HOPKINSVILLE, KY – A partnership aimed at protecting taxpayer funding by providing qualifying offenders with alternatives to jail incarceration is entering its 10th year of service to Christian County residents.

The Christian County Fiscal Court and the judges and staff of the 3rd Judicial Circuit have collaborated for the past decade to offer services through the Community Corrections Grant Program, administered through the Kentucky State Corrections Commission. The program supports alternatives to incarceration for targeted offenders as defined by KRS 196.700.

The fiscal court received $50,000 from the grant program for the 2025-26 fiscal year. Those funds are being utilized to facilitate electronic supervision via ankle monitoring, as well as drug screenings for offenders so ordered in Christian County Circuit Court. Through contract vendors, program participants can await sentencing, or complete their sentences, in the community rather than in a cell, minimizing disruptions to their lives and families and allowing them to maintain employment, seek treatment and counseling, and take other steps toward a successful re-entry into society.

Benefits of investing in ankle monitoring

Chief Circuit Judge John Atkins, who chairs the local Community Corrections Board overseeing the grant program’s expenditures, has seen firsthand the benefits of the program in the individuals appearing before him in court.

“Providing these individuals with the opportunity to continue going to work, supporting their families, continuing their education and seeking treatment, could be the ticket to putting them back on the road to success,” he said. “We have seen multiple positive outcomes through the program that likely would not have happened if the people involved had been in jail for months, instead of in society under court supervision.”

In addition to benefitting those with cases in the court system, the program also has a direct financial benefit to county taxpayers. In 2024-25, electronic monitoring through the grant program resulted in the diversion of more than 3,600 jail days for 57 participants. With traditional jail housing costing more than $40 a day per inmate, according to Kentucky

Department of Corrections estimates, that diversion amounted to a total cost avoidance of more than $147,000 for the county.

“Providing the local judicial system with the means to provide alternative services in lieu of jail incarceration makes good fiscal sense,” said Judge/Executive Jerry Gilliam. “The Christian County Fiscal Court is pleased to partner with the judicial circuit to pursue the funding that makes such services available.”

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