The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The program has since depleted the funding and has been unable to obtain more -- despite Fighting Back Partnership's contention that the program saves the state money by keeping parolees from re-offending and returning to prison.

The program's closure will result in the loss of three staff members. About 200 parolees will still be in the program when it shutters Wednesday.

"It's sad, because with everything else that's working against us, this one thing gives us hope that somebody out there is willing to work with us," said Peter Duena, 36, one of the 200 parolees still in the program.

When Duena was released from a four-year stint in prison, he spent a year looking for a job with no luck. But after being introduced to the parolee

re-entry program's basic building trades program, Fighting Back Partnership was able to secure Duena temporary contract work with the city of Vallejo.

"They're showing us that there are people out there that care and help us go straight," Duena said, adding that the re-entry program was his last
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hope.

Pearsall and other Fighting Back leaders contend that the parolee program is successful because only 20 percent returned to prison since 2007. The corrections department reports 52 percent of parolees returned to prison within two years after being released in 2006.

It costs $44,000 a year to incarcerate one prisoner, which amounts to millions of dollars in savings for the state, Pearsall said.

"It just doesn't make any sense, but I guess (the state doesn't) look at the back-end savings. They have to look at the front-end costs in trying to balance the state budgets," said John Allen, Fighting Back Partnership member who works closely with the parolees.

Pearsall and Allen will try one last time to save the program by pleading their case in front of the county Board of Supervisors early this week.

Parolees often struggle with barriers when released from prison, including a negative reputation among the public. At one point Pearsall, a former Vallejo police captain, shared those views.

"I never even contemplated a program like this would exist, nor did I contemplate at all, from a police point of view, that these parolees would be ones that are successful in the program and not re-offend," Pearsall said, describing the parolee sweeps the police department and parolee officers would do to arrest offenders.

The re-entry program takes parolees away from the same environments that led them to prison, said Pearsall, who also noted that other factors besides environment played into the initial offense.

"It takes you away from the drugs. You have to give 100 percent to this program .... If you're not serious, don't bother," Duena said.

Both Pearsall and Allen described the 200 employees in the program as devastated.

"It's kind of a sense of abandonment, I guess .... They're resigned also to the fact that stuff like this happens, but it's kind of like getting the rug pulled out from under your feet .... In a way, we're casting them adrift," Allen said.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_12707340?nclick_check=1