When the LifeTech center becomes operational at the site of the former mental health and rehabilitation center, a new educational facility will be opening along with it.

Alabama Southern Community College and the pardons and parole board have partnered to build a new educational facility at the site.

The project is expected to be valued at $5 million and could serve up to 900 students per year. The center will offer job training to parole candidates, preparing them for life outside of prison.

Courses offered are expected to include welding, computer science, electrical, plumbing, building construction and masonry and concrete.

One of the interesting facets to this project, is that it may also offer night courses to the public. That is a detail yet to be worked out, however, said John Johnson, president of Alabama Southern.

Gov. Bob Riley and members of the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles announced in Montgomery Jan. 18, that a new LifeTech Center will open at the Thomasville facility.

The center will be a 300-bed male facility and is expected to open in April. It will be similar in curriculum to the LifeTech Center in Wetumpka, which is for female inmates. The LifeTech Program pro- vides an alternative to incarceration in a Department of Corrections facility, which frees bed space in prisons. The demanding program includes dealing with addictions, vocational training, and instruction in social, life and communications skills, according to a news release from the Governor's Office.

Gov. Riley has proposed a number of reforms designed to address the overcrowding of Alabama prisons and to free up space in prisons for violent criminals.

Now, he said, the state will provide "not just $10 and a bus ticket but the skills needed to make a transition back into society." He said he hopes the program will "fundamentally change" the way a person looks at life so they will not ever return to prison.

The facility will employ 36 Pardons and Paroles board workers and have a budget of just over $5 million. However, that does not include mental health, education and other employees and budget.

The total number of employees at the facility could exceed 70 and the total budget has been rumored at $7 million or more.

The educational center is part of Riley's plan to ease the transition back to society. Johnson said he hoped the facility would be open by August of this year. The educational center will hire at least 10 new positions, including faculty members. "I think this will be a great addition to the community," Johnson said.

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