Pubdate: Sat, 17 Mar 2007
Source: Austin American-Statesman (TX)
Email:  http://www.statesman.com/
Feedback: http://www.statesman.com/default/content/feedback/lettersubmit.html
Address: P. O. Box 670, Austin, Texas  78767
Fax: 512-445-3679
Copyright: 2007 Austin American-Statesman
Author: Will Harrell, Executive Director, Texas ACLU

PUTTING PRISONERS FIRST

A recent proposal by Sen. John Whitmire, a Democrat, and Rep. Jerry 
Madden, a Republican, to stop our state's gross overspending and 
reliance on prisons should lead to finding and funding innovative 
alternatives to incarceration. Such a proposal is long overdue, 
considering that Texas has rightfully earned the nickname 'The 
Lock-'em Up State.' Of the 2.2 million people incarcerated in the 
United States, one out of five is in a Texas prison.

Whitmire and Madden's proposal is indeed a promising start, but 
there's a catch: The proposal won't solve the Texas prison problem 
completely because we can't reduce prison populations without curbing 
recidivism.

The issue of recidivism is often left out of discussions about prison 
reform, yet recidivists account for an enormous number of people 
behind bars. As of 2002, 39 percent of prison inmates had served 
three or more sentences. Sixty thousand incarcerated men and women 
will return home to Texas this year, and with few resources and 
little assistance for transitioning back into society, half won't 
make it on the outside. They'll end up back in prison within the next 
three years.

This cycling in and out of prisons comes at a huge cost to families, 
communities and taxpayers: Texas spends about $2.5 billion a year to 
maintain its prisons.

Recidivism is an urgent problem and has proven extraordinarily 
difficult to combat.

Creating a successful prisoner re-entry program requires tireless 
perseverance; systems must be tried, altered, and tried again. But 
I've recently seen a powerful film about a program that actually 
works. 'Hard Road Home,' which debuted at the South by Southwest Film 
Festival documents several months at the Exodus Transitional 
Community in Harlem.

Exodus is unique for two reasons.

First, it is run by a former drug dealer and ex-prisoner, Julio 
Medina, who has experienced the challenges of reentry.

Second, Exodus is part of the Ready4Work initiative, a national 
project developed by Public/Private Ventures with the Department of 
Labor and the Department of Justice.

Ready4Work is an innovative re-entry program model because it 
integrates job placement, case management and mentoring to create a 
comprehensive support system for ex-prisoners, an approach that has 
brought real results. The Ready4Work initiative has reduced 
recidivism rates for its participants by 50 percent.

Ready4Work's progress is so promising that it inspired a new federal 
funding initiative -- the President's Prisoner Re-entry Initiative.

One character we meet in the film, Griffik, offers a particularly 
poignant example of why this system works.

After Exodus staffers spend hours helping him find a job, he doesn't 
show up for the interview. Griffik receives a stern lecture from 
Julio Medina, the director of the program, who has invested a lot in 
Griffik's reentry.

Meanwhile, the program staffers find him another job interview.

This time, he shows up and lands the job. He realizes that it takes 
work and patience to build a viable post-prison life, but the effort 
is worthwhile. Without Ready4Work, Griffik might not have gotten a 
second chance.

Stories such as Griffik's show us that our prison crisis is not 
hopeless. But in the United States, and especially in Texas, there is 
a tremendous amount of work to be done. Though the Whitmire and 
Madden's proposal is valuable, we must remember not to leave 
recidivism out of the prison conversation. By supporting and 
cultivating programs like Ready4Work in Texas, we can make real progress.

Let's make this a model of how, instead of locking 'em up twice, we 
can help them thrive.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman