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tant Commonwealth's Attorney Dean Worcester says it’s this community contribution aspect of the CDI program that forms its foundation. An appropriate retribution for a crime against the state is service to the state, Worcester explains.
Worcester thinks community service is a good concept because “certain types of offenders are not chrome offenders •*- they’re on drugs or they fell in with the wrong crowd. Nobody was injured but themselves. But if you send them to the pen, they become hardened criminals. They learn to commit hard crimes.”
And whereas it costs approximately $15,000 per year to maintain each prisoner in a penitentiary, it costs about $3,000 per year per inmate to operate a CDI program, with that money coming from the state, Worcester said. But he strongly opposed measuring the program in terms of money. The primary goal should be to rehabilitate and to punisrf offenders, he said. To assign people to community service because of the cost element or to alleviate over-crowding would be wrong if the offenders were not suitably motivated. “If the jails were so full they couldn’t take any more, then the answer would be to build more jails,” he said.
Worcester echoed what Alexander, Luke and Baumgardner had said — that community service is most effective as a sentence for young, first time offenders involved in misdemeanors. Repeat offenders haven’t learned their lesson; they should not be given more than the second chance, he said. “Say someone forged a prescription. That person has a problem. He has victimized only himself. He should be made to do community service and get counseling. ” And be given a second :hance.
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