sherri13
05-10-2002, 08:26 AM
Headline: Ex-cons help ex-cons ease into life on outside
Byline: Alexandra Marks Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Date: 05/07/2001
(HARLEM, N.Y.)The optimistic glint in Julio Medina's dark brown eyes
suddenly shifts
to concern. He's just learned that one of his ex-offenders spent the
night in jail after jumping a subway turnstile. "What were you
thinking?" he asks, incredulously.
"I had to get to a job interview. I didn't have any money," explains a
shaken Thomas "Kaseen" Johnson. "This lady, she gave me 45 cents, then
says, 'Why don't you just push through with me?' So I did. Then I
looked up and there was a cop."
It was a setback for Mr. Johnson, who is out on parole after serving 19
years in prison on a murder rap. For Mr. Medina, himself a convicted
drug dealer, it was another crisis to juggle that day as the head of an
unusual program that tries to help criminals adjust to life back on the
streets.
Called the Exodus Transitional Community, the group was launched by
Medina with help from several churches. It helps ex-offenders with
everything from drug treatment to resume writing to, sometimes, even
train fare. Perhaps more important, it is staffed by people who have
been there themselves - almost all ex-offenders. "Few people understand
the trauma of getting out," says Medina. "So much has changed. You
don't know how to act in social situations. I call us the wounded
healers."
The work that groups like Medina's are doing is becoming increasingly
important. Just as a record number of people are incarcerated in the
United States, so, too, are a record number of ex-offenders now
returning to their communities.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that more than 600,000
ex-offenders will be released in the next year, some returning to
homes, others to local homeless shelters. That's more than a three-fold
increase since 1980. Twenty percent of the newly released prisoners
will also have no legal supervision because of cutbacks in parole.
And because the nation has moved away from rehabilitation towards
punishment as the prevailing philosophy of incarceration, experts say,
more prisoners are being released with fewer skills and, sometimes,
wore attitudes. All this is prompting a rethinking of the reentry
process.
"We can't forever exile people," says Jeremy Travis, a senior fellow at
the Urban Institute and former director of the National Institute of
Justice. "They continue to live amongst us, so we have a very real
challenge, which is how to live with the felons in our midst. People
are now asking whether there are ways to reconnect people to the
institutions of the communities, so that their contributions can be
maximized."
Several states, notably Vermont and Washington, have pioneered
collaborations between corrections departments and communities to help
prisoners better adjust to life on the outside. The Justice Department
this year will also give $100 million in grants to encourage reentry
projects.
"Because the programs have been reduced on the inside - including
education - we need more programs now on the outside," says
criminologist James Fox of Northeastern University in Boston. "We're
releasing some people from prison now who aren't even literate."
Masters in theology, and life
But even for those who do have skills, reentry can be traumatizing. It
was Medina's own experience that prompted him to start Exodus. While
serving nine years on a drug conviction, he earned a bachelor's degree
(it was before 1994, when Congress banned prisoners from receiving
federal education aid) as well as a masters in theology.
That helped him realize he needed to do something productive with his
life. He also noticed that too many people who got out kept coming
back.
"Of all the men, no one ever said, 'I can't wait to get back to
prison,' " says Medina. "It bothered me. I knew I wanted to do
something about that."
When he first came up for parole, he was told he would never be
anything but a "vulture who feeds on his community." He was denied. Two
years later, he was released on parole. He returned home to a
supportive family and girlfriend.
Still, he struggled for three months to find a job and reacclimate
himself to society. "I said, 'If I consider myself OK, imagine those
less educated... Imagine those who have no place to go but a shelter,'
" he recalls. "It was from that and talking to those people on the
inside that the Exodus community was born."
The program is having some success. Though less than two years old,
staffers say 80 percent of the ex-convicts who have gone through the
program have stayed out of jail so far. Nationally, some 50 to 70
percent of those who are released end up back in prison.
Hope and despair in a cubicle
Housed on the top floor of the Church of the Living Hope in Spanish
Harlem, Exodus hums with activity. Emotions run the gamut in the
brick-walled office - despair, hope, determination.
In one cubicle, a young woman breaks down weeping because no one before
has ever offered her any help. Nearby, a middle-aged man in a gray suit
sits alone at a phone, dialing endlessly. He has got two master's
degrees. He thought he'd landed a job a few days ago. Then a parole
officer read his prospective employer the man's 17-year-old rap sheet,
which included a conviction for attempted kidnapping. The job was
withdrawn.
"No one is the same after 17 years," he says. "I ask you, is that
fair?"
Much the same frustration faces Johnson. Since being released two and
half years ago, he's worked as a security officer. He'd even been made
a supervisor. Then a few months ago, a parolee working as a security
guard killed someone. The state Department of Corrections passed a
regulation forbidding all ex-offenders on parole or probation from
working in security.
Johnson has been out of a job now since April 13. He's three weeks
behind on his rent. He's had to ask people for food. "I need to get a
job," he says. "My heart is heavy now. I'm scared. I don't want to go
back."
Medina puts his hand on his shoulder: "[Keith is] going to give you a
list of every job we have that's available. Make some calls, then go
directly to talk to your parole officer. Tell her what happened. After
that, I want you here for every group we have."
Johnson nods, relieved. "OK. I'm going to keep that pledge I made to
God. I'm going to do everything I can. I'm not going back."
