The Augusta District Attorney’s Office has partnered with Augusta Technical College to implement a new program to route first-time offenders toward employment.
Tuesday morning, at the Augusta Judicial Center, District Attorney Jared Williams and Augusta Tech President Jermaine Whirl signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate and launch Checks Over Stripes, an initiative aiming to reduce recidivism by facilitating job training and education for offenders.
District 9 Commissioner Francine Scott and Clint Bryant of 100 Black Men of Augusta were among those who joined Williams as he described the program in a media conference outside the courthouse steps.
“Every career criminal that we prosecuted started out as a first-time offender,” said Williams, explaining the impetus for the new crime prevention approach. “If we put them on probation, they violate probation and get revoked, and go to prison anyway. That makes sense because we give them a bunch of rules to follow, but not any tools to help them fulfill their end of the bargain.”
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Checks Over Stripes, aimed at first-time offenders ages 17 to 25, entails a strategic application of Georgia’s First Offender Act, which allows non-violent first offenders to be adjudicated, usually through probation, to avoid having a felony conviction on their record.
Offenders would undergo a two-week assessment through Goodwill Industries of Middle Georgia & the CSRA, another partner in the program.
“Through this partnership, we will look forward to providing a holistic and comprehensive case management approach for individuals for a period of up to 18 months,” said Leah Pontani, senior vice president of career development at Goodwill Industries of Middle Georgia, noting its assessment would aim to “address the issues that led to individuals committing offenses in the first place.”
If an offender complies with requirements during this assessment, they are deemed eligible to participate in the program. They will then be sentenced under the First Offender Act with the special condition that they accept employment with another consort with the project, America’s Remanufacturing Company, unless they are already working, in which case the D.A.’s office will make similar arrangements with their employer.
“We see a mutual benefit,” said David Hogan, president of America’s Remanufacturing. “We staff, we have roles from entry level to highly technical to management, logistics. We need folks that know the jobs, that can execute the jobs reliably.”
The program will also require participants to fulfill mandatory education requirements via Augusta Tech’s adult education program. The school’s career education tracks for participants would primarily be manufacturing and healthcare, explained Whirl.
“A lot of our individuals are getting forklift training, OSHA training, basic manufacturing skill sets. Those are just some tools that make them more employable,” Whirl said. “Right now, we’re doing CNA, we also want to go and that’s kind of an entry level pathway for those who want to work in the healthcare system.”
Williams said that participants who start working under the program would be paid a livable wage — ” a much better salary than they could get if they became a felon” — and emphasized the opportunity for advancement.
“The reason that we specifically targeted America’s Remanufacturing Company as our partner is because their model allows for people who show up on time, do what they’re supposed to and hit their benchmarks,” he said, noting that those in the program would also be counseled in financial literacy. “They’re going to get promoted, they’re going to get opportunities to make more money because reliability and consistency matters.”
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
