Radio Program available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2011/03/kentuckys-recidivism-rate-hits-10-year-low-dc-public-safety/

We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov or at Twitter at http://twitter.com/lensipes.

[Audio Begins]

Len Sipes:  From the nation’s capital, this is DC Public Safety.  I’m your host, Leonard Sipes.  At our microphones today is Secretary Michael Brown.  Secretary Brown has been there in the State of Kentucky with the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet for the last four years.  He has a long history of public service as a judge, as a prosecutor, as a law director for the city of Louisville, U.S. Army as a Captain, he’s a gentleman that’s been around for quite some time, and one of the reasons why we asked Secretary Brown to be by our microphones today, is that he’s gotten a lot of news.  We have a couple news services that come into us here at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, and the first one that caught my eye was from the dailynews.com, and it said “State’s Two Year Recidivism Rate Hits a 10-Year Low,” and all of us within the criminal justice system were struggling to do just that.  We’re struggling to bring down our recidivism rates, that’s enough to make it interesting, but it goes on to the Courier Journal, in terms of Gov. Beshear’s signing a new act in terms of rearranging the way that Kentucky does business, and it goes all the way to the Wall Street Journal, where a recent article says that “States Rethink Drug Law,” so the state of Kentucky has gotten an awful lot of publicity lately, national publicity, and a lot of people are looking at the state of Kentucky in terms of what it is that they’ve done, but again, for me, the most intriguing part of this is the headline “State’s Two Year Recidivism Rate Hits a 10-Year Low,” and with that introduction, I present Secretary Michael Brown, secretary for the last four years.  Mr. Secretary, welcome to DC Public Safety.

Michael Brown:  I’m glad to be with you, Leonard.

Len Sipes:  Okay.  Now, what we have with the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, you have an operation much like mine in the 14 years when I was with the Maryland Department of Public Safety, where we had State Police, we had corrections, we had a lot of agencies.  You have the same thing for the State of Kentucky, correct?

Michael Brown:  That is correct.  It is the largest cabinet in state government, and we have right around 8,000 employees in the cabinet, and my major units include the department of corrections, the Kentucky State Police, our juvenile justice, and then we have medical examiners and criminal justice training and drug control policy, and just a number of agencies that are attached, including our public defenders.

Len Sipes:  One of the things that you mentioned in terms of the pre-interview is that at one time, Kentucky had the fastest growing prison population in the country, correct?

Michael Brown:  Well that is correct.  Actually, Gov. Beshears took office in December of 2007, and shortly after his first address to the General Assembly in January of 2008, the Pew Center on the States came out with a report that listed Kentucky as having the fastest growing prison population by percentage in the country.  That was something that took a number of us by surprise.  We knew that corrections had been an escalating budget item.  We didn’t know that we had crossed the finish line first in that particular situation.

Len Sipes:  Now one of the things that Kentucky, as well as virtually every state in the United States is struggling with is this concept of a corrections budget that a lot of people in a lot of statehouses throughout the country, they’re coming to the conclusion that the corrections budget is growing out of control, that it’s taking up too much of the budget, that there’s no way that you can sustain that level of an increase in the prison population.  It’s taking away from funding for college, it’s taking away from funding for seniors, and it’s taking away from funding for schools.  It has a tremendous impact on not just criminal justice, but has a tremendous impact in terms of the overall budget, and what a lot of states are trying to do, what they’re trying to wrestle with is this whole concept of how do we rein in the corrections budget without having an adverse impact on public safety, and that’s why I keep coming back to the same issue, recidivism, you hit a ten-year low.  How did you do that?

Michael Brown:  Well that was a target that frankly, we just decided we had to aim at.  When we were looking at our population, and clearly, the only way to reduce your, or the main way to reduce your prison budgets, your correctional budget, is by means of population, and when we look at our population, we know it’s made up of basically two segments.  We have people who have recently committed a felony that they’re going to be sent to our facilities for, but we’d also found that a fair percentage of all the people who come through the doors each year are coming back.  They’re returnees.  They’re return customers.  And that’s a recidivism rate, those who are coming back after a 2-3 year period of being released, and when we looked at those recidivists, we realized that a fair amount of them are what we call re-entry figures.  They’re ones who have gotten out, they’ve gone back out into the community, within, as everyone in this business knows, the likelihood is failure is highest in those first few months to a year, and those individuals then come back.  When they do come back, they come back and stay, generally, for a longer period of time than they were in for the first period.  So that becomes a, and I’ll give you an example.  In Kentucky, if you have a, you committed a crime, and you’re eligible for parole after serving 20% of your sentence, and then you go out and you violate your parole and you’re returned, it’s likely that you’re going to be in for a period of time longer than that initial 20%.

Len Sipes:  Understood.

Michael Brown:  So we, in my cabinet, I cannot control what the courts are doing.  We cannot completely control what the legislature is going to do vis-à-vis what becomes a crime, so our target had to be, by just a natural process, how can we improve our re-entry efforts, how can we cut that recidivism rate, and a cut of 1,000 prisoners at $21,000 or so a year starts to add up to real money if you can succeed at this.

Len Sipes:  Now you said that you went to the Pew Center for the States, and they provided some technical assistance?

Michael Brown:  Well, that was well down the road.  What had happened was, we had taken a number of different approaches to try to address this issue.  The Governor, in January of 2008 had asked me to convene what’s called our Criminal Justice Council, it’s a large body involving all the stakeholders in the criminal justice system, to make recommendations on the penal code and the drug laws, and we came up with reports but were unsuccessful, to a large extent, in getting many things passed through the legislature.  Then the legislature itself came up with a joint resolution creating another committee to look at these issues, and then finally, this most recently concluded legislature had come up with a task force on the penal code and substance abuse, which was a very small group.  Only seven people.  And historically, those seven, it was bipartisan, a Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary, a Democratic chair of the House Judiciary Committee, the Chief Justice of our Supreme Court sat himself, I represented the executive branch, we had a retired commonwealth attorney, a former public advocate, and a county judge executive.  We started work on reviewing, particularly targeting what we were going to do with probation, parole, and reentry, and also our drug laws.  Then, in the middle of that process, somewhat in the middle of it, the Pew Public Safety Performance Project partnered with us, the legislature put up some seed money of $2,000, and last August, and August of 2010, we announced a collaborative effort where Pew would give us technical assistance, primarily working with the committee I described to come up with a legislative package which was, in fact, introduced in the session which most recently concluded.

Len Sipes:  Now what do you, the group of, the small group of individuals, did you feel comfortable with a game plan coming out of that, and then Pew was technical assistance beyond that, do I have that correct?

Michael Brown:  Well, what happened was, the task force had started its work, and we had narrowed the focus of this particular task force, particularly to looking at our drug laws, recognizing that that was the largest driver of, certainly our revolving criminal population.  There’s always going to be a place for those incorrigibles and those offenders, the violent ones, but as I looked at Kentucky’s population of 20-odd thousand, clearly, if you took away those who were in as persistent felony offenders and the most violent offenders, that still left about 15,000 individuals that were in, and the bulk, I’m talking about the very large bulk of those 15,000, were in because of something to do with drugs.  Now, what the Pew folks brought to us was the ability to bring evidence based, basically studies, and attempts from all over the country on how to deal with some of these issues and boil them down in a manner that we could literally take the best practices from all over the country and then, if they had a recipe, we had the seasoning to make it come out to a Kentucky perspective, so to speak.

Len Sipes:  Well, that’s a beautiful description.  I love that!  What do you think was the most important, give me a couple of the most important policies that came out of all this.  Different people have been caught up in crime and drugs for decades, it’s not easy to get them out of that cycle, it’s not easy to break the cycle.  What were the principal ingredients in terms of how you proceeded to cut that recidivism rate?

