In 1993 Offender Services opened and the following is a brief history of how the program started: In 1991 Probation Officer Jim Cheney and therapist Carolynn Sonda attended a Sex Offender Treatment workshop at the National Academy of Corrections. There they learned the value of corrections and therapist working together as well as, several techniques on treating sexual offenders. Jim was a specialist in supervising sex offenders and consumers with developmental disabilities. As such, he was invited to be a member of a task force being formed by Mesa Developmental Services., the local provider of all services for developmentally disabled people in Mesa County. The task force was to be a multi-disciplinary task force to solve difficult cases of developmentally disabled persons in conflict with the criminal justice system. One of the most difficult cases involved a sex offender who attracted the attention of state officials. The task force tried to deal with this person, but it became evident that he needed residential care away from all other developmentally disabled consumers.

Jim applied for and was given a $50,000 grant by the state developmentally disabled division to study the issue and propose a solution. He did some research but found little. He went to the state of Washington which had a program that professed to be the kind of program Jim needed as a model. He found it wasn’t exactly what he needed, but was able to borrow several ideas from them. He wrote up a proposal and submitted it to the state granting agency. Their response was, “Great, now build it”. Jim discussed the proposal with Carolynn Sonda, and together they submitted a proposal that was approved by Mesa Developmental Services and Offender Services Incorporated was born.

The primary concept was to combine residential care with treatment using much of the same techniques Jim and Carolynn learned at the Academy of Corrections. This included getting the client to accept his criminal conduct without minimizations, gain some measure of remorse, learn some techniques for denying themselves pleasure, immediate gratification, and victim empathy. Offender services Incorporated also used polygraphs and plethysmographs, which required some sort of court intervention. Thus, all Offender Services Incorporated consumers were court ordered/imposed to be in the program. All the original consumers were either on probation or parole, and later Offender Services Incorporated accepted some consumers under civil commitments. Under the “Imposition of Disabilities” laws, which deem a client a threat to self or others, and therefore impose restrictions on his/her rights.

The program was formed as a nonprofit organization, mainly because of Jim’s involvement. He couldn’t very well be making a profit from his probation clients. Carolynn Sonda was the treatment provider. Later, after Jim retired from probation, he became the therapist for Offender Services Incorporated and did so for six year. OSI started with one house, two employees and one consumer. When Jim left six years later OSI had expanded to three houses, and nine consumers.

In May of 2000, Dr. Jack Andersen became the executive director of Offender Services Incorporated. Jack was a manager with Mesa County Criminal Justice Services Department for 10 years prior to his job with Offender Services Incorporated. He developed one of two community correction programs in the State of Colorado that would accept sexual offenders. He was also a State of Colorado approved therapist with the Sex Offender Management Board, and he worked part time with PsycHealth Associates.

In 2003, Offender Services Incorporated opened its first host home. This provided the consumers an opportunity to progress through the residential level system and move to a less restrictive living environment. In 2006 Offender Services Incorporated began doing business as Caprock Behavioral Services because the consumer base had changed to include many consumers who have never been convicted of a criminal offense. We felt that Offender Services Incorporated unfairly labeled many of our consumers. Caprock Behavioral Services currently has four host homes, three personal care alternative (PCA) homes, 16 consumers, and 18 staff members.