Pubdate: Sun, 24 Feb 2008
Source: New York Daily News (NY)
Copyright: 2008 Daily News, L.P.
Contact:  http://www.nydailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/295
Author: Veronika Belenkaya, Daily News Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)

NEW LIFE FOR EX-CONS

By the time he was 16, Damien Greene already was an ex-con.

As an adult, the South Bronx native spent three years in prison for 
two drug-related felonies.

By 28, Greene was through with that life and wanted a change - but he 
could not go it alone.

"I wasn't focused enough. Every time I got out of jail, I started 
doing the same things - selling drugs," he said. "I did a lot of 
part-time work, and in between I was selling drugs."

Greene is one of 110 ex-cons participating in the Doe Fund's Ready, 
Willing & Able Day program, which gives them an education and stable jobs.

To graduate, participants have to stay clean and are subject to 
weekly drug tests, a welcome challenge for Greene.

"I made a commitment to better myself, but I don't think I would have 
been able to do it by myself," said Greene, who entered the program 
in September and wants to run his own construction business one day.

While about a third of freed prisoners are rearrested within a year, 
according to the Correction Department, participants of the year-long 
re-entry program, which was started in 2006, have an impressively low 
rearrest rate of 4.8%.

"Above all else, we give them the opportunity to work, which is what 
they want when they come out," said Felipe Vargas, the program's 
director of criminal justice. Vargas himself was imprisoned for 20 years.

"No one wants to hire someone with a record, and many of them lack 
both interviewing and job skills. They don't want to go back to 
prison, but door after door is slammed in their face, and they get frustrated."

The recruiters regularly set out to the Queensboro Correctional 
Facility prerelease facility to tell prisoners about the program and 
pick up those interested at the jail's door step on their first day of freedom.

"We want to be the first influence in their life when they come out," 
Vargas said.

That's where Gary Caldwell, a former U.S. Marine, first heard about 
the organization.

"Not asking for help throughout different times in my life - that's 
why my addiction has lasted for so long," said Caldwell, 42, who was 
addicted to drugs and alcohol for 28 years and was in jail for 
robbing a cell phone store in Queens to fuel his cocaine addiction.

In the early stages of the program, participants work 40 hours a 
week, cleaning city streets in blue uniforms, eventually progressing 
into vocational training, getting their GEDs and attending college courses.

"My family, my kids are proud of me now because I'm in a college 
course, trying to get my super's licence," said Sean Holder, 37, a 
father of three who had been in and out of trouble with the law for 
two decades after he dropped out of Coney Island's Lincoln High 
School in 10th grade.

After his last release from jail, Holder worked a number of odd jobs 
for five months, but couldn't seem to hold down a stable job.

"I needed some help, because especially when you have a conviction, 
all of the people don't give you a chance," he said. He joined the 
Doe Fund program about a year ago.

The program's success is largely due to the organization's long-term 
commitment to its graduates, said Vargas.

"We offer lifetime assistance. Once we place a guy, we follow him for 
five months, and we say to them, 'If you should lose your job, you 
can always come back here and we'll help you find another job,'" he said.

"We're here for them, and we won't leave them out in the 
cold."                         
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake