Who We Are & How We Started

Community Citizens began CACJ in 1976 as a grassroots effort to address the problems faced by offenders re-entering the community. It was incorporated in 1978 and then the agency began collaborating with local judges, district justices, police, prison staff, attorneys, and human services to design and implement programs in Centre County.

 

The Community Service Program was officially established in 1979 in cooperation with Centre County Probation and Parole. This new program allowed judges to sentence offenders to community service under CACJ’s volunteers' supervision. In 1984, after CACJ had supervised hundreds of offenders, it was agreed that the Probation Department would assume total responsibility for the program. CACJ received the Centre County Medical Society’s Benjamin Rush Award for Outstanding Health Services for this program.