections Roger Werholtz.
Trembley said all of the grant money goes toward the agency's rehabilitation services, with none taken out to support administrative costs, salaries or equipment.
"It is 100 percent for offender programs to help them succeed and for us to help provide community safety," he said.
The grant will cover methamphetamine treatment, a cognitive-based substance abuse treatment program with the Smoky Hill Foundation for Chemical Dependency, domestic violence and anger management counseling, intensive drug testing and an intensive, in-house sex-offender treatment program.
Also being provided with help from the grant is a full-time psychologist, emergency housing for offenders who have been released from prison and have no other residence and Access van transportation tickets.
Based on data from last year, Trembley said the programs have been successful.
He said the agency supervised 360 high-risk felony offenders last year. Of those, 260 offenders were in community corrections. Trembly said only 24, or about 8 percent, went back to prison.
The most effective program continues to be the cognitive-based program, Trembley said, with more than 97 percent of those enrolled last year not having been charged with a new drug crime.
Trembley said NWKCC is the only community corrections agency in Kansas that supervises community corrections offenders and offenders on parole.
He stressed that offenders working with NWKCC are not confined in their facilities, but live in the community.
"These are people that are out in our streets every day," he said. "And it's our job to rehabilitate them and also protect the community."
The agency does have the authority to send offenders back to prison if he and his office feels they pose a risk, Trembley said.
There are three other branches of NWKCC, located in Colby, Norton and Osborne. The main Hays office employs five officers who oversee either community corrections, parole or both.
Trembley is proud of the work his office has done and knows their hard work is paying off.
"The program has been what the grant's designed for, as the data from 2002 has shown," he said. "And that's why we keep getting it."