The phone keeps ringing at my desk in the newsroom and, five times out of 10, the person on the other end of the line is an ex-offender looking for a job. Men and women with criminal records keep calling here (410-332-6166), saying they've just been released from prison - or that they were released a year ago - and still can't find work. Too many companies aren't hiring, they say, and the ones that are hiring won't take a chance on them.
This remains a chronic problem, the unemployed ex-offender looking for work. It's the main reason why the estimated national recidivism rate - the rate of return of inmates to prison within three years of their release - is about 67 percent. In Maryland, the numbers are better; "only" about half of the people we release from the Department of Corrections commit a crime and go back on the taxpayer tab (at between $25,000 and $27,000 annually) within three years.
What's the answer?
Political leadership that puts corrections back into corrections would be a start.
Maryland needs to adopt a comprehensive re-entry program that considers most inmates as being in a state of "pre-release" the moment they enter our correctional system. It appears that we already have such a program, or at least one that helps offenders prepare for real life before they walk out the jailhouse door.
This week, a New York-based think tank released a report touting the program as a model for the nation. The program puts inmates to work and saves significant taxpayer dollars in the process.
The report, from the Manhattan Institute's Center for Civic Innovation, points to Montgomery County's Pre-Release and Reentry Services Division. It operates a residential facility in Rockville for inmates within one year of scheduled release from local, state and federal custody. The program is relatively small - average daily enrollment of 160 to 200 offenders - but nearly 90 percent of the program participants obtain jobs.
Critics of pre-release programs will be surprised (or maybe pleased) to learn that the Montgomery program's motto is, "Freedom through responsibility." Inmates are expected to find their own jobs - they wouldn't pick up job-search skills otherwise - and they have to pay the county for providing them with pre-release services.
"The PRC expects newly enrolled inmates to secure employment within three weeks," notes Anne Piehl, the Rutgers researcher who authored the report. "Until an inmate finds work, he or she is required to search weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:40 p.m., which means no television or recreation or visits during those times."
