The 2019 Brown County budget proposal includes a new initiative to create the Division of Criminal Justice within the Health and Human Services Department.
The budget , which was introduced this week, by Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach says this initiative will focus on long-term crime reduction.
Currently, Brown County operates with five different treatment courts. The county says they hope to utilize those resources to allow low risk people work through the system, get treatment and not become repeat offenders.
The benefits of this program, according to District Attorney Dave Lasee, is being able to put the focus on people that are high risk and may suffer from mental health or substance abuse.
Streckenbach says this plan is similar to one rolled out in Outagamie County where they have seen great success.
"We're able to provide better services. We're able to see more people and we're able to follow the model that Outagamie County was able to do, where they saw a 300% increase in clients and they were able to serve them all," said Streckenbach.
There are already some positions in place that will help with this program, but organizers say there is a need to create new positions for this plan to take off effectively.
