FRANKLIN FURNACE – A STAR is getting a little brighter.

Friday, March 01, 2002

FRANKLIN FURNACE – A STAR is getting a little brighter.

STAR Community Justice Center in this Scioto County community received its first round of inmates, a total of 12, about 10 days ago and will soon house about six more offenders in the coming weeks.

STAR is Ohio’s newest community-based corrections facility and provides common pleas courts in nine counties another sentencing option other than sending an offender to prison. The facility houses non-violent, low-risk felons who are open to treatment.

The center serves Lawrence, Adams, Brown, Clinton, Highland, Pickaway, Pike, Ross and Scioto.

The center’s name, STAR, is derived from its mission to provide clients with Structure, Therapy, Advocacy and Restoration. In order to do so, clients will live and work in a "boot camp-style" atmosphere called a "therapeutic community."

This type of treatment provides a secured setting where residents have a chance for counseling and educational opportunities.

This style of treatment requires the offender to hold himself and his peers accountable for one another’s actions.

By doing this, the offender learns they are part of a community – inmates learn their actions have consequences on others. Hopefully, once clients have served their time, the offender will be restored as a functional member of the community.

Residents are held at the minimum security site no longer than six months. The programs offered at the facility mirrors services provided by the probation and parole departments in the nine counties it serves.

Community-based corrections facilities are funded by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and is overseen by a Judicial Corrections Board.

The board is composed of judges in the nine counties served, including Lawrence County judges W. Richard Walton and Frank J. McCown.