The Athens County Common Pleas Court deals with offenders every day and works to put perpetrators behind bars — and makes them clean up at the Dairy Barn Arts Center.
On Saturday, those involved in the Athens County Prosecutor’s Diversion Program were sent to the center, 8000 Dairy Lane, to pull weeds, dig, rake and sweep.
The program is meant to have offenders do something positive for their community, Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn said.
The diversion program is made up of approximately 100 members per year who pay an average fee of $500. They also complete somewhere between 60 and 120 hours of community service during the program, but the payment amount and the hours depend on several factors — mostly the offense.
“My desire is to rehabilitate these offenders and have them not reoffend,” Blackburn said. “There is no better way than to have them volunteer and assist these great civic organizations and pay their debt to society.”
Dairy Barn officials were happy with the program as well.
“We’re talking to the diversion officer to have another group come in and do the same thing,” said Reid Secoy, the center’s facility manager.
The participants helped the arts center immensely, Secoy said.
The next planned project for the diversion program will take place Nov. 9, when the program’s members will report to the Hocking Valley Scenic Railway to clean out train cars and wash windows. Locations are determined based on requests by the organizations to Blackburn’s office.
The program is funded by participant fees and a state grant of approximately $60,000 per year, Blackburn said in an email.
Offenders are eligible for the program if they have committed a low-level felony or a high-level misdemeanor, such as minor drug and alcohol offenses, or if they are “first-time offenders believed to be unlikely to reoffend,” he said.
Current participants in the program have the opportunity to clear their records of felonies while under the restrictions of restitution, community service and drug and alcohol treatment.
@KellyPFisher
kf398711@ohiou.edu