Michael Brown:  Well, the first thing is, you have to recognize that the cycle needs to be broken, and it’s not simply, it’s not just a matter of “Just Say No.”  We have, for example, some really successful drug courts here in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, but the requirements for those coming into the drug court system, which is somewhat of a diversionary process, were pretty strict, and that really didn’t do much for those who had already offended and managed to find a way into the facilities to stop them from coming back.  We have to recognize that breaking that cycle of a true abuser is going to take long term treatment, anywhere from 6-9 months.  It’s not just simply going to be, you know, tell them to stop taking it.  And it also involves a situation where our probation and parole practices have to be aimed at reinforcing those principles once an individual is either on probation or parole, because there are relapses.  Recognizing that, we don’t want the relapse to take someone all the way back behind the fence, as we like to say.

Len Sipes:  Right.  So in essence, what you have is a prison population, they’re eventually released, they come out onto the street, and a lot of them, and for a lot of states throughout the country, when I was with the Maryland, at times, it approached 70% of the people coming into the prison systems were already on parole and probation.  I’ve seen figures ranging anywhere from 50% to 70% of the prison intake are those people already on parole and probation, so that revolving door, that sense of life or prison or the criminal justice system on the installment plan seems to be alive and well in most states, so in essence, what I’m hearing is that what you all decided to do was to stop that cycle, to break that cycle, and it sounds like you’re focusing on specifically, is it nonviolent or violent offenders, but your principal goal is to get them involved in long term drug treatment?

Michael Brown:  Well the first thing, we want to recognize what were the biggest drivers, and the biggest driver in the population was drugs.  That entailed us making adjustments to our drug laws which hadn’t been made in many, many years, and to include provisions in those, which are going to drive these individuals, well first, it was going to drive those who are the users.  We definitely wanted to separate the traffickers, those who are truly involved in the criminal enterprise, the profiteers, and separate them from what you might call the peddlers, or just the abusers.  And we know that that’s how it breaks down.  We also needed, in Kentucky, because of our, and I don’t want to call it unique, but it definitely is different from, say, some of the other states we looked at, we have a diverse sort of drug problem.  Parts of our state, our drug problem is driven almost entirely by the abuse of prescription drugs.

Len Sipes:  Ah, that is different.

Michael Brown:  Pills that generally come in from other states.  Florida in particular, if you don’t mind me taking a shot at a governor I won’t name right now, but we have a large influx of prescription drugs that come in from other states, and they are having a devastating effect on one part of our state.  Other parts of our state, we see some of the more traditional things that involve meth, cocaine, or heroin to a certain extent, and then of course, you know, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Kentucky was the second largest eradicator of marijuana, which is probably our largest crop of any other state in the country.  So our drug laws had to be tailored to address this, you know, multifaceted issue, but going for a moment, just to go back to what you were saying about the returnees’ situation, I had it said, and I was actually called cavalier for saying this, even though it’s true, if my population today is right around 20,500, if they live long enough, all but about 105 of those individuals are going to get out of prison and are going to come back in those communities, and that is a percentage that the public doesn’t have.  The public perceives that individuals commit a crime, they get caught, they get prosecuted, and then they go away forever.  Well they don’t go away from us, and what we have to do is do something about those 95-99% that are coming back into that community.  You break that cycle, that’s where you make the real gains in public safety, you make real economic gains, because if you can turn a large segment of those folks back into productive citizens as opposed to where we supply all their needs, my medical budget is around $60 million just for our felony population.

Len Sipes:  Yeah, and people have no idea how difficult it is to run a huge prison system and how expensive it is to run a huge prison system.  I don’t, I just get the sense that people have no clue, but they’re finding out because of all of the controversy as to the money going in the correction systems, and people are saying, gee, wouldn’t this be better spent, in terms of other programs, but again, I reemphasize this, it’s just not a matter of dollars here, it’s just not a matter of reducing the correctional dollars, you’ve been able to cut the rate of recidivism back into the state of Kentucky for a 10-year low, and so you’re doing it and protecting public safety at the same time.

Michael Brown:  Well, that’s the ultimate goal.  That’s the win-win.  Obviously, public safety is our primary concern, but clearly, when you recognize that by breaking these cycles, and by decreasing that recidivism rate, the benefit there is, in fact, public safety, because that individual doesn’t go out and commit that crime, is not a bane on society anymore –

Len Sipes:  Right, and they’re huge savings in terms of crime, in terms of the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to track him down, to convict him, to put him back into the prison system, I mean, this is an ungodly expensive proposition, and what you’re doing is not just saving money, but there are fewer crimes being committed.

Michael Brown:  That’s the goal, and we are in a situation, we had, as you know, the states, our state certainly, we have to operate under a balanced budget, so we can’t spend more than we have.

Len Sipes:  We’re more than halfway through the program ladies and gentlemen.  I want to reintroduce Michael Brown, the Secretary of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet for the State of Kentucky.  The website, www.justice.ky.gov.  I’ll be giving out that website at the end of the program.  Okay, Mr. Secretary, we’ve set up everything, I think, I mean in terms of the 10-year low on recidivism, we’ve set up the fact that you’re trying to break the cycle, that you’re looking not at traffickers, but you’re looking specifically at the users, that you have a prescription drug problem and a marijuana problem there in the state of Kentucky, it sounds like you have across the board cooperation on the part of both sides of the political spectrum, the Republicans and the Democrats coming together and agreeing to this overall philosophy, so that part of it I’ve got correct, correct?

Michael Brown:  That is correct, and the recent bill that passed, which is House Bill 463, which Pew assisted us on, and that task force worked on, it passed our Senate, which is a Republican controlled Senate, unanimously, went back to the House of Concurrence and passed 96-1.  That’s an overwhelming approval for the work of the task force and recognition of the issues we have to deal with.  Now we should only be so cooperative on the other issues in the state, but at least on this one, we had virtual unanimity.

Len Sipes:  There’s an organization called Right On Crime, which is key Republicans at the national level who are coming together to endorse this concept, and a lot of individuals have said to themselves, okay, well this is no longer a Democratic issue, it’s no longer a Republican issue, it’s now a bipartisan issue.  They want the criminal justice system, they want we within the criminal justice system to be more effective and prove that effectiveness, and that is why I’m beating this point to death.  There are a lot of states who are doing this, and they’re starting to do it, and they’re examining it, and they’re putting money into programs in the prison system, and they’re putting money into the programs at the parole and probation level, but they haven’t yet produced data that shows a reduction in recidivism, and to the average person listening to this program, recidivism, again, are people coming back into the criminal justice system because they’ve either committed new crimes or technical violations, but as our people like to point out, a technical is a person doesn’t show up for supervision, that’s a technical violation, so the term  technical violation becomes minimized in the minds of some because it sounds trite, but if you don’t show up for supervision, or if you’re ordered to go into drug treatment and you don’t go or you don’t cooperate, those are technical violations as well, so some of this is a matter of taking greater risks with the individual that you have under supervision, that you don’t automatically send them back to prison, you try to stabilize him through programs in the community, and you understand that relapse and problems come with the supervision process, and just because you have 2 or 3, you don’t automatically send the person back to prison.  Do I have that correct?

