HARTFORD — Some prison guards will be converted into parole officers as the state continues to shift the focus of its penal system toward integrating nonviolent offenders back into society.

The Department of Correction is putting a program in place that will allow guards to receive the training they need to make the career switch, Commissioner Scott Semple told The Associated Press.

A byproduct of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's Second Chance Society initiative will be fewer inmates in prisons and more in community-based programs, where the state already oversees about 4,000 people, Semple said.

Among other things, the new law reclassifies drug possession as a misdemeanor and was designed to give convicts more help with housing, employment and drug treatment.

"We are going to need less correction officers, but we're going to need more parole officers, so let's invest in their future," Semple said. "We're putting resources into our academy to create a pathway for staff that can obtain the training for them to conduct a community-based function."

There are about 3,900 correction officers in the state and about 15,600 inmates. That's down more than 600 prisoners from the same time last year, and about 4,000 fewer inmates than were incarcerated in the state in 2008.

Malloy this week announced the closing of another correctional facility, the Niantic Annex at the York Correctional Institution, because of the declining inmate population.

Mike Lawlor, Malloy's chief of criminal justice policy, said parole officers already must complete correctional officer training. It just makes sense to fill new parole positions from the ranks of those already being employed by the department, he said.

The state has 144 parole officers employed by either the Correction Department or the state's Board of Pardons and Parole. Increasing that number, he said, will reduce the caseloads of parole officers and allow the state to create specialized parole units designed to reduce recidivism.

"Ideally, for example, you'd have a specialized unit of parole officers to deal only with younger offenders, those under 25," he said. "We already have something like that for DUI and sex offenders. But in order to do that, you need the staff."

It shouldn't take more than a few dozen more parole officers to do the job, Lawlor said.

Mark Sarsfield worked as a correctional officer for seven years before becoming a parole officer, a position he has held for the past dozen years. It's logical to hire correctional officers for the positions, he said.

"They already have a rapport with the same population working inside," he said. "They've already gone through the academy. They understand the basics of interpersonal communication. If you hired a parole officer off the street, they would have to go through the full academy."

In addition to increasing the staffing, parole officers will need more support to safely implement the second-chance initiative, he said. As part of the new law, parole officers now have access to the state firearms database, he said. Parole officers are seeking funding to give every officer a two-way radio.

Larry Dorman, a spokesman for the union that represents both correctional and parole officers, said the union also likes the idea of hiring from within, but would not support cutting staffing levels in the prisons as they hire guards for parole positions.