The Resource Intervention Center: A 21st Century Public Safety Model

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

The partnership between Winnebago County and the 17th Judicial Circuit Court is at the forefront of the transformation from a traditional “arrest, sentence, jail, release, repeat” model into an integrated system of community policing, aggressive prosecution and defense, specialty courts, alternative programs and evidence-based analysis. Using resources from the 2003 public safety sales tax initiative, Winnebago County and court officials committed its criminal justice system to developing post-disposition alternatives to incarceration, including the innovative Resource Intervention Center, extensive in-jail education, mental health and substance abuse intervention and career and life-skills training. In 2008, the county opened the Resource Intervention Center, a stand-alone, comprehensive programming center that extends the commitment to alternative-to-incarceration. The Resource Intervention Center is not a day-reporting center. The 2011 release of three years of research confirms the Resource Intervention Center is achieving substantial results in reducing recidivism. The Resource Intervention Center approach reduced the number of days offenders spent in jail by 84 days per person and is estimated to have saved the county $8.5 million in incarceration costs over three years.