Half of Pa.'s inmates are rejailed within 5 years

WHEN ANTOINE STONE found work at a grocery store this spring, he took a giant step toward self-sufficiency while inching away from ever again being a financial burden on Pennsylvania taxpayers.

The well-spoken single father of two daughters didn't just have to overcome the ravages of the recession to land his first real job in years. For Stone, 38, the hurdles to finding work were much higher, and of his own making.

The West Philadelphia native estimates that in his younger years he racked up eight to 10 arrests, serving short stints in city jails. But it was a parole violation stemming from a drug-possession conviction from nearly 10 years ago that landed him in state prison for the first time, from January 2006 to February 2008.

As a convicted felon, Stone needed more help than the average job seeker, and found it at the nonprofit Pennsylvania Prison Society, which in a 12-week program taught him life skills, how to write a resumé, how to dress for success and how to be a better father.

The vast majority of the inmates released from Pennsylvania's prisons don't go through such programs - and it shows.

More than half the state's inmates - 55 percent - wound up back behind bars within five years of being released, according to state Department of Corrections data from last year.

Though it has largely gone unnoticed by the public, the state is in the midst of a recidivism crisis that has contributed to a ballooning prison budget at a time when things like school funding and social programs are being slashed.

Prison-reform advocates charge that not nearly enough is done here to turn the recidivism numbers around, saying that education and job-training behind bars have proved to reduce recidivism and could even pay for themselves in reduced prison costs.

Stone hopes that the program he finished will steer him from becoming another recidivism statistic.

"We learned about ourselves, and we learned about why we repeat certain things - the bad stuff," said Stone, who endured numerous rejections from the likes of Walmart and fancy hotels. "The bad is so much easier than doing what's right."

Failure is costly

 

Whether this revolving-door syndrome is a result of faulty rehabilitation efforts by the Department of Corrections, the inmates' personal failings, both, or something else, the revolving prison door costs taxpayers a staggering amount.