Michael Brown:  That is correct.  In fact, some of the things that we had done in the budget bill, and that, which have been also codified in a new piece of legislation, is to give our parole and probation officers some additional tools to work with, including, for the first time here in Kentucky, some intermediate sanctions, where rather than, in the prior world, an individual would violate a condition of parole or probation, there would be a warrant issued, they’d be arrested, they’d go to jail, they’d sit in jail awaiting a process involving going before the administrative law judge, the administrative law judge, if they found probable cause, would then turn the case to the parole board, most of that time, that individual continued to sit in jail awaiting the outcome of it, and then if the parole board revoked, they’d go back to prison.  We found that a better way to approach some of those individuals, obviously, this doesn’t work for anybody, but is to make use of intermediate sanctions, and they can be a ramped up scale of sanctions, everything from, we’re going to put you on an electronic GPS monitoring device to make sure you don’t go where we told you not to go, maybe have that thing vibrate on your ankle as you approach some place where we know you’re likely to get back into trouble, or we can put you back in jail, but for limited periods of time without having to go through that whole process, so we don’t cut off whatever positive ties someone has created, either with a job or family connections when they have been outside of the institution, because as I’ve said, once they come back on that violation, statistics show us that they’re going to serve a longer period of time having violated than they served initially.

Len Sipes:  And the whole idea, I’m assuming, is one of the universal issues that states are struggling with, is that the question becomes, who do you want to be in, who do you want to occupy that prison bed?  Do you want a nonviolent offender who’s tied into drugs to occupy that prison bed, that very, very expensive prison bed, or do you want the violent offender, someone who’s posing a clear and present risk to public safety?  That dichotomy, I would imagine, exists in Kentucky as well, and I would imagine that was part of your discussions.

Michael Brown:  As was said many, many times during our hearings, and as we visited with all the stakeholders, we’ve got to differentiate between the people that we’re scared of and the people that we’re just mad at, and you know, once you get past being mad at these individuals, the key is what do we do, in many situations, to stop them from returning. Now Kentucky had been very fortunate, a few years back, we got one of the grants from the Second Chance Act, we had started our reentry program, we had started working with a new risk assessment tool, and in fact, that use of the risk assessment tool has been so successful that it’s built into the new legislation with the aim that we’re going to get that LSI used from Day 1 that someone comes in the system, so judges will eventually be looking at some of these factors when they’re making bail decisions, so that our pre-sentence officers are making use of that assessment as they give judges recommendations for sentencing, so that when an individual is processed into the institution, we have a lot of data available into what, if any, programs are going to work for a particular individual, and that’s far different from a shotgun effect that we used to take.  Our approach before, and I don’t blame anybody for this, this is not throwing a rock at the system, but it’s how you view your job, and our job before was to simply keep these people away from the public, count them and make sure you have the same number you started out in the morning when they go to bed at night, and then do it again.  Now some of our focus, both institutionally, and certainly in parole and probation, is to how can we prevent this particular individual from coming back to see us again?

Len Sipes:  Well, you’re going towards the larger scale, because that’s not just the state of Kentucky, again, this is something that every state in the United States is wrestling with, the attorney general, Eric Holder, the assistant attorney general, Laurie Robinson, the folks at the U.S. Department of Justice, the people who are trying to develop this whole sense of justice reinvestment, which is essentially, if you save money in terms of people coming back into prisons, the states would put more of that money, so if you save the state, any state, $50 million, and the fact that you didn’t send that many people back, a certain amount of that $50 million would go back into programs and go back into efforts to keep people from coming back into the system, so this is a larger, this is not just a conversation for the state of Kentucky, this is a conversation that’s happening in virtually every statehouse in the country, and again, not to beat a dead horse, but you’re the one who’s proven that you can reduce recidivism.  Other states have reduced recidivism, but you hit a 10 year low.  That’s what intrigued me, and that’s why, one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you.

Michael Brown:  Well, and again, a lot of it is, you know, I hate to use the cliché, if you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.  But if you go around and you really get a focused effort in, these are very smart, dedicated professionals, and it’s simply a matter of saying, here’s what our goal is, this is what our mission is going to be in this situation, and believe me, most of our probation and parole officers, they don’t want to just be in the arrest business.  They don’t want to be, they would rather have people succeed, because when they do these home visits, and when they do these assessments, they run up against everyone else who’s touched by these individuals, and it’s much, much better that these individuals succeed than fail on the outside.

Len Sipes:  I’ll give you one example.  In the state of Maryland, where we had a person come out of the prison system, his wife let him come back home, he was getting along well with the wife, getting along well with the kids, he was working, and he was making his restitution, and he was going to substance abuse therapy, he was doing everything that you want him to do, and yet he celebrated by getting high.  He celebrated his successes by getting high, and there’s a certain point where the 4th, 5th, 6th positive drug test, I mean, you have to sit down with him and say to him, look, you’re about to blow the whole thing.  We’re about to send you back to prison, there’s a certain point we have no choice.  You know, when you have a couple more, and then finally, we were able to intervene, and he finally stopped celebrating his successes by getting high, but if that person had committed a crime while that happened, the newspapers would have come to us and said you knew he was doing drugs, why didn’t you put him back in prison?  That’s a big dilemma for people at the state level, that’s a big dilemma for us all within the criminal justice system, because we are taking somewhat increased risks with the people that we have under supervision.

Michael Brown:  Well, and that’s where, as I said, the beauty of this law, it’s building in, and one other thing I do want to touch on is the reinvestment aspect, but it’s building in a way to make these risk assessments.  Nothing is going to be 100% perfect.  But the key is, rather than, sometimes our intuition is just flat wrong.  We think that, oh, that looks like a great program.  Why?  Well, it would work for me.  Well maybe your criminogenic factors are not the same as the people you’re actually dealing with.  So it might work for you, we’ve proven that it doesn’t work for this population that we have been locking up, so let’s use what works for them.  One of the things that 463, this bill did, it codified a way to return some of the money that’s saved back into the reentry systems, and into our local jails and counties.  Kentucky also has a fairly unique, when I say fairly unique, it’s just us and Louisiana, where one third of my felon population resides in our county jails.  So if we don’t find a way to enhance the programs and what’s going on in those county jails, we also miss an opportunity to cut this recidivism rate, and thereby not take the fullest advantage of our public safety dollars.  So 25% of the projected savings from one of our efforts, and please remind me, please ask me about the mandatory supervision provision in this bill, which I think is the key.

Len Sipes:  Well, go ahead and say that, but we only have about 30 seconds left, so we have to wrap up soon.

Michael Brown:  Well, in wrapping up, then, I’d say one of the key parts of the bill is, we recognized that the early part of failure happens in those 6-9 months, so we’re going to put in a program where the last 6 months of an individual’s sentence are now under mandatory supervision with probation and parole.

Len Sipes:  There you go.

Michael Brown:  We’re very excited about that.

Len Sipes:  Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been talking to Secretary Michael Brown, who has just focused, refocused an entire criminal justice system focusing on high risk offenders, being sure that they’re incarcerated, and taking some chances, and actually doing, getting some great results in terms of a 10-year low in his recidivism rate for everybody else.  He’s saved the state and the collective wisdom has saved the state literally, millions of dollars, so Secretary Michael Brown, we congratulate you on these successes.  Again, if you want to take a look at the website for the state of Kentucky, it’s www.justice.ky.gov.  Ladies and gentlemen, this is DC Public Safety.  I’m your host, Leonard Sipes.  I want everybody to have yourselves a very, very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

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Television Program available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/video/2011/01/successful-offenders-%E2%80%93-dc-public-safety-television/

We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov or at Twitter at http://twitter.com/lensipes.

