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Brooklyn Conference on Prisoner Reentry |
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The
following notes on the Brooklyn Conference on Prisoner Reentry were produced
by Wanda Goldstein,. Brooklyn Conference on Prisoner Reentry December 1, 2003 The keynote speaker was Senator Edward Kennedy. Another major address was offered by Dennis Maloney, a Senior Program Manager with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of the US Dept. of Justice. The stellar list of participants also included Brooklyn DA Charles J. Hynes and Lance Ogiste of his staff, Ed Towns of the US House of Representatives, Jeremy Travis of The Urban Institute, Patricia Gatling, NYC Human Rights Commissioner, Chauncey Parker of the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services and Susan Tucker of The Open Society Institute. KEYNOTE ADDRESS Lance Ogiste, Director of the Community Relations Department of the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, and District Attorney Charles Hynes spoke briefly before introducing Senator Kennedy. They stressed the importance of prevention programs such as those organized by the DA's office. Their office provides 9 months of case management services for returnees—not only for parolees. Officials work in communities to get housing and employment. District Attorney Hynes believes that prevention programs and successful reentry are part of the responsibility of his office. He pointed out that 7000 parolees return to Brooklyn annually, and half later return to prison. This number needs to be reduced. "You cannot jail your way to safety." The DA's Community Relations Department makes use of a faith-based counseling program for returning prisoners. DA Hynes stressed the need for humanism and compassion for those reentering society. Senator Edward Kennedy pointed out that nationally one and a half million children have at least one parent in prison. Each year 650,000 prisoners are released from custody, which is l700 per day. Prison is a poor preparation for life outside: a prisoner relies on prison to organize the day. There is no privacy. Ten percent are raped in prison. Prisoners are 8-10 times more likely than the general public to have HIV/AIDS. While there are deep needs to help reentry into the community, there has been a reduction nationally in halfway house funding. Housing has been made a special barrier by the national law against admitting felons to public housing—this represents a philosophy of "one strike and you're out." Many states are beginning to rethink mandatory sentencing. Unfortunately, at the federal level there is a move the other way—towards converting the present sentencing guidelines into mandatory sentences. This gained passage by being put into the Amber Alert Bill. The names of judges who deviate from the guidelines are to be sent to the Justice Department, thus forming a central "blacklist" of sitting judges. There are great needs for help within our prisons. There is a need for increased federal money to go to the states to improve prison security. We need far greater access to treatment for the mentally ill. We have a powerful need to once again offer Pell grants for education. After prison there is the problem of reintegrating prisoners when they are released. Other areas of the country should follow the model programs of Brooklyn District Attorney Hynes. Other localities should offer, as does Brooklyn, case management for housing, employment, education and training. They should encourage and provide access to counseling. They should help with paper work, and help ex-prisoners adjust to family and community. JUSTICE REINVESTMENT PANEL: Redirecting Resources Within the Criminal Justice System The panel stressed the importance of redirecting criminal justice money to community projects to reduce crime. They stressed that crime hurts a neighborhood, and criminal justice wrongly applied hurts the same neighborhood. We should have mental health treatment instead of prison, youth programs and education, and redirection of money from banks into these areas. Banks should offer services to help make a viable community. Every dollar spent on community programs is worth two or three spent on incarceration. Many people say the ex-prisoners are "coming into our neighborhood"—really they are "coming back to the neighborhood." About 75-80% of returning prisoners in NYS are from 7 neighborhoods in the City (NY lower east side, Bed-Sty, S. Bronx...). Crime in these areas is like "social TB" with reinfection on return. In Brooklyn the prosecutor (DA) is a "community official" with community programs. In other localities prosecutors are joining efforts to find alternatives to incarceration. Also, in the list of assets and liabilities, the police department in Brooklyn is a plus, with a 97% reduction in violence in the Brooklyn incarceration system, crime down 70% in the City, and mental health work good. In the list of liabilities, there is the spiral of pain we inflict on people and communities. Although hard work is being done in some areas such as community development projects, and the helping professions are growing and learning, there are deficits. The costs of prisons are going up, but unfortunately many people and groups have vested interests in prisons. Money goes into salaries, construction jobs etc. New Orleans is a case in point, where contract systems mean that sheriffs can rent