CHATSWORTH, Ga. — It can be difficult for some people sentenced to community service to work the hours required. Several courts in Murray County have come together to give those on probation an alternative to community service.

“People can find it difficult to get in the hours because it conflicts with the shift they have to work on their job or maybe they have the responsibility to care for a child or other family member,” said North Georgia Judicial Probation Service Director Jeaney Baker.

She said Probation Officer Jennifer Cooley met with officials from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety and came back with an idea that agency is pushing, allowing people to get relief for some of their community service hours by buying child safety seats and smoke detectors that are installed by local police and fire departments.

Representatives with North Georgia Judicial Probation Service, which handles probation for several Murray County courts, approached local officials with the idea and got an enthusiastic response.

“We want people on probation to serve their sentence, but we also want them to be working and productive citizens,” said Murray County Chief Magistrate Gale Buckner. “We want them taking care of their children. This gives us another tool to help us balance all of those things.”

Baker said the credit that probationers receive for buying smoke detectors and child safety seats is determined by a formula that takes into account the number of hours of community service they have been sentenced to. In addition to Magistrate Court, the Chatsworth and Eton city courts and Murray County Probate Court are taking part.

Murray County Sheriff Gary Langford said he supports the program.

“When I was in the Georgia State Patrol, I worked out of the Calhoun office, and they do this in Gordon County, so I know it works,” he said. “And those child safety seats could save some lives.”

Murray County Sole Commissioner Greg Hogan said the program will benefit the county.

“These people will still be repaying their debt to society, just in a different way,” he said. “Where there is a conflict with work or with family situations, this alternative will give them a way to serve their sentence.”