Thanks for your response.
We are looking at officer.com's forum setup and I see the section that I believe you are referring to, "Local Discussion Groups".
We are currently making an effort to create our topical based forums (Offender Employment, Women Offenders, etc) but we are open to the idea of also creating regional-based forums. Are there specific reasons why you might prefer regional over topical forums?
What other things about officer.com's site do you like or don't like? I like that they have a "Lounge" type forum where folks can just hang out and discuss sports, movies or whatever. I am part of several communities that have similar forums and I like the idea of having a place to joke around with like-minded folks.