Those who served time deserve chance

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With last week’s news that Compuware CEO Peter Karmanos, Jr. hired former Detroit mayor and recently released prisoner Kwame Kilpatrick as a salesman for his Texas-based health care software subsidiary Covisint, perhaps now is an appropriate time to look at what faces those leaving prison who don’t have billionaire friends. As the state of Michigan looks to cut more than $100 million from its bloated corrections budget largely by releasing on electronic tethers thousands of prisoners who have completed minimum sentences or are otherwise eligible for release, this question is especially urgent.

Across the nation, approximately 2.3 million Americans are in prison or jail and their demographics are hardly representative of the general public. Consider some statistics about the prison population in Michigan, where over 50,000 prisoners are under guard of the Michigan Department of Corrections, or MDOC. According to 2006 MDOC statistics, 92.5 percent of prisoners in the state are male and more than half are non-white. More than 60 percent have a history of drug and/or alcohol problems and more than 45 percent have less than a high school education.

Before even considering the fact that these people return to their communities with the mark of having served a prison term, a majority of them simply are not prepared to find employment because of a lack of education and job skills. Thus, many return to their criminal behavior and the state continues to see high rates of recidivism. These challenges are compounded by a difficult economy, but even in better economic times former prisoners — even those with greater education and skills — face a stigma that can last a lifetime.

Many employers are not willing to hire people who have served prison terms, regardless of the circumstances of an individual’s crime, sentence, rehabilitation or skills. In other situations, jobs such as those in the information technologies industry require bonding, which is difficult and often impossible for former prisoners to obtain for such employment.

On a visit to a homeless shelter in Detroit last fall, I met skilled chefs, artisans and others who, though they had served their time and maintained a clean record since their imprisonment, were unable to find work because of their former status. Though each has their own story, the common themes were feelings of regret for the crimes they committed (many in their younger days) and frustration that they felt they had paid their debt to society but were still being punished.

Returning to society is not easy for an former prisoner. These returning citizens face a world that has changed without them in many ways. Friends and family are not necessarily there and often too few meaningful opportunities to properly rejoin society exist. Many of the residents I met spoke of how difficult it was to leave their regimented prison lives and return to the changed places where they committed their crimes and often where they grew up. With few viable options, many return to crime and soon return to prison.

Especially in the current recession, the state must seriously consider how it will assist the thousands of prisoners who will return to society. It is in the interest of everyone in Michigan that those who have paid their debt to society and wish to rejoin it as law-abiding, taxpaying citizens have the opportunity to do so. If we cannot offer education, job training and employment opportunities for them, we will merely be shifting much larger expenses from one part of government — corrections — to others — police and welfare. And unfortunately for the state’s thousands of other inmates, it doesn’t look like Karmanos’ prisoner reentry initiative is going to exceed his one sweetheart hiring.

Ryan Dinkgrave is a State News guest columnist. Reach him at dinkgrave@gmail.com.

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