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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Tag: Prisoner re-entry

States and Prisoner Re-entry Programs

States help ex-inmates find jobs, By Steven Greenhouse, January 24, 2011, New York Times: “Faced with yawning budget gaps and high unemployment, California, Michigan, New York and several other states are attacking both problems with a surprising strategy: helping ex-convicts find jobs to keep them from ending up back in prison. The approach is backed by prisoner advocates as well as liberal and conservative government officials, who say it pays off in cold, hard numbers. Michigan, for example, spends $35,000 a year to keep someone in prison – more than the cost of educating a University of Michigan student. Through vigorous job placement programs and prudent use of parole, state officials say they have cut the prison population by 7,500, or about 15 percent, over the last four years, yielding more than $200 million in annual savings. Michigan spends $56 million a year on various re-entry programs, including substance abuse treatment and job training…”

Released Prisoners and Homelessness – Toronto, CA

  • More people released from jail face homelessness: Report, By Jim Rankin, August 10, 2010, Toronto Star: “On a sticky day in June, Eric Cromwell changed into the clothes he’d worn when he was arrested two months earlier on an assault charge and walked out of the Toronto West Detention Centre on Disco Rd. He was given a TTC token but possessed little else. He did have a bachelor apartment where his rent is automatically deducted from his welfare cheque, but that’s where the latest trouble had occurred. There’d been an incident with a neighbour and conditions placed on him forbid him from going anywhere near home. He’d been in and out of jail a number of times, and on this occasion, as had been the case before, he had no home to go to. But he knew where to go. He took public transit to the Maxwell Meighen shelter at Queen and Sherbourne Sts. ‘Down here, to me, it’s like home,’ says Cromwell, 32. ‘I know where to go. I know where to get food. I know how to survive.’ Each year, more people – mostly men – are leaving Toronto jails with nowhere to call home and no plan or supports to keep them from heading back to jail, according to a report by the John Howard Society of Toronto…”
  • Inmates stuck in cycle of jail and homelessness, By Joe Friesen, August 9, 2010, The Globe and Mail: “The path to prison often begins in homelessness, and the path back to freedom tends to leave former inmates homeless once again. It’s a vicious cycle of failed reintegration that leads to recidivism, according to a new report from the John Howard Society of Toronto. The report found that more than one in five inmates in the Toronto area were homeless when they were arrested. And there was little sign their prospects for integration were smoothed by their time in jail. One-third of inmates said they planned on living in a homeless shelter when they were released, and a further 12 per cent said they had no idea where they would go. The report, Homeless and Jailed: Jailed and Homeless, based on interviews with 363 people in jail, highlights the difficulties many former prisoners face when they are returned to the community. It concludes that current incarceration policies are adding to the problem of homelessness in Toronto…”

Prisoner Re-Entry Programs – Michigan

Unlikely mentors give felons hope, By Kevin Johnson, June 21, 2010, USA Today: “James Churchill was nearing the end of a 10-year prison term for armed robbery last year when he struck an unusual bargain with an unlikely partner. If Churchill, a career criminal at age 34, could stay out of trouble during his first months of freedom, police Lt. Ralph Mason pledged to help find him a job. The collaboration between cop and criminal in a state with the nation’s highest unemployment rate is remarkable and so far, successful. Eleven months after his release, Churchill has been employed for nine months – without incident – by a industrial plumbing company, earning up to $21 per hour. Churchill says he was ‘shocked’ by Mason’s help, but the officer’s intervention is a sample of the untraditional methods Michigan officials are using to help ex-offenders re-enter society and slash troubling rates of those who return to prison. As communities across the nation struggle to assimilate about 700,000 ex-offenders who leave prison each year, according to the Justice Department, local Michigan officials are recruiting doctors, clergy, business leaders and even police as mentors to help keep them out…”