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Over the past four years, the Humboldt County Probation Department has received a federal Violence Against Women Act grant to implement a specialized supervision program for domestic violence offenders on formal felony probation.

The department says the program has been extremely beneficial in a number of ways, and now it’s happy to announce that the grant funding has been extended so the program with continue for another year.

In this particular specialized supervision program, one senior probation officer focuses on a group of 40 active cases made up of the most high-risk domestic violence offenders.

The $100,000 grant requires that the officer have contact with all probationers in the program on a weekly basis — which is roughly doubled from what it was prior to the grant.

Plus the officer is more actively involved in the probationer’s court-required 52-week batterers’ intervention program. They work with law enforcement to recover any firearms that are registered to the offenders, and outreach to the victims of these cases is also enhanced.

In this LoCO Video Report we learn more about the grant-funded program and hear from chief probation officer Bill Damiano, who says it’s specialized intensive programs like this that truly make a difference in public safety.