Special Focus On: Community Justice Alternatives -- A Regional Response to Community-based Corrections Needs

• NCJ Number: 127861
• Journal: Detention Reporter Issue: 47 Dated: (September 1987) Pages: 3-10
• Author(s): G Knapp; J Boyd
• Date Published: 1987
• Length: 8 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Program Description (Model)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Community Justice Alternatives (CJA) is a community corrections program serving 10 counties in rural northwest lower Michigan that was developed after a 1979-1980 study identified potential benefits of multi-county jail programs and services.

Abstract

CJA assists local jails by providing better and less costly inmate services than the local jails could provide on their own. CJA's Jail Inmate Classification System (JICS) provides sheriffs and jailers with an objective method to sort inmates into levels of security and programs. JICS is also used by judges and other actors in the criminal justice system. CJA's services include alternatives to jail, in-jail employment skills and substance abuse counseling programs, and job- and housing-finding and other services to enable inmates' smooth re-entry into the community. CJA's JIC has also been successfully implemented in the urban county jails of Macomb and Oakland. CJA's investment in research and development and its ability to link data analysis to policy making will be critically important.