Central Ozarks Service Program

A Positive Approach - Working for Justice

COSP is intended to be financed by the fees collected from offenders assigned to the program.   Most offenders have been referred to COSP for traffic, alcohol related offenses and other non-violent offenses.

Community Service is a productive and cost effective alternative to incarceration.  According to the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, construction of new facilities costs as much as $41,000 per bed, and a minimum of $40 per day will be spent to house one inmate for one day.  In contrast, an entire community service sentence may be administered for a fee paid for by the offenders.

The Community Service Program will:

• through careful screening and placement interview, match the time and talent of its participants with the needs in a particular private, public, non-profit, or community-based organization.
• monitor progress of court placed COSP worker, providing support services when appropriate.
• work in cooperation with the probation department and the courts, verifying and reporting on the final outcome of individual cases.

Community alternative service benefits the justice system by:

• providing an equitable, cost-effective sanction.
• punishing offenders through measures that benefit the community in which the offense occurred.
• giving judges an additional sentencing tool to impose what they believe to be a fair sentence.
• providing Prosecutors and Defense Attorneys a reasonable alternative to traditional punishment to recommend to the courts.

Community Service benefits the offender by:

• making non-monetary restitution to the community where the offense occurred.
• enabling the offender to maintain family ties and continue working.
• providing the offender the opportunity to gain work experience, occupational skills, and training.
• invaluable services are afforded to communities and citizens in non-profit agencies such as parks, schools, nursing homes, and animal shelters.  The work performed is mostly manual labor, but may include clerical assistance, painting, carpentry, or other more skilled services.

Community Service benefits the public by:

• saving taxpayers jail costs.
• returning to the community thousands of hours of valuable work performed by COSP workers.

About our referrals......

• COSP implements the court sentence.  A court assignment of community service involves a specific number of unpaid hours of work for the community, to be performed within a designated time period.
• A COSP staff member conducts a personal interview with each offender.  Those with dangerous criminal backgrounds are rejected.

Monitoring Evaluation......

• The staff of COSP will monitor each COSP worker's work dependability, quality, and attitude.
• Those participants who satisfactorily complete their community service will be successfully released from the program.  Failure to complete the service obligation will result in the case being returned to the court for appropriate action, including possible sentence to time in jail.

The Bottom Line:  People Who Need Help Get It.

• COSP is a non-profit agency dedicated to making the court referral program a more effective force in the community.
• City and County government and Not-For-Profit agencies work with us.  Our COSP workers help these agencies provide better service for each and every one of us.