A.T. Wall, director of the state Department of Corrections, says the center will enable officials to offer better support to ex-convicts.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

PROVIDENCE — Eager to receive early-release inmates from the state prison, corrections officials have opened a probation center at the headquarters of the Urban League of Rhode Island in South Providence.

Two probation officers also have been assigned to a new city police substation in an adjoining office.

Taken in tandem, the moves are part of a plan by the Department of Corrections to better cope with the ex-convicts who stream out the door of the crowded Adult Correctional Institutions by rehabilitating them in the community at less expense than it costs to incarcerate them.

Community-based corrections has been a tough slog for corrections officials. Rhode Island used to have halfway houses for prison inmates in the 1970s and ’80s, but they were lost when federal funding dried up.

Hampered by the not-in-my-backyard attitude of the citizenry, short-term budget considerations and resistance by the correctional officers labor union, corrections officials have been unable to make much headway in recent years toward reestablishing halfway houses and setting up other programs to smooth ex-convicts’ return to society and tamp down recidivism.

“By demonstrating the effectiveness of community-based supervision, we can open the door to a greater system of community corrections,” state corrections Director A.T. Wall said after a ceremony announcing the police substation. That greater system could include halfway houses in residential and commercial neighborhoods and daily reporting by inmates to community centers where they would get help with job training and other kinds of assistance, among other programs.

Rhode Island is the only state, according to Wall, without halfway houses and residential transitional facilities for ex-offenders.

In order to save money and relieve crowding at the ACI, the governor and the legislature this year enacted a law that for the first time in almost 50 years changed the way that the state awards inmates time off their sentences for good behavior and participation in rehabilitation programs. Except sex offenders and those serving life sentences, qualifying inmates now will get even more extra days off.

“I say to the public about the inmates being released [early] from the ACI to probation, you don’t have to like it. You don’t have to agree with it,” declared Wall, a former probation officer. “But that decision has been made.

“What will we do to effectively integrate them back into the community so that they can become productive and law-abiding. They’re among us anyway. Let’s make the best of it.”

Early release means that even more ex-convicts will be returning to Providence. As it is, according to Wall, one out of every 11 men is under probation or parole supervision in the city and one out of every seven on the South Side. In the subgroup of men ages 18 to 35, one out of every four on the South Side is under supervision.

The new probation center effectively opened Sept. 4 with the completion of renovations, and 12 staff members have set up shop, soon to be joined by two more probation officers assigned specifically to programming for the early-release ex-convicts. There also is a cubicle for a circuit-riding parole officer.

The Providence facility is now added to the Corrections Department’s statewide network of regional probation and parole offices, some of which are in courthouses and others in various kinds of buildings. The people moved into the space at the Urban League once had desks at the J. Joseph Garrahy Judicial Complex.

On the other side of a locked door from the probation offices at the Urban League, at 232 Prairie Ave., is the new Providence District 2 police substation, which has been relocated from cramped space at 17 Gordon Ave. to more spacious premises.

It is the second substation in the state — the other is Providence’s District 7 — in which probation officers are based fulltime. Corrections officials and the police say that having probation officers in the substation greatly increases the probation officers’ frequency of contact with their clients and speeds the process of arresting probation violators, among other benefits.

Wall said at the ceremony, “To those of you who are under our supervision, this is our message to you: If you are serious about making changes in your lives, becoming more productive as citizens, our probation staff is here in this neighborhood to support you and to help you succeed.

“If you are breaking the law, and if you are not complying with your conditions of probation, we are better equipped than ever, through the partnerships that we are creating, to hold you accountable.”

gsmith@projo.com