Inside the Montana Women's Prison: Preparing for Reentry
Published by the National Reentry Resource Center
November 4, 2011.
An MSU-Billings program, 'New Path New Life', helps train and mentor prisoners, focusing on housing, employment, and relationships.
Read more...
Volunteers Make Thanksgiving Dinner for the Needy
KULR-8
Aired November 21, 2011.
Donita Auld is cutting onions to help prepare a Thanksgiving meal for nearly 1,000 people in need. But she said the work isn't making her teary-eyed.
Watch the video...
Gazette opinion: Alternatives to prison reduce public costs
Gazette Opinion
Published November 8, 2011.
The Montana Department of Corrections has worked hard to hold down the Montana State Prison population even as more people have been sentenced to its supervision.
Read more...
Six locales express interest in providing 120 new beds for state prison system
By Mike Dennison of the Gazette State Bureau
Published November 1, 2011.
HELENA - Three private-prison operators — in Hardin, Shelby and the Butte-Anaconda area — and three local governments say they’re interested in working with the state to provide up to 120 new prison beds for the state correctional system.
Read more...
Circle native named Montana State Prison warden
By Mike Dennison of the Gazette State Bureau
Published October 18, 2011.
HELENA - Montana native and Las Vegas detention official Leroy Kirkegard was named Tuesday as the new warden at Montana State Prison, becoming the first new warden at the prison in 16 years.
Read more...
Starting Fresh: New Program Restores Self-Esteem to Inmates
By Virginia Bryan of Magic City Magazine
Published May, 2011.
For those who don't like gardening, the planting, weeding and harvesting of a large, unfenced flower and vegetable garden on an open lot on Billings' south side might sound like a colossal chore.
Read more...
Dozier champions South Side
By Donna Healy of the Gazette Staff
Published May 1, 2011.
For more than half of Marion Dozier's 70 years, she has been the South Side's squeaky wheel.
In 1975, she was a founding member of the South Side Task Force, a grassroots group of volunteers who advocate for the neighborhood. In the years since, she has locked horns repeatedly to defend the South Side from perceived threats.
Read more...
Lessons in life, food
By Mary Prickett of the Gazette Staff
Published November 13, 2010.
The culinary program at Passages pre-release center helped Natasha Martin find her inner “Cake Boss.”
Read more...
City Council OKS Settlement with Alternatives
By Ed Kemmick of the Gazette Staff
Published October 26, 2010.
Alternatives Inc. will drop its lawsuit against the city under the terms of a settlement approved Monday night by the Billings City Council.
Read more...
Council to rehash rejection of lawsuit
By Matt Hagengruber of the Gazette Staff
Published October 25, 2010.
The City Council will reconsider its decision last month to reject a lawsuit settlement with nonprofit corrections firm Alternatives Inc.
Read more...
Achievers
Billings Gazette
Printed October 10, 2010.
Alternatives, Inc., the local non-profit agency that operates the Alpha House Pre-release Center, Beta Jail Alternatives, and the Passages Program has elected its Board Officers for the coming year.
Read more...
Culinary School in Prison
By Laura Kennedy of KULR-8
Aired September 29, 2010.
BILLINGS - The Culinary Arts Program at Passages Women's Center in Billings took a big leap forward with recognition by the Montana Department of Labor. It is the first culinary pre-apprenticeship program in Montana.
Read more...
Celebrate Community: Life Lessons
By Susan Olp of the Gazette Staff
Published August 9, 2010.
Larry Walby grows a little bit of everything in the garden he oversees at Passages, a community corrections center for female offenders in Billings.
Read more...
Meth treatment programs deliver success
Gazette Opinion
Published July 9, 2010.
Three years ago, Montana's Department of Corrections opened two methamphetamine treatment programs with high hopes of helping offenders get on the right path, one leading away from drug use and drug-related crime.
Read more...
Mont. avoids drastic cuts in DOC budget
Gazette Opinion
Published April 14, 2010.
BILLINGS - The total number of prisoners held by the 50 states declined in 2009 for the first time in 38 years, according to the Pew Center on the States. In a report issued this month, Pew said that as of Jan. 1, state prisons held 1,404,053 people - 4,777 fewer than a year earlier.
Read more...
Ziegler believes in purpose of pre-relase centers
By Ed Kemmick of the Gazette Staff
Published February 14, 2010.
BILLINGS - James "Ziggy" Ziegler is acutely aware of how difficult it is for society to deal with citizens who break the law.
Read more...
Charting a path to straight and narrow
By Ed Kemmick of the Gazette Staff
Published February 14, 2010.
BILLINGS - Thirty years ago in Montana, there was one 350-bed prison for men in Deer Lodge and one very small minimum security prison for women in Lockwood.
Read more...
Cuts threaten drug treatment center
By Jennifer McKee - Gazette State Bureau
Published February 2, 2010.
HELENA - Montana's only lockdown methamphetamine treatment center for women would get the ax if Gov. Brian Schweitzer follows through on the tentative cuts his Corrections Department submitted for consideration last week.
Read more...
Batterers must attend intensive 26-week class
By Diane Cochran of The Gazette Staff
Published January 31, 2010.
BILLINGS - As he watched a series of men mistreat his mother, Kevin Foster swore he would not grow up to be that kind of guy.
Read more...
Officials: Billings takes unfair share of sex offenders
By Ed Kemmick of The Gazette Staff
Published September 13, 2009.
BILLINGS - City and county law enforcement officials have been complaining for years that Billings is home to a disproportionate number of the state's registered sex offenders.
Read more...
|