[Video Begins]

Len Sipes:  Hi, and welcome to D.C. Public Safety.  I’m your host, Leonard Sipes.  You know, every year, over 700,000 human beings are released from prison systems throughout the United States, and you’re well aware of the failures, the 50% within 3 years who are returned to the prison systems.  You read about them in your newspapers, you’re exposed to them through radio and television, but the question is, what about the other 50%?  The 50% who do not return back to the prison system?  To talk about the successes, if you will, we have four individuals under supervision with my agency, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency in Washington, D.C.  We’re a federal parole and probation agency.  We’re going to talk to four individuals currently under supervision for people who have turned the corner, who have crossed that bridge, who are now successes, who are no longer tax burdens, they are now taxpayers.  And on our first segment, I want to introduce India Frazier and Tracy Marlow, and to India and to Tracy, welcome to D.C. Public Safety.

Tracy Marlow:  Thank you, Len.

Len Sipes:  All right, we’ve had a wonderful conversation before the television show, before filming this show today, about what it is, the stereotypes, when people think of the term “criminal,” “convict,” and they have this image that immediately comes to their mind in terms of what ex-offenders are.  Now in the first segment, the two of you, then we’ll have a couple guys in the second segment, but that’s the issue, is it not, Tracy?  That stereotype that people have of you.  I was watching the other night a couple television shows, just flipping through the channel: National Geographic and A&E, and they had shows about people in prison, and the public comes away with that, saying, thinking that everybody who touches the prison system, they don’t want to hire them, they don’t want to fund programs for them, they don’t want to give them a second chance, they stereotype them.  Are you that person that they stereotype?

Tracy Marlow:  Yes I am.  I’m one of those people that they stereotype.  Society always publicizes what we have done, the bad things we have done, but nobody shows what the good things we are doing now.  What I was, and what I am today is two different people.  I have my own business now.

Len Sipes:  You’re going for your third ice cream truck.

Tracy Marlow:  My third ice cream truck.

Len Sipes:  Your third ice cream truck.  You’re your own business owner!  You have gone from prison to owning your own businesses!

Tracy Marlow:  Yes, yes.

Len Sipes:  That’s amazing!

Tracy Marlow:  With the help of CSOSA and some groups and other people backing me up in my life, it was not on my own that I done this.  It’s not because, I’ve been turned down on jobs so many times, but one person gave me a chance on a job.

India Frazier:  But when you go through your struggles in life, if anything’s ever given to you so quickly, so fast, and easy, you’re not going to appreciate it.  You’re not going to hold onto it, you’re not going to build to the next step.  You know what I’m saying?  So you have to go through your struggles.  You have to be patient.  And see, that’s what you were.

Tracy Marlow:  It comes in believing in yourself.  If you don’t believe in yourself, self-esteem is so important coming out of prison.  I didn’t believe in myself.  I thought what people, society say, you’re nothing, you’ve been in jail, you’re never going to be nothing.  I believed that for so many years until one day, I can’t tell you when I woke up, when I woke up and knew that I was somebody, and I worked on this, and I worked on this now, I’m my own business person.  I have people that work for me today, and I have to interview them now.  So now, the roles have changed, and I have people that’s been locked up, and you work with money with me, because I have ice cream trucks, and I don’t want to be like the public was with me.  So I have to interview these people, and I have to give them a chance, and you deal with a lot of money some days, and I say, wow, God, just give me the strength.  Now I haven’t been robbed.  And some ones have been good and bad, but somebody gave them a chance like they gave me.

Len Sipes:  And I think that’s the point, in terms of the fact that, okay, 50% do go back, 50% don’t, but nobody ever tells the story of the 50% that don’t, and that’s what we’re going to start doing today.  India, set up a little bit about your experience, if you will, please.

India Frazier:  Well, my experience is, my experience came when I was, first and foremost, I asked God to change my life.  Give me a direction that I needed to go into.  And I set goals in my life, and then when I came home and I looked into the eyes of my grandson, it was not an option for me to go back to the streets.  It was so easy, it’s so easy to fall back into that life, you know what I’m saying?  And like I was telling Tracy a minute ago, you have to go through trials and tribulations and struggles to get where you need to go or get where you need to be, so I went through my changes, you know, but unlike you, I’ve always believed in me.  I knew I was supposed to accomplish the things that I am accomplishing today.  As of right now, I’m driving, I work through the leaf season and snow season for DPW, the Department of Public Works.

Len Sipes:  DPW, the Department of Public Works.

India Frazier:  Yes, sir.

Len Sipes:  In the city of Washington D.C.

India Frazier:  In the city of Washington D.C, and I have a CDL Class A –

Len Sipes:  Okay, Commercial Driver’s License.

India Frazier:  Yes, sir.

Len Sipes:  Go ahead.

India Frazier:  Yes, sir.  And I know I can drive.  I love doing what I do.  You know what I’m saying?  And I love coming home to my family and seeing that my grandson and my daughter’s okay, and I love knowing that my grandmother’s fine.  These are the people that believed in me and pushed me to do and be all that I can be, and then I have, Dr. Butler and Miss Ishman, who is my direct parole officer, and she inspires me.  I mean, it’s not a point in time that I can’t pick up that phone and call Miss Ishman and say, Miss Ishman, so and so, and so and so, well, Miss Frazier, let’s look at it like this.  I might be upset, and then I’ll call her, and then she’ll just get it, she’ll just iron things out for me.

Tracy Marlow:  You built a network up.

India Frazier:  I built my network.

Tracy Marlow:  And that’s what we need to know in society is you can make it if you build a network up.

India Frazier:  – people believe in you and give you that chance.  See, this is it.  You can’t look at me based on a television program, or you can’t understand who I am until you get to know who I am, until you sit down and talk to me and find out who I am, and that despite something happening 10 years ago, it’s where I’m standing at today.

Len Sipes:  But society doesn’t give us that opportunity.  If society is going to say ex-con, criminal, I don’t like you, I’m not funding programs for you, I’m not going to give you a second chance, I don’t want you in this job, and I understand, all three of us understand the fears of the public.  How can you not watch evening television without understanding the fears of the public?  But what do you want to tell the public directly?  What are the key things that you need the public to understand, because you’re not one of the failures, you’re one of the successes, but yet, you’re still facing the same baggage.  So what do you want to tell the public?

Tracy Marlow:  I want to tell the public, don’t look at what I’ve done, look at what I’m doing.  My past is my past, and only we’re going to leave it behind if you give me a chance.  All I’m asking for is a chance.  I’m not saying that I’m going to be perfect.  I’m not going to sit here and tell this, oh, I’m going to be a perfect and never do this, but I’m going to live for today and try to do the best I can do in society under society laws.  It’s not breaking up anymore.

Len Sipes:  Right. India? And what do you tell society?

India Frazier:  I have to tell society that you can’t base my life today on my past.  I’m a totally different person.  I’ve worked hard to get where I am today, and don’t look at me and make a judgment call on what’s on paper.  Look at me and make a judgment call on how I carry myself.

Len Sipes:  We only have a couple minutes left.  My heavens, this segment just flew by like wildfire!  What is instrumental in your lives?  Was it programs, you mentioned, Tracy, the group, or India, you mentioned the group process through Dr. Butler.  What is it, drug treatment programs, job programs, what is it that we need to help you and others like you cross that bridge?

Tracy Marlow:  Drug treatment first, program, and aftercare.  After we come out of treatment, you need some aftercare.  You need sessions, groups.  The  group that Dr. Butler runs is wonderful.  Somebody’s talking about everyday life.  We need to know about every, going on in your life, this life, productive other people in life.  We need groups and more programs.

Len Sipes:  If we had sufficient numbers of programs, how many additional people could we create, if you will, taxpayers instead of tax burdens?  How many additional people would cross that bridge over to the taxpaying side of the coin?