out laborers on work release and keep the money for their own office. Some form of this problem is found everywhere and stymies progress. There are political and bureaucratic obstacles at every level. Another deficit is the stigma for returnees, even when there is no relation between their offense and the job they are seeking. Employment discrimination is directly related to recidivism—if we don't hire them we will have to lock them up—and their children also. We need to make licensing changes for many low level jobs since licenses are hard for ex-prisoners to get. An asset is that many ex-prisoners are using their experience and abilities on these very problems. We are still working around the edges—we need to tackle some of these problems head-on and ask the right questions. We should shift resources from agencies to the communities themselves. As a "next step" we need to do something both practical and symbolic, publicly taking money and redirecting it successfully. We should elect good officials and punish poor ones, educate ourselves and others, and build coalitions of ex-prisoners, officials and communities. We need to increase contacts between ex-prisoners and communities. A NEW DEAL FOR JUSTICE Susan Tucker of the Open Society Institute pointed out that incarceration should be the solution of last resort—we should seek peace and justice first. The present system breeds cynicism. We need to bring an end to America's love affair with prisons. We have a massive movement of population back and forth between the communities and the prisons. It is necessary to remove the barriers to returnees, especially race and system failures. We need good planning for repatriation and resettlement. Prisoners and returnees need education, not just surveillance. We should redirect much of the funding for juvenile detention into public service programs for youth, which have proven their worth in a number of locales. Dennis Maloney, Senior Program Manager with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of the US Department of Justice has been in charge of various programs and prison work. His initiatives in Oregon included programs to replace prison and jail time with meaningful community service, and to allow those in prison to serve the community through well-designed work programs. He served a period of time as Interim Warden in a troubled prison. He was asked some years ago to be part of a Prison Evaluation Committee, and found that it was an economic development program. They were trying to forecast prison needs over the long term. When he saw the 15-year forecast he realized they were planning prisons for his daughter's kindergarten class. This was his "road to Jericho." He tried to reach the Campus Forecasting Committee to check their 15-year projections, and found that there was no such committee. At the same time they were planning prison construction far into the future. He started to become aware of the problems. He was asked to be an Interim Warden for a prison, and slept in a cell each night (incognito) in a different part of the prison. This allowed him to talk to inmates—200-300 of them. He found that an amazing number of them wanted to do something good for their community when they got out, especially by working with youth. He asked if anyone in prison administration was assessing their aspirations. He began systematic interviews of prisoners. He found that they were prepared, but then found that the community was not. Therefore we need to put as many resources into community receptiveness as we put into anything else. Communities need education and encouragement. Non-participation leads to apathy which leads to cynicism. Participation leads to investment which leads to ownership of the process. His slogan became "make doing time into doing good." He asked questions to find out who has most influence with a legislature, and learned that the answer is the business community. This is the key player. Oregon was ripe for some experimentation. Their experience was showing a decline in timbering and fishing, which led the leaders to want to beautify Oregon and thus increase tourism. He presented the prison and post-prison population as an asset to help the state through the use of those who were in prison or newly released. Block grants were made by the state to neighborhoods and these funds followed their people to prison to provide for work programs while incarcerated. Money earned by this process went to home care, after-school programs, work with youth at risk and home health programs for children left at home in that neighborhood when a parent was in prison. Thus this program prevented crime and prevented incarceration. There was a 72% reduction in the incarceration of youth in the state. The implications are many. 1. Accountability is possible—prisoners can redeem themselves through service. Note that this was not only for non-violent offenders. It was often immaterial to their success whether they were in prison for violent or non-violent crime. 2. There is great importance in having visible results: counseling and treatment are not visible enough and therefore don't register with the community. Projects are highly visible, have educational value for all, including the community itself. 