[Mb-civic] Transitioning Ex-Offenders into Jobs and Society - Hugh B. Price - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Transitioning Ex-Offenders into Jobs and Society

By Hugh B. Price
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, April 10, 2006; 12:00 AM

These days many governors face a conundrum that is taxing their 
cost-cutting creativity. State revenues are climbing steadily, but the 
top line growth is eclipsed by soaring Medicaid outlays, surging 
retirement obligations, declining state pension fund assets and, in some 
states, court-mandated increases in public school funding. The pressure 
is so acute that state officials are now thinking the previously 
unthinkable -- releasing inmates early to trim their prison and jail 
population.

The war on crime launched two decades ago spawned a wave of tougher 
sentencing laws. This in turn triggered a steep surge in expenditures on 
prisons to accommodate the influx of offenders, even including 
nonviolent drug offenders and recidivists snared for minor crimes by the 
likes of California's "Three Strikes and You're Out" law. As a result, 
the nation's prisons are overflowing with nonviolent felons who languish 
behind bars many years longer than are necessary to see the error of 
their ways and pay their debt to society. And state expenditures on 
corrections have climbed by 24 percent alone in the past five years.

Excessive incarceration saddles taxpayers and government with housing, 
feeding and guarding prisoners well beyond the point when there's any 
point at all. Once they've done their time, many inmates emerge from 
incarceration bereft of jobs, housing, money and hope. This marks them 
from the outset as prime candidates for recidivism. Ironically, the 
pressure to curb corrections expenditures has spurred state and federal 
officials to embrace prisoner re-entry programs, such as family 
assistance, housing aid, mental health services, education services and, 
of course, job training.

These welcome initiatives beg the question, though, of whether 
ex-offenders actually will be able to land jobs. To be realistic, they 
rarely leap to the head of the applicant queue in the eyes of employers. 
When the labor market is very tight, some venturesome employers take a 
chance on ex-inmates as a last resort. But they're the laudable 
exception, seldom the rule.

The travails of ex-offenders trying to find jobs ricochet all over 
society. They're in a miserable position upon release to support 
themselves and fulfill any child support obligations. Unable to secure 
jobs, they cannot burnish their credentials as trustworthy workers. Idle 
except for the shadowy underground economy, many eventually revert to 
criminality because there's little where else for them to fit.

A soundly conceived transitional jobs program could help steer motivated 
ex-offenders down a constructive path and better position them to 
persuade employers that they're a safe bet. But where on earth, would 
the money to finance it come from?

The answer may lie right under government's nose, namely in the massive 
appropriations for the corrections system. The wages and supervisory 
costs for a minimum wage public service job total considerably less than 
the per inmate cost of incarceration. Voila! Releasing carefully 
screened inmates several years early to participate in a well-run 
transitional employment program could get them back on track and plow 
savings back to the government in the bargain.

As with many new ideas, there are many knotty issues to be resolved, 
preferably by launching this on a pilot basis. For instance, how would 
inmates qualify? For a year or more prior to their expected release, 
they might be required to demonstrate exemplary behavior, plus perform 
admirably in rehabilitation and training programs inside prison.

Who would they work for? I envision the corrections department 
contracting with other government agencies, like the highway, public 
works and environmental protection departments, and with reputable 
nonprofit groups that can provide credible training and supervision.

What kind of work would they do? To minimize static from unions 
understandably protective of their jobs, the ex-offenders could perform 
tasks that government clearly cannot afford, as evidenced by the fact 
that the work goes undone for years on end. Clearing, grooming and 
maintaining unsightly mass transit rights of way, viaducts and 
waterfronts are visible examples of unattended public work. The higher 
profile the assignments, the more taxpayers will value the debt to 
society being paid by the ex-offenders via their work and see the payoff 
from early release employment programs.

The jobs might last for up to one year. After all, the aim is to ease 
their transition to the labor market, not shelter them forever from 
reality. Supervision, to fine tune work habits and skills, and support, 
with resume preparation and job search, are indispensable program 
ingredients.

And what if they regress? Tiny infractions like occasional tardiness 
ought not to trigger severe punishment. But if workers fail to 
participate conscientiously or commit crimes, they should be remanded to 
prison to serve out their terms. Early release with guaranteed 
employment isn't an opportunity to be trifled with.

Policymakers must think out of the box in order for ex-offenders to 
avert the trap of perpetual unemployment. Converting otherwise wasted 
years behind bars into transitional jobs based on good behavior will 
transform the debt they've paid to society into a dividend for society.

Hugh Price is Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and former 
president of the National Urban League

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/07/AR2006040701179.html
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