(c) Copyright 2002 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
Byline: Alexandra Marks Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Date: 05/07/2001
(HARLEM, N.Y.)The optimistic glint in Julio Medina's dark brown eyes
suddenly shifts
to concern. He's just learned that one of his ex-offenders spent the
night in jail after jumping a subway turnstile. "What were you
thinking?" he asks, incredulously.
"I had to get to a job interview. I didn't have any money," explains a
shaken Thomas "Kaseen" Johnson. "This lady, she gave me 45 cents, then
says, 'Why don't you just push through with me?' So I did. Then I
looked up and there was a cop."
It was a setback for Mr. Johnson, who is out on parole after serving 19
years in prison on a murder rap. For Mr. Medina, himself a convicted
drug dealer, it was another crisis to juggle that day as the head of an
unusual program that tries to help criminals adjust to life back on the
streets.
Called the Exodus Transitional Community, the group was launched by
Medina with help from several churches. It helps ex-offenders with
everything from drug treatment to resume writing to, sometimes, even
train fare. Perhaps more important, it is staffed by people who have
been there themselves - almost all ex-offenders. "Few people understand
the trauma of getting out," says Medina. "So much has changed. You
don't know how to act in social situations. I call us the wounded
healers."
The work that groups like Medina's are doing is becoming increasingly
important. Just as a record number of people are incarcerated in the
United States, so, too, are a record number of ex-offenders now
returning to their communities.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that more than 600,000
ex-offenders will be released in the next year, some returning to
homes, others to local homeless shelters. That's more than a three-fold
increase since 1980. Twenty percent of the newly released prisoners
will also have no legal supervision because of cutbacks in parole.
And because the nation has moved away from rehabilitation towards
punishment as the prevailing philosophy of incarceration, experts say,
more prisoners are being released with fewer skills and, sometimes,
wore attitudes. All this is prompting a rethinking of the reentry
process.
"We can't forever exile people," says Jeremy Travis, a senior fellow at
the Urban Institute and former director of the National Institute of
Justice. "They continue to live amongst us, so we have a very real
challenge, which is how to live with the felons in our midst. People
are now asking whether there are ways to reconnect people to the
institutions of the communities, so that their contributions can be
maximized."
Several states, notably Vermont and Washington, have pioneered
collaborations between corrections departments and communities to help
prisoners better adjust to life on the outside. The Justice Department
this year will also give $100 million in grants to encourage reentry
projects.
"Because the programs have been reduced on the inside - including
education - we need more programs now on the outside," says
criminologist James Fox of Northeastern University in Boston. "We're
releasing some people from prison now who aren't even literate."
Masters in theology, and life
But even for those who do have skills, reentry can be traumatizing. It
was Medina's own experience that prompted him to start Exodus. While
serving nine years on a drug conviction, he earned a bachelor's degree
(it was before 1994, when Congress banned prisoners from receiving
federal education aid) as well as a masters in theology.
That helped him realize he needed to do something productive with his
life. He also noticed that too many people who got out kept coming
back.
"Of all the men, no one ever said, 'I can't wait to get back to
prison,' " says Medina. "It bothered me. I knew I wanted to do
something about that."
When he first came up for parole, he was told he would never be
anything but a "vulture who feeds on his community." He was denied. Two
years later, he was released on parole. He returned home to a
supportive family and girlfriend.
Still, he struggled for three months to find a job and reacclimate
himself to society. "I said, 'If I consider myself OK, imagine those
less educated... Imagine those who have no place to go but a shelter,'
" he recalls. "It was from that and talking to those people on the
inside that the Exodus community was born."
The program is having some success. Though less than two years old,
staffers say 80 percent of the ex-convicts who have gone through the
program have stayed out of jail so far. Nationally, some 50 to 70
percent of those who are released end up back in prison.
Hope and despair in a cubicle
Housed on the top floor of the Church of the Living Hope in Spanish
Harlem, Exodus hums with activity. Emotions run the gamut in the
brick-walled office - despair, hope, determination.
In one cubicle, a young woman breaks down weeping because no one before
has ever offered her any help. Nearby, a middle-aged man in a gray suit
sits alone at a phone, dialing endlessly. He has got two master's
degrees. He thought he'd landed a job a few days ago. Then a parole
officer read his prospective employer the man's 17-year-old rap sheet,
which included a conviction for attempted kidnapping. The job was
withdrawn.
"No one is the same after 17 years," he says. "I ask you, is that
fair?"
Much the same frustration faces Johnson. Since being released two and
half years ago, he's worked as a security officer. He'd even been made
a supervisor. Then a few months ago, a parolee working as a security
guard killed someone. The state Department of Corrections passed a
regulation forbidding all ex-offenders on parole or probation from
working in security.
Johnson has been out of a job now since April 13. He's three weeks
behind on his rent. He's had to ask people for food. "I need to get a
job," he says. "My heart is heavy now. I'm scared. I don't want to go
back."
Medina puts his hand on his shoulder: "[Keith is] going to give you a
list of every job we have that's available. Make some calls, then go
directly to talk to your parole officer. Tell her what happened. After
that, I want you here for every group we have."
Johnson nods, relieved. "OK. I'm going to keep that pledge I made to
God. I'm going to do everything I can. I'm not going back."
(c) Copyright 2002 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.