Middle Tennessee Rural Reentry
History
Middle Tennessee Rural Reentry
In 2007, Christine Hopkins had a dream of reducing recidivism in Franklin County. This dream was brought to life after Tim Fuller, who was running for Sheriff in Franklin County, made the remark that locking people up and throwing away the key is getting us nowhere with reducing recidivism. He stated that rehabilitation was badly needed for the inmates in Franklin County Jail. With the help of like-minded individual, Greg Jackson, they applied for, and received, a three year grant from Tennessee Office of Criminal Justice with a 25% match from Franklin County Government. Thus, Franklin County Community Reentry, the first comprehensive rural reentry program in Tennessee, was established July 1, 2007.
With the receipt of a major grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance in October of 2011, the MTRR program added Reentry Services in Coffee County. The name was changed to Middle Tennessee Rural Reentry (MTRR) to better depict the scope of the organization in January 2014. MTRR is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit Rural Reentry Program, headquartered in Winchester, Tennessee, on the grounds of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department. MTRR has served around 1,400 different participants and has offered programs in Franklin, Coffee, Warren and Grundy Counties. Recognized for their years of successful achievement with reentry services, MTRR has been invited to speak on several occasions to both State and National Organizations regarding the challenges they faced in a rural area.