Post by Sapphire on Jun 11, 2012 17:56:50 GMT -5
I just thought this was an interesting article. It talks about the obstacles ex-cons face when getting released, trying to go straight, and the challenges of doing so.
www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/09/recidivism-harlem-convicts_n_1578935.html
Recidivism Hard To Shake For Ex-Offenders Returning Home To Dim Prospects
NEW YORK -- As Rudy Holder walked down East Harlem's main drag, everyone seemed to remember him. One man after another greeted him with a handshake or a quick, one-armed hug. Each exchange brought a nervous look to Holder's face: Friend or foe? Some of the men he recognized. Some he didn't. But they all knew him.
"Trouble," they said, again and again. It was the nickname he'd earned as a teenager.
After serving 12 years in prison, Rudy Holder had come home to East Harlem on parole, joining the 725,000 others who are released from correctional facilities each year across the country. Holder's crime was gunning down two rivals, neither fatally, in 1993. In returning to Harlem, he was hoping to avoid the cycle that engulfs so many ex-convicts and lands them back in jail time after time.
Of the 7 million Americans (1 in 33) who were incarcerated, on probation or parole in 2010, more than 4 in 10 can be expected to return to prison within three years, according to a 2011 study by the Pew Charitable Trusts' Center on the States.
That cycle of repeated arrests and incarcerations comes at a high price to the states, which collectively spend about $52 billion a year on corrections costs. That number has quadrupled over the last 20 years as changing law enforcement philosophies, including the so-called war on drugs, have meant more aggressive policing, criminalization and incarcerations.
But the impact cannot be measured in dollars alone. These ex-offenders, their families and communities suffer not only from the effects of their crimes but also a criminal justice system that is ill-equipped to help them properly re-enter society after they've served their time, advocates claim. Homecomings can be uncomfortable for their victims as well, who often live in the same communities as their victimizers.
Many of these former inmates -- most of whom live in or come from low-income communities -- struggle to find employment, shake addictions and avoid criminal associations. With few job prospects, family pressures and often a lack of marketable skills, many ex-offenders backslide. A large number will be sent back to prison on technicalities, such as breaking curfew or testing positive for alcohol or drugs. Others will commit new crimes.
Former inmates say the stigma of having a criminal record can loom over them for a lifetime.
"Most people come out of prison and they are very energized and they have hope and they are looking to do the right thing," said Glenn E. Martin, a vice president at the Fortune Society, a New York-based organization that helps formerly incarcerated people and their families. "But what they come up against is what is really common for people coming out of prison: lifetime consequences."
In some states, convicts are banned from public housing, said Martin. In others, they are barred from public assistance. And the ubiquity of inexpensive, electronic criminal background checks has made it all too convenient for employers to discriminate, often illegally, against people with criminal records.
"It's really easy to commit crime when you can persuade yourself that no one else out there is convinced of your rehabilitation," said Martin, an ex-offender who served six years in prison. The "tremendous amount of hope" with which people come out of prison is often buoyed, Martin said, "with a tremendous amount of fear of failure."
In Holder's East Harlem neighborhood, 1 in 20 men has been convicted of a felony, the Justice Mapping Center reported. But in Holder's circle, it's just about everyone, he said, making even the most routine trip through the neighborhood a possible trap door back to prison.
While recidivism rates vary from state to state -- California's is about 60 percent, at the high end, as compared to South Carolina's, which is about 32 percent -- the national rate has remained relatively steady over the past decade. According to the most recent figures on recidivism by the Pew Center, the national rate actually decreased slightly from 1999 through 2004, from 45.4 percent to 43.3 percent.
But experts say a host of socio-economic issues make the likelihood of recidivating extremely high.
The first three to six months at home are the most critical in determining whether an ex-offender will relapse, said Julio Medina, the founder of Exodus Transitional Community in East Harlem, an agency that helps newly released convicts re-enter society. Medina himself served 12 years in prison on drug charges, and the agency is staffed almost entirely with formerly incarcerated people.
One thing is clear: Most of these convicts will come home, but come home damaged.
"It is a law of diminishing return, where you end up locking up so many black men and men of color, you destabilize that entire community," said Martin, of the Fortune Society.
This destabilization feeds the cycle of recidivism, he said, by fueling a continuous churn of a criminalized class into the system and, in doing so, creates a sort of social dystrophy.
Advocates for ex-offenders and some in the criminal justice field say the holistic approach is a departure from the old paradigm, in which criminals were more or less warehoused until their time was served.
