The barriers preventing offenders from successfully re-entering society are many, but few carry as much weight as the inability to find employment. A meaningful job is the centerpiece to an offender beginning a new way of life.

Corrections officials across the country recognize this and are trying to do more to help offenders find their path and be prepared to join the community in a constructive way.

"We're starting to see more jurisdictions realize the importance of offenders getting jobs, but getting them meaningful ones that they can retain. Different areas of the country are taking a different look at this," said Shelly Morelock of the National Institute of Corrections' Office of Correctional Job Training and Placement.

Morelock said that the OCJTP has been working hard to promote the idea that offenders need more than a job, they need to understand their aptitudes, their skills and their interests if they hope to maintain a crime-free lifestyle.

The OCJTP for several years has run trainings for agencies to help staff develop their skills in working with offenders and ex-offenders in this capacity. The idea has been that as agencies better understand how to work with and assist offenders in preparing for employment, the better the offenders' changes of success are.

This training is helping agencies get better at conducting vocational assessments up front and working on employment planning while the offender is incarcerated, rather than waiting until just prior to release.

This approach will also be embodied in a new curriculum that will be released by the office this month on career planning for offenders.

Jobs and Careers

According to Morelock, several pilot programs with corrections agencies are in the works to improve offenders' chances of landing a career job after release.

Corrections agencies in Ohio, Kansas and Iowa are using OCJTP curriculum to train staff in an effort to improve their agencies' connections with workforce development programs in the community, such as One-Stops.

"There are several models but one overriding theme is to help [the offenders] look at what is out there, what are their skills, and when they look at a career, look at the labor market information and partner organizations and private non-profits that are working with offenders to collaborate more effectively," Morelock said.

OCJTP has also developed curriculum to help train inmates to be career center clerks as another method for helping other inmates in career planning. One jurisdiction is already piloting this training, but using it with volunteers, rather than inmates.

"[It's about] their interest and skills and helping them set some goals for looking beyond what they traditionally thought they were able to do and finding the right jobs and retaining them. With limited resources in corrections, [the clerk training] was developed to help impact or provide more services behind the walls," Morelock said.

Other spin-offs of the training are in the works as multiple agencies consider how to better prepare offenders for landing a job. One group that has had its hand in preparing offenders for work for decades is correctional industries and today a handful of these programs are working to expand their reach even further.

Industries Make the Connection

While inmates have long developed work skills while incarcerated, not every industries program has been geared toward the type of skills that the employment market will bear. But correctional industries programs are beginning to see the new writing on the wall. As re-entry programs have become funded and touted as the best way to reduce recidivism, these programs have switched gears.

According to Carol Martindale-Taylor of the National Correctional Industries Association, industries program leaders realize that job training on the inside needs to be applicable to successful employment on the outside.

"They have been doing it right along. Now that there is a term out there, it has given people something to latch onto," she said.

As an agency, the NCIA has created a re-entry task force that brings together correctional  industries leaders to discuss how their programs can interface with larger re-entry efforts.

"Part of the light that is coming through is we have so many people coming back out [into the community from prison.] It has to come down to money. It will cost a lot to reconvict them and re-incarcerate rather than spending it helping them stay out," Martindale-Taylor said.

The idea that inmates in prison industries programs may already have a leg up in the job search is one that has begun to be recognized by others too. Recently the National Institute of Justice authorized funding to complete a study comparing recidivism, post-release employment and in-prison behavior of offenders who participated in traditional prison industries with those who had no participation.

But while the results of this research are forthcoming, some correctional industries programs have gone full-steam ahead and are already proving that job readiness and industries can work hand-in-hand to produce successful outcomes.

Wisconsin Correctional Enterprises Expands Employment Reach

In the last few years, Wisconsin's Bureau of Correctional Enterprises has developed a new program to assist inmates involved in the department's industries program with pre-release planning and future employment.

According to Steve Kronzer, Director of the Bureau of Correctional Enterprises, the push toward re-entry has gotten bigger as the topic of re-entry has gotten more popular.

"About four or five years ago I came to the conclusion that prison industry programs have to be more about preparing inmates for work on the outside. The states have to move beyond just manufacturing products," said Kronzer.

