Reentry programs are said to be a growing trend in Pennsylvania, helping inmates get back on their feet and staying out of trouble. 

Centre County leaders said they’re looking at ways to establish more. 

Centre Peace, a prison ministry established in 1994, gives incarcerated men and women by giving them vocational skills and guiding them with the transition back in the community. 

“What we’re trying to do is give them some sense of purpose,” Thomas Brewster, Centre Peace’s executive director said. 

Programs like these are popping up throughout the Keystone State. 

Gov. Tom Wolf and Attorney General Josh Shapiro recently introduced a statewide reentry council to reduce crime and violence. 

Bill Sharp, a State College resident, said he’s in favor of criminal rehabilitation programs. 

“The opportunity [for them] to get out to meet people, it gives them an opportunity to work on things, use their hands, which is always a very good thing to do,” Sharp said. 

County leaders hope reentry programs will curb the return to crime rate (recidivism) and keeping taxpayers from pumping thousands of dollars into correctional facilities.