India Frazier:  You would probably have, maybe, at least 25% more instead of a 50% going back in, you might have 25% more.  I’m not going to say 50%, because, you know, like Tracy said, it’s not, everybody’s not perfect.  Everybody’s not ready to live that right life.  You know what I’m saying?  Everybody’s trying, some people try to find the easy way out.  But you would have at least 25% turnover.  I would say at least 60-75% wouldn’t go back.

Len Sipes:  If society was willing to look at you as individuals, especially in terms of jobs, and if the programs were available, would that make a significant difference in terms of how many people go back to prison and how many people commit additional crimes?

Tracy Marlow:  Of course.

India Frazier:  Definitely, yes!

Tracy Marlow:  Definitely!

India Frazier:  I mean, you have jobs in the District of Columbia that, for real, for real, could save a lot of people’s lives.  People gotta eat!  You’ve got to feed your family!  You know what I’m saying?  You’ve got to pay your rent!  You know, the rent lady don’t want to hear about, you can’t pay your rent because you couldn’t find a job.  You’ve got to pay your rent.  So what you going to do?  You’re going to go out there and do something stupid and go right back to where you were.  So if you have these openings within the District for these ex-offenders, or parole, probation, you know what I’m saying, that would gear them towards working harder toward accomplishing things they need to accomplish, the goals they need to accomplish.  It worked for me.

Len Sipes:  I think the point is, is that, again, we hear the failures.  We are never exposed to the successes.  I’ve spent 40 years in the criminal justice system, 30 years talking to people caught up in the criminal justice system.  I see a lot of success stories.  But those success stories are simply never told.  That’s one of the reasons we’re doing this program today, is to talk about the fact that there are successes.

Tracy Marlow:  Yes, it is.  It is.  And I’m definitely one of them, and the best is yet to come!  Because I’m not finished.  I have kids, I’m raising kids, and they are not going through the system!  They are not going to go through the system.  I am raising them to understand that, if you break the law, these are the options that happen.  We have to break the cycle.  The cycle has to be broken.

Len Sipes:  And the cycle is broken when mom comes out of the prison system, gets programs, gets treatment, gets a job, and the case, your case, your own three ice cream trucks, you didn’t let anybody stand in your way, Tracy!  And you’re saving, not just yourself, you’re saving your kids.  India, you’re doing the same thing.

India Frazier:  Yeah, I love my family.  I love my family, and my grandson, he’s the most inspirational power, power behind every move I make, because I want him, I don’t want him to go through what I went through, you know what I’m saying?  I can’t make the choices for him down the line, but I don’t want him to go through what I went through, and I’m going to give him and push him, I say, lead by example, and the rest will follow.

Len Sipes:  Right.  Now, again, so many people come out of the prison system, and they say, Mr. Sipes, or Leonard, I’m not going to go back.  I’m not going back, I’m not going back, I’m not going back.  6 months later, they’re back.  Now that’s a reality.  There are individuals who cannot make it, or they’re not ready to make it in society, and they go back to the prison system.  So we have to acknowledge that.  Again, part of the fears and the perceptions on the part of the public, but I’ve encountered, again, hundreds, thousands of people just like yourselves.  One out of every 45 individuals caught up in the criminal justice system are in, I’m sorry, one out of every 45 people in the community are caught up currently in the criminal justice system.  That’s like one out of 20 minimum, if you count people who have been caught up in the criminal justice system in the past.  That means that all of us are running into offenders and ex-offenders and people caught up in the criminal justice system every day!  By the scores!  We’re running into lots of people.  I mean, is the question, do we want them to get the mental health treatment, do we want them to have drug treatment, do we want them to be involved in programs, do we want them to be employed, or do we want to interact with these individuals without those programs, and without those skills?

India Frazier:  Well, if you don’t implement programs, if you don’t implement treatment, you don’t set aside a certain amount of money or set aside programs to help these people take their life and create a new person within, you know what I’m saying, or guide them, or steer them towards the goals they need to go towards, you’re going to keep on having a return rate of 50%, you know what I’m saying?  So yeah, we need mental health.  We need drug treatment.  We need voc rehab.  We need certain little groups that Dr. Butler be having.  You know, you need all of these things because they’re reconditioning your mind to go towards what you need to go towards to be a better person.

Len Sipes:  The final minute, Tracy, in terms of, we’ve heard Dr. Willa Butler several times throughout the program.  She runs a women’s group where people who have been in the prison system as women offenders, they come together, they talk about their issues, they talk about how to solve their issues, that’s tough.  You’ve got only a couple seconds.

Tracy Marlow:  Yes it is.  Yes, because that is very powerful, because women need women, and when you talk in them groups, you get real deep.  You talk about some personal things that’s going on, because one thing, to deal with a person that’s on mental health status, is really something, because first thing society, oh, they crazy!  People have complications, anxieties, pressures in the world, and they can’t cope with it and deal with it, all they need is somebody to talk to, and these groups are very important.

Len Sipes:  And that’s the point that I wanted to make.  Thank you, ladies, for being on the first segment.  Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for sticking with us as we explore this whole issue of offenders coming out of the prison system who make it, who become taxpayers, not tax burdens.  Look for us in the second segment as we continue to explore this topic with two additional guests.  Please stay with us.

[music playing]

Len Sipes:  Hi, welcome back to D.C. Public Safety.  I continue to be your host, Leonard Sipes.  Our guests today on the second segment are Cortez McDaniel and Donald Zimmerman, both individuals currently under the supervision of my agency, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency.  As I explained in the first segment, we are a federally funded, a parole and probation agency here in Washington, D.C.  The concept is people being released from prison.  50% go back after 3 years, they go back to the prison system, but 50% don’t.  The story of the 50% who don’t go back just doesn’t seem to be told.  Again, you’re exposed every day to the media about the stories of people caught up in the criminal justice system who do go back, you’re never exposed to the fact that there are lots of individuals who don’t.  To talk about that, Cortez and Donald, welcome to D.C. Public Safety, and Cortez, we’re going to start with you in terms of the second segment, and what is it that you think the public needs to understand about people coming back from the prison system?  I mean, they say the word convict, they say the word ex-con, they have another vision in their mind.  I’m not quite sure they have you in mind.  Correct or incorrect?

Cortez McDaniel:  That’s probably correct.  What I would have the public to think about is how they’d like to be associated with us as homecomers.  We like to refer to returning citizens as homecomers, and understand that these folks are coming home anyway, whether you like it or whether you don’t.  Now how the public is associated with them is kind of up to the society as to how they accept them back.  They need to understand the impact that we’re capable of having on society in a positive way, the value that we have, the talent that we have is a very, very large talent pool, and a large number of men who are very capable of being productive members of society.

Len Sipes:  Okay, and I think one of the reasons, in terms of doing this program, they come to my mind, is employment.  There’s literally thousands of individuals under our supervision at Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency who would make perfectly good employees out of the 16,000 on any given day.  They are years away from their crimes, they are years away from their last substance, positive substance abuse test.  But they can’t find work, and they’re having trouble finding work, and that makes it difficult for them, it makes it difficult for us.  To me, that stereotype of ex-con, ex-offender, is the barrier.  So what do you say to people in terms of, in terms of that?  They have this sense that, you’ve been in the prison system, I don’t want to hire you, that’s all there is to it.  I’ve got lots of people to choose from, you were there, you’re not getting this job.  What do you say to that person?

Cortez McDaniel:  Well, I would ask them to actually look at forgiveness and what that encompasses.  If a person has served their amount of time that they’ve been given to serve in prison, if they’ve done that, and they’ve successfully completed that, and they come out, and they do the things that they need to be doing in terms of supervision, then there’s absolutely no reason why this person doesn’t deserve to be able to experience some quality of life themselves.

