An Alabama city is turning to churches as an option to keep criminals out of jail.

“It’s not a crime prevention program,’ Bay Minette Police Chief Mike Rowland said, “It’s a crime intervention program.”

Pastor Bruce Hooks says he’s ready to give it a try.

“Oh, yeah! I’m excited, man. I’m eager, anticipating!”

The new initiative would allow some first time offenders to wind up in church rather than jail.

56 churches have agreed to take part in Operation ROC: Restore Our Community.

“What we wanted to do is target that group of people who most likely would have a chance to be more productive in our community,” Rowland said.

Judges who currently sentence offenders to jail time or community service would have another option to offer qualifying first time, non-violent offenders.

Instead of going to jail for a year, that offender could choose to avoid a cell entirely and go to Sunday church services for a year.

“We’re hoping that,” Rowland explained, “through this program for the next year, we will take a substancial number who are sentenced and turn them around and let them become productive people in the community.”

It’s a partnership where pastors would monitor attendance and offenders would have to check in.

If it works, the the department and local clergy believe the idea could save money and restore lives.

“We want to teach them that they’re valuable,” Hooks said, “that God has a plan, God has a purpose. That they can be successful, that they possibly can become the person that God wants them to become.”