Catoosa County, Ga., Sheriff Gary SiskGET INVOLVEDAnyone interested in joining Project Change can call Cindy Graham at 706-965-6862, ext. 1130.
Catoosa County, Ga., Sheriff Gary Sisk wants residents to help reduce crime.
During a lunch with community leaders, ministers, prosecutors, public defenders and government officials, Sisk announced at the Catoosa County Civic Center on Tuesday that he is launching Project Change, a mentoring program aimed at helping soon-to-be-free inmates and their families. Sisk said he wants members of the community to take a two-hour class on mentoring “as soon as possible.”
Sisk, who was elected sheriff in August 2012, ran on a campaign of reducing the rate of repeat crime and “generational crime” — a child following in his criminal parents’ footsteps. Project Change is aimed at accomplishing those goals, he said.
According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics study that examined inmates released from prison in 1994, about 70 percent of former prisoners are arrested again within three years of being released. At the Catoosa County Jail on Tuesday morning, Sisk said, one-half of all inmates were there because they had violated their probation.