Alternative Sentencing is a program through which offenders are diverted to perform community service as the result of a nonviolent criminal conviction. The objectives of the program are to reduce reliance on unnecessary incarceration in a manner consistent with public safety, provide a means of punishment to an offender and a means of restitution to the community, increase sentencing options to all criminal courts in Ulster County, foster the development of employment, vocational, and life skills as a way of improving situations which might otherwise contribute to criminal activity, encourage and implement integration between offender and community in the process of reducing dysfunction, and to forward the cause of alternative sanctions.