The STARS initiative, which stands for Strategies to Alleviate and Reduce Senseless Violence, takes repeat violent offenders and offers them one last chance to fly right. More than 250 people have participated over the past six years.

As in High Point, law enforcement and community leaders come armed with a carrot and a stick when they meet people selected for the program.

The carrot is job training, drug rehabilitation and other resources aimed at helping them find jobs and quit crime.

The stick is the assurance that the next time they are arrested, they will be prosecuted fully.

A study last year of 246 offenders who participated in the program between March 2000 and December 2004 compared the number of times participants were arrested before they entered STARS and after.

Though many participants continued to commit crimes, their encounters with the court system dropped 36 percent, according to the study, while the rate at which they committed violent crimes declined by 75 percent.