Len Sipes:  Now Cortez, I’m completely at fault, I didn’t properly introduce you when you came onto the program.  You were with who?  What is your job today?

Cortez McDaniel:  Again, my name is Cortez McDaniel, I’m a transitional coordinator with the Father McKenna Center.

Len Sipes:  Okay, and what is the Father McKenna Center?

Cortez McDaniel:  The Father McKenna Center is a daytime service for homeless men, underprivileged men of Washington, D.C., predominantly African American men who come in for our services during the course of a day.  What we do is we assess men, and we act as a triage to link people up with whatever their needs might be, whether it be drug and alcohol rehabilitation, whether it be mental health services, housing issues, whatever the issues might be, we try to work with them and link them up with agencies that will help them in that direction.

Len Sipes:  Did you have a hard time getting that job?

Cortez McDaniel:  Actually, the way I got that job is I’m also core counsel person on the, with the Phelps Stokes National Homecomers’ Academy, and we were asked, as a result of a newspaper article, to send some people over to speak to that group of men, and once we were there, the people, the administration in place there were pretty impressed with what we had to offer, and so a relationship started with me there –

Len Sipes:  And that’s how you ended up getting the job.

Cortez McDaniel:  That’s exactly right.

Len Sipes:  Okay, Donald, you’re with the same operation, correct?

Donald Zimmerman:  Yes, sir.

Len Sipes:  And tell me a little bit about your story.  You came out of the prison system, and what happened?

Donald Zimmerman:  Well, I came out of the prison system, and initially when I came home, I was a general manager of a trucking company –

Len Sipes:  Before or after?

Donald Zimmerman:  This was after my incarceration.

Len Sipes:  Okay.  How did you get a job as a general manager of a trucking company?

Donald Zimmerman:  Some friends of the family, you know, they just –

Len Sipes:  Okay.  You had family connections.

Donald Zimmerman:  Yeah.  They just hired me on, and I learned the business, and I was doing that for a while until the economy folded, and then I went to school to be a chef, so now I’m currently working at a Hospital through a temporary agency called Food Team, and I do temporary cook positions there, but –

Len Sipes:  Can I get into the larger issue?  I started off with the larger issue before a proper introduction of both of you, of once again, the stereotype.  Now I’m not going to be upset with society about their stereotypes.  With the ladies on the first segment, I was watching television, I turned to the National Geographic channel of all channels, and then there was a story about guys in prison, and then I’m flipping through the channels, and there’s the Arts & Entertainment channel, there’s another story about guys in prison, and I sat back and said, you know, if that’s the public’s perception of people caught up in the criminal justice system, there’s no hope.  The story they’re telling was a perfectly accurate story.  They weren’t being dishonest, but it scares people.  The evening news scares people.  What happens when they read their newspapers scares people, and then we have the two of you, and you’re not scary.  So what does the public need to understand about this issue of people coming out of the prison system?  What does the public need to understand to get them to support programs or to get them to give you a chance at a job?

Donald Zimmerman:  The first thing that the public needs to realize is that we’re human, and that we have made mistakes like everyone in life, and we have learned to overcome our mistakes.  They have to learn to accept us and give us that second chance, as if, like a parent would do with their child.  They say, once you finish your prison sentence, that your debt is paid to society.  But is that truly happening?  We tend to have labels put on us like ex-cons and ex-felons, see, but the thing is, you have to take all them labels away and recognize that I am a man and I am a woman and I will stand for something, and I will push, by any means necessary, I will be accepted, and with that positive attitude, only good things will happen.

Cortez McDaniel:  I don’t want to take away from that, the homecomer’s obligation to change their whole approach to life, their whole thought process, and matter of fact, before I came home, about three years actually before I came home, I wrote a book called recidivism prevention workbook.  For people that don’t know, recidivism is commonly used to describe the tendency of a person who’s been convicted of a crime to relapse or return back to criminal behavior.

Len Sipes:  That’s a wonderful –

Cortez McDaniel:  So I thought about that through my own life, and I thought of how valuable it could be to a lot of men.  So in a sense, in my own life, I realize that my whole thought process had deteriorated into how my approach to life was a way of criminal thinking, and so I had to change my principal system, my moral judgment, everything about that had to be looked at, and I had to be man enough and willing to change that.  So I started, I don’t like to use program again, because it’s beginning and end to that, but I started this class that encompassed criminal thinking and criminal behavior, and it was very successful in prison, and I came out here in society with the same ideology that we are capable of being refocused, and that we have a responsibility to approach life differently.

Len Sipes:  How many people who come out of the prison system come out of the prison system with that understanding?  Lots of people who have told me, I’m getting out, and when I used to work inside the prison system, I’m getting out, and I’m not going back, came back.

Donald Zimmerman:  Well you have a lot of –

Len Sipes:  Came back pretty quickly.

Donald Zimmerman:  Well, you have a lot of men and women who come out with the intent that they’re not going to go back, but when they get out and they see the situation that they’re, no jobs, or they don’t want to accept a job, because I have the notion that there are jobs, people just don’t want to go work at McDonald’s, don’t want to go work at Wendy’s, whereas when you were in the federal prison system, you work for $5.25 a month.  So with that being said, they see their situations, and they don’t have that support system on the outside that will reeducate.  See, one, you have to reeducate yourself into, like, your morals and your values, saying, you know, positive things to you, like, you know, you can do better, you can find a job.  It’s not how much money you make, it’s what you do with the money you make.  You know, when you start to understand the simpler things in life and start, you know, understanding true happiness and just knowing that you have to, you know, first, that you’re on probation or parole, you have to first comply, take it one situation at a time, then you can move to the next step.  Once you start to comply, then you can start going to your meetings, then you can start building relationships, and then eventually, as time progress, you will start to reeducate yourself with better understanding and more.

Len Sipes:  Okay, so the point in all of this is that, if you are willing to go through that process, and if you’re willing to seek help, you can cross that bridge.  You can go from the tax burden to the taxpayer.  You can be employed, but it’s really upon you if you, and how much –

Cortez McDaniel:  Well, the support system is very, very necessary.

Len Sipes:  That’s the point I want –

Cortez McDaniel:  And that’s, with Phelps Stokes, that’s what we’re all about at Phelps Stokes, the Homecomers’ Academy.  That’s what we’re all about is providing a support system for a homecomer that lets them understand that, and helps to reinforce these ideologies in him and helps him understand that he has certain responsibilities that he needs to live up to, but also that he’s not alone, that he has some support and some assistance in getting to where he needs to get to.  A lot of times, people will come out of prison with, have purposed themselves never to go back, but they get out, and the support falls through.  A lot of times people have become estranged from their families for different reasons, and they don’t, they lack people who care or people who are willing to take a chance on them.

Len Sipes:  And that’s what the ladies said during the first segment.  If you’ve got that group of people who can support you emotionally and get you through this process, that really does increase the chances of you doing well.

Cortez McDaniel:  Absolutely.

Len Sipes:  Okay.  So the point is this.  The final minutes of the program is that what I said on the first segment is that there are thousands of you guys out there struggling, but they’re ready to make that move.  They’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.  They’re sick and tired of being caught up in the criminal justice system.  They would be good employees, they would be good citizens.  There’s a certain point where society does have to recognize who is at risk and who’s trying, who’s struggling and who’s trying to make it, correct?  I mean, that is incumbent upon employers and incumbent upon people, I mean, we have to fund a certain amount of programs to help people cross that bridge.  Am I right or wrong?

