Pine County currently looking at the next phase for Project Rise. For Probation Director Terry Fawcett, that is creating an Evening Reporting Center. The center will work similar to an after-school program. They will work as an alternative to incarceration for nonviolent offending juveniles. The center will keep these kids off the street and engaged in productive activities during peak evening crime hours. Kids at these centers could receive anger management, conflict resolution, alcohol/drug abuse prevention, computer literacy, homework help, tutoring, and STD/STI and pregnancy prevention. Probation Director Terry Fawcett believes an ERC will do good for the kids in Pine County because it will keep them within the community. "There has been plenty of research that says when kids are taken from their home and sent away, it has adverse consequences," said Fawcett. The goal of Project Rise is to use restorative justice to keep juveniles from becoming repeat offenders. Pine County is using Hennepin County's Evening Reporting Center as a model to work from in order to create their own.
Pictured above is East Central Superintendent Andrew Almos and Pine County Attorney Reese Frederickson at the Wednesday, December 12 stakeholders meeting.