The United States has in excess of 2 million people in prison—more than any developed nation in the world—and 95 percent of this population will eventually return to our communities. Yet few ex-offenders are prepared for that reintegration. They seldom meet minimum educational standards and have little employment history, and because few people want to house them, former inmates usually return to familiar environments conducive to crime or end up in homeless shelters. Not surprisingly, the national recidivism rate in 2006 was 67.5 percent, up from 51.8 percent in 1994.
If we could lower this rate, not only would fewer people become crime victims, but taxpayers also would save between $52 and $92 per day per inmate (the cost of incarcerating an inmate varies by state). What’s more, criminal justice expenses (public defenders and legal fees), health-care expenses (Medicare), and social services expenses (dependent child welfare programs and food stamps) would dramatically drop.
Of course, lowering the recidivism rate would take giving some of society’s most reviled citizens a lot more attention than they’ve been getting. But existing reintegration efforts don’t fill the bill. I know this firsthand: While working as an employment specialist for the Colorado Department of Corrections, I constantly witnessed ex-offenders’ struggles to re-enter the community. And years before, while serving a three-year sentence at Leavenworth Penitentiary for drug-related offenses, I found no recidivism-related programs and few educational opportunities.
Active programs for reintegration do exist, of course. Rio Salado College, in Tempe, Ariz., for instance, partners with the Arizona Department of Corrections to provide literacy training, General Educational Development, and work training at prison sites. And the Boston University Prison Education Program has helped 160 former inmates receive bachelor of arts degrees and 50 to receive master of arts degrees since 1972.
WHAT SHOULD BE OFFERED
We should, however, provide more than vocational and educational training; we should fully confront the personal issues that often trip up ex-offenders when they leave prison. I propose a fully integrated program, based on my experience, to help inmates adjust to life outside prison.
Reintegration programs will start at the onset of the inmate’s sentence. Potential students will be screened for readiness to undertake college-level work, but they will also be tested beyond that for skills, intelligence, presence of mental illness, learning style, and more. Using this information, counselors will then customize curricula, helping students to learn more at a faster pace. The programs will include workshops on stress management, social skills, and drug and alcohol abuse, along with help with housing, employment, parenting, and budgeting. And if prisons partner with universities and colleges, graduate students, supervised by a professor, will serve as counselors.
Finally, state workforce development personnel will develop inmates’ workplace skills—computer skills, résumé development, and networking. Faith-based groups, such as Prison Fellowship, will offer them spiritual support, and community organizations, such as the Arizona Community Reintegration Coalition, will help ex-offenders find jobs and educate employers about the benefits of hiring them (federal tax incentives given to employers for hiring ex-offenders, and a federal bonding program that provides employers protection against fraud and theft up to $25,000).
I realize this is a tall order—no such programs exist because implementing them for every inmate in the United States would be hugely expensive and unwieldy, and would go against many people’s aversion to helping offenders. But not trying at least some of what I’ve proposed will end up costing society more in the end: The number of people in American prisons, and the recidivism rate, only increases every year.
JOHN IRWIN is an instructor for transitional employment and Mentoring services in Phoenix. He is also a member of the Arizona Community Reintegration Coalition, a coalition of nonprofits, governments agencies, and employers in Phoenix.
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