Circuit Court Administrator Emanuel Demedis, previously a longtime Calvert County attorney, is soliciting grants to secure funds to implement a program that would offer nonviolent offenders with drug or alcohol dependencies a chance at rehabilitation rather than incarceration.

Demedis hopes to secure $350,000 from the federal government and additional assistance from the Maryland state government to start an Adult Drug Court in Calvert County in 2015. One of the goals of the program is to add a positive outcome to the current system, in which people are sentenced and sometimes fined immediately after a conviction, as well as subjected to a period of supervised probation.

Demedis reported:

The incentive for someone is to avoid incarceration and, at the same time, rid themselves of dependency. The program is going to be aimed to people who are driven to crime because of their dependency.

You may read more about this program in the Southern Maryland online newspaper.