DECATUR- in the Macon County building, take the elevator to the seventh floor. 

You wouldn't know it from looking at it, but it's where the Batterers Intervention Program meets. 

"This program is to get at the thoughts that are directly linked to the behaviors that contribute to domestic violence arrests," says Melanie Daly, who oversees the program.  She says it's designed to make domestic abusers less likely to re-offend.  

"We really work to work against physical aggression, verbal aggression, how it is that they rationalize their behaviors," Daly says.

Tyron knows this all too well. He's a 26-year-old from Decatur. He asked us to blur his face.

"I was drinking and I was intoxicated.  Instead of leaving I stayed in the drama and I put my hands on her.  She called the police and I went to jail," Tyron says.

Now he's a few months into the program.  He says it's taught him to control his anger and exit.

"I don't want to do this, I don't want to be involved in it," Tyron says.  "I'm just going to breathe.  I'm going to exit, you know, walk away from the situation."

Daly says the people in the program are less likely to abuse again than those who just spent time behind bars.

If nothing is done to intervene in the thoughts that allowed the offenders to behave the way that they did, that led to their arrest, then nothing will change.  Tyron agrees.

"I'm not the man I was last year.  I can say i did this," Tyron says.  "I'm responsible for it.  If I didn't do this, I wouldn't be here right now, but I'm responsible for it."

And so he's spreading the program's non-violent message.

"I hope my sons don't turn out to be, make the same mistake I made.  Even though I'm over it now, I made a big mistake.  iIshouldn't have put my hands on her or anybody."

Though Tyron can't see into the future he hopes he can walk out this door a changed man.

More details now on the batterers intervention program:

274 clients have completed the program to date

with 60 clients attending class each week

it has nearly a 99 percent attendance rate.