Reply #8: This particular program is a first, according to:

[Breeze54]

'The Vermont Department of Corrections is one of the first in the United States to embrace the approach,
using a three-year $2 million federal grant it received in 2003, said Derek Miodownik, the grant manager."

This is not halfway houses and AA.
It's small groups of people in each town that are in the program.
Regular citizens, not criminal justice professionals.