Little attention was given to inmates' personal and emotional needs, said Dora B. Schriro, commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections, the second-largest jail system in the country. She said they would be released no better than when they went in -- and as likely to return.
www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/09/recidivism-harlem-convicts_n_1578935.html
Recidivism Hard To Shake For Ex-Offenders Returning Home To Dim Prospects
NEW YORK -- As Rudy Holder walked down East Harlem's main drag, everyone seemed to remember him. One man after another greeted him with a handshake or a quick, one-armed hug. Each exchange brought a nervous look to Holder's face: Friend or foe? Some of the men he recognized. Some he didn't. But they all knew him.
"Trouble," they said, again and again. It was the nickname he'd earned as a teenager.
After serving 12 years in prison, Rudy Holder had come home to East Harlem on parole, joining the 725,000 others who are released from correctional facilities each year across the country. Holder's crime was gunning down two rivals, neither fatally, in 1993. In returning to Harlem, he was hoping to avoid the cycle that engulfs so many ex-convicts and lands them back in jail time after time.
Of the 7 million Americans (1 in 33) who were incarcerated, on probation or parole in 2010, more than 4 in 10 can be expected to return to prison within three years, according to a 2011 study by the Pew Charitable Trusts' Center on the States.
That cycle of repeated arrests and incarcerations comes at a high price to the states, which collectively spend about $52 billion a year on corrections costs. That number has quadrupled over the last 20 years as changing law enforcement philosophies, including the so-called war on drugs, have meant more aggressive policing, criminalization and incarcerations.
But the impact cannot be measured in dollars alone. These ex-offenders, their families and communities suffer not only from the effects of their crimes but also a criminal justice system that is ill-equipped to help them properly re-enter society after they've served their time, advocates claim. Homecomings can be uncomfortable for their victims as well, who often live in the same communities as their victimizers.
Many of these former inmates -- most of whom live in or come from low-income communities -- struggle to find employment, shake addictions and avoid criminal associations. With few job prospects, family pressures and often a lack of marketable skills, many ex-offenders backslide. A large number will be sent back to prison on technicalities, such as breaking curfew or testing positive for alcohol or drugs. Others will commit new crimes.
Former inmates say the stigma of having a criminal record can loom over them for a lifetime.
"Most people come out of prison and they are very energized and they have hope and they are looking to do the right thing," said Glenn E. Martin, a vice president at the Fortune Society, a New York-based organization that helps formerly incarcerated people and their families. "But what they come up against is what is really common for people coming out of prison: lifetime consequences."
In some states, convicts are banned from public housing, said Martin. In others, they are barred from public assistance. And the ubiquity of inexpensive, electronic criminal background checks has made it all too convenient for employers to discriminate, often illegally, against people with criminal records.
"It's really easy to commit crime when you can persuade yourself that no one else out there is convinced of your rehabilitation," said Martin, an ex-offender who served six years in prison. The "tremendous amount of hope" with which people come out of prison is often buoyed, Martin said, "with a tremendous amount of fear of failure."
In Holder's East Harlem neighborhood, 1 in 20 men has been convicted of a felony, the Justice Mapping Center reported. But in Holder's circle, it's just about everyone, he said, making even the most routine trip through the neighborhood a possible trap door back to prison.
While recidivism rates vary from state to state -- California's is about 60 percent, at the high end, as compared to South Carolina's, which is about 32 percent -- the national rate has remained relatively steady over the past decade. According to the most recent figures on recidivism by the Pew Center, the national rate actually decreased slightly from 1999 through 2004, from 45.4 percent to 43.3 percent.
But experts say a host of socio-economic issues make the likelihood of recidivating extremely high.
The first three to six months at home are the most critical in determining whether an ex-offender will relapse, said Julio Medina, the founder of Exodus Transitional Community in East Harlem, an agency that helps newly released convicts re-enter society. Medina himself served 12 years in prison on drug charges, and the agency is staffed almost entirely with formerly incarcerated people.
One thing is clear: Most of these convicts will come home, but come home damaged.
"It is a law of diminishing return, where you end up locking up so many black men and men of color, you destabilize that entire community," said Martin, of the Fortune Society.
This destabilization feeds the cycle of recidivism, he said, by fueling a continuous churn of a criminalized class into the system and, in doing so, creates a sort of social dystrophy.
Advocates for ex-offenders and some in the criminal justice field say the holistic approach is a departure from the old paradigm, in which criminals were more or less warehoused until their time was served.
Little attention was given to inmates' personal and emotional needs, said Dora B. Schriro, commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections, the second-largest jail system in the country. She said they would be released no better than when they went in -- and as likely to return.
