By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The Kansas Community Corrections Act provides grants to counties for developing and maintaining programs for adult offenders assigned to community corrections. At Tuesday morning's Barton County Commission meeting, Central Kansas Community Corrections Director Amy Boxberger asked the commission to sign off on fiscal year 2023 outcomes, which concluded in June, that were part of a grant application.
"For 2023, we had 172 probationers who were discharged from Central Kansas Community Corrections," she told the body. "Thirty-nine probationers, or 23 percent, were revoked, while 133, or 77 percent, did not go to prison."
Boxberger said CKCC did meet the state's mandated success rate of 75 percent but fell short of another state goal of improving the previous fiscal year's success rate by three percent. The goals were met via assessments and engaging moderate-to-high-risk probationers into interventions that help them change their behaviors.
The commission discussed the low success rate when dealing with offenders who suffer from substance use disorders. Commission Chair Shawn Hutchinson said the state's mandated goals do not align with studies that show between 40-60 percent of those with substance use disorders relapse after completing detoxication or rehabilitation treatments.
"I feel like you've been dealt an unfair hand when you're supposed to have a 75-percent success rate when 90 percent of your clients have substance abuse issues and we can only expect 10 percent of those to recover fully," he told Boxberger.
Boxberger said the expectation is that everyone getting off the program is sober and should be clean of any substances for the last 90 days of supervision. She also said the state's high goals are necessary for success.
"I believe people do recover," she said. "I see that every day. Some of the best people I know have addiction in their history. I know what doesn't work is incarceration, and what does work is instilling hope, good jobs, having their families together, having a world that does not put them down the rest of their life because of the shame they've already felt."
Boxberger also reported that 97 probationers benefitted from $19,850 spent on behavioral health funding. Sixty-four probationers discharged from the program benefitted from those services, and the success rate for that group was 80 percent upon completion of supervision.