Life After Incarceration: Prison By Another Name?

Imagine that you're an employer looking to hire, paging through résumés on a Monday morning. One applicant has an uninterrupted work history and a master's degree. The next has an employment gap of 15 years — and a felony conviction. Who are you more likely to call for an interview?

Now imagine the other side of the process. You were just 19 when you made the biggest mistake of your life. Theft, drugs, assault — whatever it was, you were guilty. You went to prison. You made amends, even earned a degree while you were there. Now you're 34 and ready to move on. Who is going to give you the second chance you need to get by?

Unemployment and poverty among the 650,000 people released from prison in the United States each year are both a drain on the economy and a surefire way to raise recidivism rates. Further, they represent the failure of our federal government to rehabilitate, rather than reincarcerate, prisoners re-entering mainstream society. Prison is too often a revolving door; according to a report by the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, 52 percent of newly-released prisoners will end up back in jail within three years.

Successful reentry depends on many factors, but one of the most important is employment. However, jobs are increasingly difficult to find in this economy and a criminal record just adds a red flag. One guide offering advice to ex-cons seeking employment recognizes this problem, and encourages them to try for entry-level positions like fast food work, dishwashing, and telemarketing — the very same jobs this blog pinpointed last month as being the lowest-paid in America. If such a job is secured, it could mean very little more than putting an ex-offender below the poverty line — a lifestyle that might not even seem like a great alternative to life behind bars. Being trapped in poverty is, as we have seen, a prison of its own.

It's not news that our correctional system does a poor job correcting anything, but the recession has complicated matters even more. At a time when unemployment is up even for non-offenders, budget cuts mean less funding for the ever-increasing need for psychological and vocational services in prisons, and reentry programs, often non-profits, are losing monetary support as well.

Where should we be putting our dollars? In alternative-sentencing programs that prevent the criminal record on that résumé altogether for lesser offenders, in community courts like the flagship Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, and, for truly serious offenders, in innovative rehabilitation programs during prison sentences and beyond. With less focus on a strictly punitive system, and more on one that recognizes prison as a transitional program in and of itself, more of our incarcerated citizens might find that a second chance is the only one they need.

Photo credit: schweizup