Cortez McDaniel:  Well, yeah.  I think we have to have entities.  Like I said, I don’t like to use the word program, because when I talk about a program, I’m talking about a beginning and an end.

Len Sipes:  And this is lifelong.

Cortez McDaniel:  But we believe in relationships, and we believe in those relationships being everlasting –

Donald Zimmerman:  Brotherhoods and sisterhoods.

Cortez McDaniel:  The dynamic may change as things evolve, but we believe those relationships are important –

Len Sipes:  And the same with the research on Delancey Street out in San Francisco 25 years ago.  That’s exactly what they said in terms of the former offenders coming together as a group to help each other out.  So that’s the bottom line.

Donald Zimmerman:  What we need is real people dealing with real problems trying to find real solutions.

Len Sipes:  Okay.  And you’ve got the final word.  Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve come in contact with Cortez McDaniel and Donald Zimmerman.  This is D.C. Public Safety.  We really appreciate the fact that you’ve been with us today to explore this very important topic of people who are successes who have come out of the prison system, and yet at the same time made successes of themselves.  We appreciate your attention, and please stick with us and watch for us next time as we explore another very important topic in the criminal justice system.  Have yourselves a very, very pleasant day.

[Video Ends]

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[Audio Begins]

Len Sipes: From our nation’s capital, this is DC Public Safety. I’m your host, Leonard Sipes. Today, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to talk about drug courts. Drug courts seem to have a pretty impressive research history from the U.S. Department of Justice and other sources essentially stating that people involved in the drug court process do well, better than the people who do not go to drug court, people involved in substance abuse, they go to drug court, they interact with the judge, they interact with supervision staff, and generally speaking, the outcomes are positive. To talk about the program that we have here at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, we have two principals with us today. Carline Claudomir and Amanda Rocha, they’re both community supervision officers assigned to our drug court, but before we get into the program, our usual commercial, we are up to 220,000 requests for DC Public Safety radio, television, blog, and transcripts. If you need to get in touch with us, and we really appreciate all of the emails, we really appreciate all of the comments in the comment line, and whether it’s criticisms, or whether it’s platitudes, we embrace whatever it is that you have to say to us, and we take it very seriously, and we appreciate all the suggestions in terms of future programs, you can get in touch with me directly via email: Leonard, L-E-O-N-A-R-D – dot-sipes – S-I-P-E-S – @csosa.gov, or you can follow us via twitter at twitter.com/lensipes or you can go to the site itself, www.csosa.gov and look for the radio and television programs, or you can go to media.csosa.gov directly and take a look at these programs and comment through the comment line and back to our guests, Carline Claudomir and Amanda Rocha, welcome to DC Public Safety.

Carline Claudomir: Hi, Len.

Amanda Rocha: Hi, Len.

Len Sipes: All right, Carline. How many times did I butcher that first name? And last name? Carline Claudomir!

Carline Claudomir: Yes.

Len Sipes: Okay. And I know I’m going to get the emails saying, Leonard, you can not pronounce names correctly! Amanda, you’ve been before our microphones before, correct?

Amanda Rocha: I have, Len.

Len Sipes: You’ve done some other stuff for us.

Amanda Rocha: Yes, I have.

Len Sipes: All right, so you’re star of stage and screen.

Amanda Rocha: Oh, no!

Len Sipes: And you’re very used to the microphone process. Drug courts. You know, ladies, the research on drug courts is positive, Carline, and the first question’s going to go to you. The research is positive. Drug courts do seem to work. Individuals going into the drug court process do seem to do fairly well. The whole idea behind, or the history of drug courts, for the audience, was to try to provide an alternative to incarceration, and an alternative to doing nothing. If you take a look at national research, out of all of the offenders caught up in the criminal justice system, 11% get drug treatment.

Carline Claudomir: Yes.

Len Sipes: Now, the overwhelming majority of people caught up in the criminal justice system do not get drug treatment. That’s amazing to me. That’s amazing to me, considering all the social ills that are out there. But here, what we do is provide drug treatment, and in some cases, we simply provide supervision services. We do whatever is necessary to stabilize that person with a substance abuse history, correct?

Carline Claudomir: You’re correct.

Len Sipes: All right, tell me about it.

Carline Claudomir: My name is Carline Claudomir, and I work with the STAR/HIDTA team. STAR/HIDTA stands for Sanction Team for Addiction Recovery. Our program entails the clients being assigned by either their judge and their attorney, or coming through transfer from other teams at CSOSA, or through our pre-trial drug program. Once they come to STAR/HIDTA, they are signing a contract stating that there are a number of things that they will and will not do while on probation, and they understand that there’s immediate consequences for any positive drug test or noncompliant behavior.

Len Sipes: Okay, so if they screw up, there are immediate consequences –

Carline Claudomir: Absolutely.

Len Sipes: – and that’s what seems to work, correctly?

Carline Claudomir: Yes, it’s the blessing and the curse for some of the clients.

Len Sipes: Because we need to understand that people with substance abuse histories, shall I say, always screw up. Recovery, problems are part of the recovery process, so it’s not, go to drug court and never do drugs again. It’s go to drug court and work with that person as that person faces their addiction history and relearns how to live life without drugs.

Carline Claudomir: Yes, and a lot of times, when they come to us, they sit, stand up in court before the judge and say, Your Honor, yes, I want to do probation, Your Honor, yes, I want treatment, then they come to the office, and then they reread the contract and realize it’s not only treatment!

Len Sipes: Oh, my heavens! What have I gotten myself involved in?

Carline Claudomir: Yes, it’s treatment and sanctions, so if you continue to use drugs, unfortunately, there are jail sanctions involved, which are treatment, tough love all the way.

Len Sipes: You’re tough love all the way, but that’s what is necessary. Amanda Rocha, in terms of that sense of tough love, correct?

Amanda Rocha: Yes, absolutely. It really does help to have that median sanctioning, because it puts a little fear in the offenders so that they don’t go back and use, it gives them that second thought before deciding to use, oh, that’s three nights in jail if I go ahead and do that, or oh, you know what? I’m on my fourth sanction or fifth sanction, and now it’s seven nights in jail. So they don’t want to continue going back and forth. It gets old for them to have to do that, and so kind of helps them along the way a little bit.

Len Sipes: Well, I think it’s important for people to understand just that, because, you know, this whole concept of treatment, the research is pretty clear that the reason why most people don’t get drug treatment is not its availability or lack of availability. The principal reason for why people don’t get drug treatment is that they don’t feel they need drug treatment, and in many cases, in terms of the criminal justice system, we basically coerce them into a) getting drug treatment, b) sticking with it because of the sanctions along the way. If you have a positive urine, we don’t care if it’s for marijuana, we don’t care what it’s for. If you have a positive urine, this is what’s going to happen to you, and those punishments, if you will, are going to increase as you continue your substance abuse, correct?

Carline Claudomir: It’s the accountability factor, and a lot of times, they come to us never having to be held accountable for their drug use, never had to be held accountable for their actions, and when they come to us, they realize every time they mess up, there is no passes, there are no passes, so immediately, you go see the judge, and you can explain to the judge why you felt it was okay to make this decision, regardless of the consequences.

Len Sipes: You know, the interesting thing is that there’s an increasing number of research programs out there, studies that, interestingly enough, it’s the judge who seems to be at the centerpoint of a lot of these mental health courts, substance abuse courts, reentry courts, there’s something magical about the judge being involved in this process, I think.