3. The best projects were those in which prisoners or ex-prisoners worked alongside community volunteers or paid workers. Therefore, (a) released prisoners are added to projects underway for the community (community center, library...) and (b) people in the community can volunteer to work in the company of prisoners or ex-prisoners. This calls to the humanity of all, replacing the dehumanizing society of prison where an inmate is not allowed even to know the name of a corrections officer. 4. It is important to involve them in more than trash pick-up. Have them help build a home, shelter, or public building, have them serve in a soup kitchen. Thus they will have meaningful useful work, in contact with others. This means they can express their humanity. In one project, members of a business association worked alongside prisoners. Some of the prisoners spent triple the time allotted to them for their public service—it was calculated that many of them gave more than $1000 worth of their time. This allowed for the "graceful redemption" of those who had done wrong. A plaque was erected on one of the public buildings showing all the large contributors to the project, and it was decided to list all the prison laborers as contributors because of the long hours they had given. They were present at the dedication and were cheered vigorously. One of projects was to build a house for ex-prisoners where they could live while accumulating the two months rent needed for their own place. They organized fund-raising activities, such as free ski passes given for donations. The lessons are that if we want to be tough on crime let's be productive. Work by prisoners is harder than prison, but far better for them and for us. Probation should not be based on "doing nothing." Sometimes a parole officer seems satisfied when a parolee reports doing nothing last month, doing nothing this month and planning to do nothing next month—thereby "staying out of trouble." Probation should be a working experience, a very active time. We can say that prison should be work preparation, and probation should be work activation. We need to retool the criminal justice process. Service in the interest of others should be what we do. Employment Panel: The panel pointed out that incarceration represents involvement and intrusion into the daily lives of poor people: the family is incarcerated when the prisoner is. They listed some of the help provided by their various agencies and community groups to make available post-prison employment: The Association for Community Employment works with the homeless, and provides 4-6 months training. STRIVE offers lifetime help. The Brooklyn DA's office brought together community groups (under a concept of "DA as social worker") and found that the most important thing is case management. Pointing people in the direction of an agency does not work well. There must be case management as an interface to reach the right group and be persistent. "Ready Willing and Able" was originally a group feeding the homeless. They found that homelessness led to substance abuse which led to incarceration. The Osborne Association offers not only employment services, but also family services and health service; there is a Director of Employment Services, now filled by a formerly incarcerated person. The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce works with the Osborne Society and with churches that provide a staffing service to small businesses. These businesses do not have personnel departments, high wages etc. and are often willing to hire ex-prisoners. "CEO" works in a sequence of training/transitional employment/job. Transitional employment is important. "Doe" provides one year of help towards steady employment. Some of the problems with regard to employment are: Stereotyping and stigma Limited work experience Substance abuse Too many things needed immediately: a place to live, paper work, job, I.D., clothing, reentry into the family. Employment can conflict with other things: an ex-prisoner must meet parole appointments, rehab meetings etc. The average ex-prisoner is 38 years old. Some guidelines and programs that can help are: You must work from a referral network—you cannot send out resumes. You need intermediaries (Chamber of Commerce, Business Opportunity organizations...) There are strong advantages in transitional employment: You can have a small or part-time job during training. There is time to get rehab for drug abuse. It is an easy job for over-qualified persons, until they can build up to a more demanding and more suitable one. There is time to build work habits and work-related "social graces" in preparation for later steady work. There is a chance to get some work experience on the resume and fill up some of the time since incarceration. You have immediate money and therefore the self-respect of being a contributor to your family. Small businesses are important. They are very local, have smaller pay, and may not look into your background as extensively as larger firms. Internships, trial work periods are possible—even if you are not hired it gives experience. Osborne has 300 employers; it has been important that Osborne is a sponsor and the person is not hired "blind". Intermediaries can bond or insure clients. It is good to get small business people to go public with their successful experience with ex-prisoners. It would be a great help to get stories into the media about successful ex-prisoners. There are aspects of economic development: development makes the jobs, and ex-prisoners can be treated as an economic development resource. |
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