Instead of spending $35,000 per year on prison, Kalamazoo’s Probation Enhancement Program offers a less expensive alternative of $48.50 per day, or about half that.

Participants pay rent that accumulates and caps at a certain point and are trained to find jobs for the stability they provide their lives, Assistant Director Elizabeth Frantz told Dowagiac Rotary Club Thursday noon at Elks Lodge 889.

“When they graduate from our program, they will have a job,” the 1985 Cassopolis graduate said.

“We don’t get them for them, we show them how to get them. If the expectation is there, we’ve found people will meet it,” just as they “find money for their beer, pot or whatever.”

With the largest amount of contracts with Michigan, KPEP, with 129 employees and 420 adult offenders Thursday in six residential and non-residential facilities as a community-based alternative to incarceration “kind of sets the tone for community corrections in the state,” Frantz said.

“We’re the only program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Corrections. We offer the opportunity for men and women to take personal responsibility for their lives. Personal responsibility being the cornerstone of what we do because offenders love to blame others for their problems.”

KPEP, a private, non-profit, that opened in 1980, added Frantz in 1990.

“In April of 1995,” she said, “we opened a women’s program and Cass County was very involved in that. At that time, I think there were two programs in the state for women as an incarceration alternative. There just weren’t the opportunities for women that men had. We opened a program in Kalamazoo” that served Cass, St. Joseph and Van Buren counties.

Berrien County joined the fold in February 2001, with a facility in Benton Harbor.

“We have grown quite a lot over the years,” Frantz said. “Just last January we opened our third facility in Kalamazoo that serves many counties.”

Two are former nursing homes.

“They’re unlocked,” she said. “They’re locked going in, but unlocked going out. People who live there could choose to leave the facility, but that would be a violation of their probation or parole orders. They can come and go only with permission.”

The 420 head count Thursday consisted mostly of men, Frantz said.

“I think our female count is probably about 35. Our sex offenders are on GPS. When I first started in 1990, we just dealt with the State of Michigan, but we have broadened our horizon to not only deal with the Department of Corrections,” which takes a $2 billion bite out of the state budget, “and Friend  of the Court. There’s a really interesting program in Berrien County that started in 2005 because they were having problems with Friend of the Court folks using up jail space (on child support arrearages) and making the jail overcrowded. They use our program as an alternative. That’s a huge taxpayer savings.”

Frantz said, “Two years ago we started sex offenders treatment. Prior to this, we did not take any type of sex offender into our program. It was too high of a risk, but a lot of them are well beyond the minimum amount of time they were sentenced to.

“We decided to be part of the solution because the other option is to have them out on GPS. It’s a huge population and a huge problem everywhere because there are so many restrictions on this population.

“What we have found is a lot of people are ready to get out. They have to change the way they think. Sex offenses are kind of like alcoholism in a way because it’s with them for life. They have to work hard and get treatment to change the way they think. Once they get in the community and are out of that safe prison setting, those triggers start and they can go right back.”

As for the recidivism rate compared to the general prison population, she told retired school superintendent Larry Crandall, “We have not done any studies yet on the sex offenders program because it’s so new and a lot of them are still on parole. We have done a follow-up study with a 25-percent recidivism rate,” or less than half of prison.

“State offenders recidivate at a higher level because the consequences are not there as much as the federal level. We have a ton of successful people coming out of the federal program.”

KPEP offers substance abuse education and treatment, drug testing and a weekend intervention program for drunk drivers “who come into our facility for intensive — not jail, but like jail,  with strip searches — substance abuse treatment to try to wake them up and recognize their issues. We do District Court supervision, we work with Drug Courts and Sobriety Courts to provide incarceration alternatives for them and also with parole violators.”

As for the benefits to taxpayers with community corrections, Frantz said, “We are very big on employability for offenders because that has been shown over and over again to give them the most stability in their lives.

“Each of our facilities has an employment coordinator. That’s all they do is teach residents how to put a resume together, do cover letters and mock interviews, taped so they can see themselves — things you and I know how to do, but brand-new things for most, though not all, of our residents. We’ve had doctors in our federal program. We’ve got all different levels.”

Among the many KPEP rules are how to dress for an interview.

“Residents have to wear collared shirts, tucked in, on a daily basis,” she said. “Ties to dinner. We believe some of those changes need to start from the outside and go in.

“Successful thinking class is throughout every part of our program, whether it’s sex offenders or substance abuse, because we believe you have to change the way people think before they’re going to change their actions.

“For a lot of our residents, they do not realize the thoughts and feelings going on before they act out. That’s brand-new information. Once they start to realize that, it’s empowering. We have GED programs in-house and out-of-house, depending on the county. All of our residents have to do a minimum of 60 hours of service in the community. Some of it is supervised. Some of it is not. Our sex offenders, obviously, do not go out in the community. Mentoring is one of the newest components to what we do, working closely with faith-based communities.”

Counties usually bear GED costs, Frantz said.

Of the Department of Corrections consuming $2 billion of the budget, Frantz said, “Michigan incarcerates people for a lot longer than our neighboring states do. Most average 140 percent of their minimum sentence. Indiana, I believe, they’re out at their minimum sentence. Michigan it’s not that way. The parole board has a lot of discretion. Michigan is doing a lot to keep costs down, closing  prisons (three more and five prison camps announced in 2010). However, as the population ages, there are a lot of associated health care costs.

“More than 1,000 prisoners maxed out in 2007. What that means is they go directly from prison to home. No transition. They’re not on parole. We’ve had residents who’ve been in prison 20 years and they come out and don’t know what cell phones are. It’s a foreign world to them. We had a resident in Benton Harbor who told his mother he’d get a job pumping gas.”

Changes Gov. Rick Snyder made to the parole board “I view as a positive thing,” she told President-elect Barbara Groner. “Before, the governor used to appoint folks, whether they were necessarily qualifiied or not,” rather than the director and a smaller panel.

Funding sources for her $15 million budget include the state Department of Corrections, county Drug Courts and Sobriety Courts and the federal Bureau of Prisons, she told Dr. Fred L. Mathews.

“We’ve had him to our program,” Frantz said of Cass County’s state Sen. John Proos, R-St. Joseph, Corrections Committee chairman.

“We have a lobbyist who works for a group of community corrections organizations. We testify before the Legislature. We have to market ourselves and constantly remind people there is an alternative for offenders. I love what I do and totally believe in this alternative.”

Three Rivers also has a small program serving about 29 offenders.