Native Justice Center’s re-entry program helps ex-inmates fight long odds, By Michelle Theriault Boots, November 29, 2012, Anchorage Daily News: “For inmates getting out of prison in Alaska, the odds are abysmal. Two-thirds will go back into Department of Corrections custody within three years, a 2007 study by the Alaska Judicial Council found. In the same period, 44 percent of them will be jailed for a new crime, the highest rate in the nation, according to data from a 2011 Pew Center for the States report. That steep climb out of prison prompted the Alaska Native Justice Center to create a re-entry program to help people who have spent years and sometimes decades incarcerated start new lives while bearing the stigma of their pasts…”
Tag: Prisoner re-entry
Prisoner Re-entry Program – Newark, NJ
From prison to a paycheck, By Howard Husock, August 3, 2012, Wall Street Journal: “Hector Morales might not seem, at first, to be an American success story. At age 50, he works the graveyard shift-7 p.m. to 5 a.m.-at the back of a garbage truck, part of a three-man crew that lifts and loads 80,000 pounds of waste each night in New York City. It’s his first job in years. The native of Paterson, N.J., a high-school dropout, still owes more than $9,000 in child-support payments to the state of New Jersey. But compared with Mr. Morales’s situation a year ago, his story is a success. Then, he was completing a five-year sentence at the Northern State Prison in Newark, N.J. The former heroin addict has spent, by his own estimate, 18 years behind bars, mostly on drug-related charges. Today, Newark-based Action Carting, one of the largest commercial disposal firms operating in New York, considers Mr. Morales to be a model employee and a good prospect for promotion if he completes his plan to get a commercial truck driver’s license. Currently, he’s on track to earn more than $60,000 a year, including overtime. Every week, part of his check goes to pay off his child-support debt…”
Prisoner Re-Entry Program – Michigan
Audit: Michigan’s prisoner re-entry initiative harms public safety, fails to track ex-convicts, By Mike Martindale, February 8, 2012, Detroit News: “A much heralded Michigan prisoner release program is only moderately effective, not sufficiently monitored and lacks proper record-keeping, according to a state audit released Tuesday. The audit is the second in less than a year criticizing the Michigan Prisoner Re-entry Initiative, which the Department of Corrections has held up as a successful model of how to safely blend ex-convicts back into society. Corrections officials claim the initiative – which has received more than $175 million since 2007, including $52 million last year – has cut recidivism by giving ex-convicts aid for housing, transportation, employment, health care and education. The 32-page audit focuses on shortcomings and provides support to critics who say the department has put budget issues before public safety…”