The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

She says her constituents have provided all the evidence she needs -- calling in recent weeks to complain and voice fears about unsupervised groups of ex-prisoners living together in houses and walking the streets at all hours.
"It's a problem, and there's a need for something to happen," Shanklin said.

A recent study by the city echoes that sentiment and recommends a new plan of attack -- bringing together government, nonprofit and faith-based groups to monitor and provide ex-prisoners in Newburg with services such as drug testing and treatment and job training, starting from the time they are sentenced.

If approved and funded, the Newburg pilot program, proposed in the city's "Justice Reinvestment Project" study, would be the first of its kind in Kentucky, according to local and state officials.

And it would be among only a few similar efforts in the country to address the rapidly increasing numbers of prisoners returning to communities, according to Susan Tucker, director of an after-prison initiative at The Open Society Institute, a New York-based foundation.

Tucker said states are being forced to focus on ways to help ex-prisoners succeed because of their growing numbers, the enormous costs of incarcerating them again and the toll their repeated crimes take on communities. If the pilot program in Newburg could reduce the number of repeat offenders and reduce crime, Louisville officials say it would be expanded to other neighborhoods -- and Tucker said it "could end up being a model" for the nation.

While operational details aren't set and funding must be arranged, city officials said they are optimistic the pilot program can begin, at least in part, next year.

Kim Allen, secretary of the city's Public Protection Cabinet, said the city plans to seek an unspecified amount of funding from The Open Society Institute, which provided $50,000 last year for the study.

Need highlighted

President Bush, in his 2004 inaugural address, highlighted the need to help ex-offenders successfully return to their communities, and a number of faith-based organizations also are focusing on the issue.
Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson said prisoner re-entry is "something talked about at every U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting."

That's due, in large part, to the fact that nationwide, 650,000 prisoners are released each year, a 350 percent increase over 20 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

In Kentucky, which leads the nation in the rate of growth of prisoners on probation, 10,308 prisoners were released in 2003, a 67 percent increase in eight years, according to the city's study.

Each year, about 1,850 released state prisoners return to Jefferson County, including 700 who served their entire sentence and are not under state supervision. Based on the most recent figures cited in the report, about 400 Jefferson County residents are released each year from the county jail system after serving 90 days or more for a misdemeanor offense.

The city study, which looked at inmates released to the county from January 2002-December 2004, drew conclusions that mirror national reports showing that the majority of ex-prisoners are under-educated, lack job skills and family support, and have a substance abuse problem.
More than a third of released prisoners in Kentucky also eventually are sent back to prison, according to the study.

Pockets of ex-prisoners

Like other metropolitan areas, ex-prisoners in Louisville also tend to live in concentrated areas, the study found.

In December 2004, nearly half of the parolees lived in six ZIP codes -- 40203, 40211, 40218, 40216, 40210 and 40212 -- that house only 22 percent of the county's population.

Those ZIP codes are primarily in western Louisville, including Russell, Portland, Chickasaw, Parkland, Park DuValle, California and Shelby Park neighbors. Parts of Shively southwest of downtown, and Newburg south of downtown also have relatively large numbers of ex-prisoners, the study said.

In three of those areas -- Newburg, Shelby Park and California -- the study found that ex-prisoners differed in some ways from most of the ex-prisoner population. Shelby Park, for example, had a higher percent of women and white ex-offenders, while California and Newburg had a higher percentage of African-American ex-prisoners. Ex-offenders in Newburg also tended to be younger, with nearly 46 percent under age 30.

The study recommends Newburg for a pilot program because it said ex-inmates there seem to be at a higher risk of repeating a crime, and the area is not near many services. The program would serve Newburg-area inmates who serve time in the state system or who were sentenced to 90 days or more in a county corrections facility.

Lennie Pendleton Marshall, 60, a retired school teacher and neighborhood block watch leader in Newburg, said she is concerned about the large number of ex-offenders there, and she is skeptical about the proposed program.

By returning to Newburg, she said, "it's easier for them to go right back into the same thing."

The Rev. Roosevelt Ligtsy, assistant pastor at Community Missionary Baptist church in Newburg, said it's clear that something needs to be done.

Finding ways to help ex-offenders succeed "is a win-win proposition for us all," he said, adding, "When they don't receive the necessary support, it places all of us in jeopardy."

The city study included interviews with 13 former prisoners, who were not named. The interview reports chronicle a daunting array of needs among families for whom crime is a way of life, often beginning at a young age.

One 26-year-old man from Newburg, for example, was on parole for robbery and wanton endangerment convictions, crimes he committed when he was 18. He reported that he began using drugs and drinking at age 15 and that he had not seen his father for years. He told interviewers that his mother had been jailed several times for drug-related charges and was also on probation. He quit high school his junior year but obtained an equivalency degree in prison. "He has no skill or trade and employment has been sporadic through temporary agencies," a report on his interview said.

John D. Rees, commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Corrections, who participated in the study, said the challenge is getting service providers better organized to address the needs of such people.

A network of organizations that work with ex-offenders -- the Offender Reentry Task Force -- would play a key role in the local effort, and is already developing plans for coordinating services, said the Rev. Suzanne Siebold, executive director of Prodigal Ministries, an ecumenical organization that operates two transitional homes for ex-prisoners.

"There are big needs in Louisville that are not being addressed," said Siebold, a former chaplain at the state's Luther Luckett Correctional complex.