The bureau's re-entry effort, called the Transition Program, begins working with offenders who are part of the industries program within a year from release on issues such as resume writing, job applications, where to find community support, transportation, clothing and housing needs and other problems they face.

Kronzer said the program started very small with one staff person and was piloted with four counties. In the beginning, inmates within that one-year window in any of the industries programs - farms, or trades -- would start working with the program person on pre-release planning.

When the program went statewide after six months, it also brought parole agents into the re-entry process to do follow-up surveys with the offenders after release. This part of the process was also expanded recently to include a personal follow up three days after release and a commitment from the department to assist with up to $1,500 for expenses related to housing, employment, work clothing and other expenses that are important to getting back into the community.

Other recent changes include contact with the inmates further back than one year prior to release and the inclusion of inmates who may have worked for the industries program years ago.

Kronzer believes that helping offenders achieve more is all part of the responsibility of a corrections department.

"[Inmates] have to go beyond making the desk [and use those skills on the outside.] You need a more comprehensive program. You have to take on the responsibility of taking them through to release," he said.

Kronzer also knows from research and evaluation that the Transition Program is making a difference.

Statistics the program has gathered show that the return rate for those who have gone through the program ranges from 18 to 22 percent whereas the rest of the inmate population has a return rate of around 45 percent.

But the program won't rest on its laurels here.

Kronzer and the Transition Program team have already started approaching employers to create an ex-offender friendly database for offenders looking for work so that they don't waste their time spinning their wheels for a job that won't be offered anyway.

The program has also focused recently on one of the areas that accepts the largest number of offenders back into the community - Milwaukee County. Kronzer said the Transition Program is trying to nail down which employers there will work with ex-offenders as well.

Finally, Knonzer has plans to create a skills refresher program for offenders who previously participated in the industries programs but, after a few years out of it, may need refresher training in those skills prior to release.

It is efforts like these in Wisconsin, that will ultimately help offenders stay on the outside of prison walls.

Jail Focuses on Meaningful Skills

While state industries programs are jumping onboard to help offenders find meaningful work, so too are some forward-thinking jails. The Duchesne County, Utah, Sheriff's Office is one of them.

According to Wally Hendricks, Chief Deputy for the Duchesne County Sheriff's Office, the Building Trades program has helped many offenders get a foothold in the community after release.

The program is a partnership between the sheriff's office, the Uintah Basin Association of Governments and the Uintah Basin Applied Technology Center that involves a team of inmates who work in a crew to build homes for economically disadvantaged and senior members of the community.

The program takes inmates into the programs and under the tutelage of instructor Les Bennett, learn how to assemble a home from the ground up, including framing, wiring and cabinetry.

"We probably have 11 or 12 inmates on a rotation. They come in and graduate in a certain amount of months and are able to graduate with a meaningful document," said Hendricks.

Hendricks said that the inmates accepted into the program are those with no behavior problems and who have at least six months left in their sentence. The inmate crew works four days a week, six to eight hours a day to build the homes and once they have mastered certain skills, receive certification from Applied Technology Center.

"They do the drafting and the blueprints on our computer programs. It starts from the ground up. They conceive the design. They follow it completely," Hendricks said. "It's on-the-job training. They have to be tested and checked off on skills."

Hendricks said the program not only has value in terms of the skills it teaches, but also in the work of giving back to a community that the offenders have harmed in some way.

"The biggest value to the inmates from my interaction with them is they feel like they are contributing to the community," he said.

Re-entry collaborations like this one in Duchesne County or on a larger scale such as the one in Wisconsin will all make a difference in helping inmates stay out of jail or prison and become productive citizens. The idea of working together to accomplish this goal is a lesson that many say is the key to success.

"We are realizing that we need to work more effectively together and think beyond the walls. It is a community concern as well as a corrections concern. And employment programming and reentry and keeping people in the community for longer periods certainly fits into what corrections is working on in a lot of areas of the country," said Morelock.

Resources:

To reach Shelly Morelock at the OOJTP, call 202-353-0485
or email smorelock@bop.gov

National Correctional Industries Association, 410-230-3972

Wisconsin Bureau of Correctional Enterprises, http://www.wi-doc.com/BCE.htm