CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – New Hampshire is involved in multiple efforts to evaluate the benefits of alternative sentencing programs for nonviolent offenders.

A commission that includes government officials, legal experts and county, prison and mental health care administrators met twice last month to discuss how the state could save money through programs that keep nonviolent offenders out of jail.

“We wanted to get together the people who know the most about these issues and take a judicial approach to how we can deal with inmates convicted of crimes when they are not violent and ask, ‘Is sending them to a prison cell the best way we can be dealing with our criminal justice obligations?”‘ said state Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-Exeter, who sponsored the bill creating the commission.

Though several counties already have drug courts and there are several mental health courts at the district level around the state, the commission is part of an attempt to explore the idea at the state level.

Next month, a two-day conference will bring county and state leaders together to exchange ideas on creating statewide sentencing alternatives for nonviolent offenders with mental illness or drug dependency. The New Hampshire judicial branch recently was selected as one of four jurisdictions in the country for a national project designed to help states improve court responses to people with mental illness, and the president of the New Hampshire Bar Association said she is making the issue a top priority.

The conference in November is being organized by Rockingham County Superior Court Judge Tina Nadeau, who was involved in the formation of the Rockingham County Mental Health Commission and the mental health court in Portsmouth.

“It is my hope that inviting all the stakeholders … will produce concrete ideas to shift the mentally ill and drug-dependent offenders from jail to treatment,” she said.

The state’s first drug court started in Strafford County four years ago. There are about 50 people in the program, which costs about $336,000 a year to operate. If those participants were in jail, the county would be spending $25,000 per inmate each year, said County Commission Chairman George Maglaras.

“Instead of going to jail, they’re diverted to an extensive rehab and monitoring program, and they go before a judge on a weekly basis during the one-year program,” he said. “They’re able to keep their jobs, and it allows us to make them more productive members of society. It saves the taxpayers a considerable amount of money.”

Strafford county also has a mental health court in Rochester District Court for nonviolent offenders who are mentally ill. Maglaras said there was a huge need for the program because the mentally ill population in jails started to outnumber the population in mental health centers.

“To continue to jail these people makes no sense,” Maglaras said. “We just can’t afford it.”