Carline Claudomir: It’s the authority, because if I say he needs treatment and the judge says he needs treatment, that holds a lot of weight. You don’t want to go to a judge and say, no, he doesn’t need treatment. No, it doesn’t work that way. The judge says he needs it, then you’re going to listen, because they’re in the midst of the battle.

Len Sipes: Okay. Now it’s extraordinarily confusing for the people of this audience, because it goes way beyond Washington D.C. 20% of our audience is international, and the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area is not our top city in terms of people listening to this program. So we have to explain that under the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, administratively, we have an entity called pre-trial services who are their own independent agency with their own board and their own mission, but they fall under the generic auspices of the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, both are federalized, and they also have a drug court program focusing on pretrial individuals, correct?

Carline Claudomir: Yes.

Len Sipes: Okay, and I know you can’t speak for them, but in essence, the gig is that the person goes before a judge, and if he completes, or she completes the provisions of the drug court program, the charges are dropped.

Carline Claudomir: It has an affect on the charges or what is actually ending sentencing.

Len Sipes: All right, there you go. It has an effect. You should be a public affairs officer. But ours, what we’re talking about is post-conviction. We’re talking about probationers.

Amanda Rocha: Yes.

Carline Claudomir: Yes.

Len Sipes: Okay, and the probationers, we’re talking about, the incentive here is early termination, it’s where the judge or the attorney feels that this person has a substance abuse background, not necessarily currently doing drugs, but having a substance abuse background, and this person may not be new to the criminal justice system. This person may have multiple arrests and multiple contacts with the criminal justice system, correct?

Amanda Rocha: That is correct. We have people who are 18-years-old up until, well into their 60s, so yeah, it could be somebody who is their first charge, or it could be somebody who’s, it’s their 20th.

Len Sipes: Right, and that part, by the way, the process in terms of people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s and older. I’ve had a chance to encounter them, in terms of the write-alongs that I’ve done with our folks, and that’s sad, don’t you think? I mean, when you walk into this apartment of this guy who’s been through heroin, who’s been through crack, I mean, these older heroin addicts, these older coke guys, you know, they just have the hardest time staying away from drugs. It’s just amazing to me to go into the home of a 50-year-old and 60-year-old because they continue to do drugs.

Carline Claudomir: Can I go back to the incentive process?

Len Sipes: Yes.

Carline Claudomir: I always hear the biggest incentives for our program is the fact that you can come off of drugs, and you can be successful in the community without using illicit substances. We actually have a client right now, he is part of the TAP program, but we also see some of those clients sometimes, and he’s working, he’s successful, he’s drug free. That is the biggest incentive. Most of our clients, however, see early termination, and that’s their goal, and they don’t actually think of, to get there, I have to also be drug free.

Len Sipes: Here’s my guess, and either one of you, feel free to tell me whether I’m right or wrong. My guess is that they think that they’re entering this program, and the early termination is the only thing that’s on their mind, and getting off of drugs is way, way, way, way, way back on the list of –

Carline Claudomir: – priorities.

Len Sipes: Yeah, priorities, because a lot of people, they’ve done drugs the good part of their lives. You know, 12, 13 years old, starting alcohol, 14, 15, starting marijuana, 16, 17, graduating to the harder drugs, a lot of these individuals that we supervise here at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, and this applies to any parole and probation agency in the country. You know, they work with people who don’t know how to live life without self-medication.

Carline Claudomir: And unfortunately, in their minds, they believe it’s recreational, even though they have a 20-year history of drug abuse and treatment situations, they still believe it’s recreational, I can stop at any point in time.

Len Sipes: I can handle this.

Carline Claudomir: And unfortunately, when they get in front of, into the STAR/HIDTA program, and there’s consequences, and they realize, well I’m just going to jail because I can’t stop using, is that really worth it? And that’s when it may click in their mind, okay, I really do, I have a problem. I can’t do this on my own.

Len Sipes: We, we have this come to reality be, again, I’ve used other terms, but I don’t want to be disrespectful. Where that becomes a defining moment in their lives, does it not, that they have lived their life with the needle, lived their life with a powdery substance, lived their life smoking reefer, they really don’t know what to do without drugs.

Amanda Rocha: And I think, for example, we have somebody assigned to us right now. Her grandmother had a history, apparently she’s not using now, but of use. Her mother is actively using, and she’s a young girl, 19 years old, and is using, so that, not only has she been using for a good amount of her short life that she has had so far, but she also has been living with this substance abuse through her generations.

Len Sipes: Right. I guess that’s the point that I’m trying to get across to the audience, because we have this extraordinarily simplistic sense as to the problem that we have with people, the 16,000 people that we supervise on any given day, and most of the people in the audience that I talk to understand that out of the 7 million people under correctional supervision, 5 of those 7 million are on community supervision. So when we talk about corrections in this country, the overwhelming majority of these individuals are in the community being supervised in the community. The overwhelming majority of these individuals have substance abuse histories. The overwhelming majority of these individuals just don’t smoke a joint every couple weeks. That investment in drugs is a long term early age of onset life altering experience, but they don’t know how to have a life without drugs. So every time the boss gets in their face, they smoke a joint. Every time life takes a turn, the needle goes in their arm. That’s who they are, that’s what they are in terms of their own self definition. Now am I exaggerating, or am I in the ballpark?

Carline Claudomir: No, even when they’re successful, the way they celebrate is by using drugs!

Len Sipes: That’s right! They reward themselves. We had a case one time when I was with the Maryland Department of Public Safety. The guy comes out of prison, reunited with his family, he’s going to drug treatment, he’s working, he’s getting along with the kids, and he’s doing so well, that what he does is fire up a joint to celebrate! And he kept pulling positives for marijuana! First positive, second positive, third, fourth, fifth, sixth. Now there’s a certain point where we’re sitting down and saying, my man, you’re very close to going back to prison, and your wife let you come home, and the kids, you’re getting along with the kids, and you’re working every single day, and you’re going to drug treatment, and the drug treatment folks say that you’re progressing, and you’re within a hair’s breadth of going back to the prison system! What’s up with you?

Carline Claudomir: Well I have clients like that right now in my caseload. I had a client who, by some confusion, believed that her termination date was a month earlier, and so when I called her in, I said, I need you to come in and drug test, because I’m sorry, you actually terminate in May instead of April, and that drug test was positive for marijuana, and her explanation was, I thought I was off of probation! But she had not tested positive in close to 7 months!

Len Sipes: But that’s not the point!

Carline Claudomir: It’s not the point!

Len Sipes: So you, the criminal justice system, in essence, in these drug courts or other modalities that we have here at CSOSA, when we involve people in long term residential group substance abuse, that is, for the first time in their lives many of these individuals come face to face with the prospect of never using drugs again, and facing the prospect as to why they use drugs to begin with. That is a pretty scary place to be, is it not?

Amanda Rocha: I would think so, yeah. Some of the offenders have already had drug treatment, though, and this is their second time coming around, because like you were saying, it is a scary thought, so maybe that first time they weren’t open to it. They didn’t really reap the full benefits of receiving that treatment, so here they are, back in the criminal justice system, and we’re giving them another chance, and we’re hoping that this time, they are receptive, and they do keep that open mind, and they aren’t so put off by the whole idea of addressing that issue.

Len Sipes: We’re halfway through the program, ladies and gentlemen. This is DC Public Safety today. We’re talking about drug courts. We have two principals with us. We have Carline, let’s see if I can actually pronounce Carline’s last name correctly, Claudomir, and Amanda Rocha, both community supervision officers with drug court. Again, there are two drug courts in the District of Columbia, ours under the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, which is post-adjudication, which means the person’s on probation, and we also have one on the pretrial side of it, and the whole idea is, when the judge or the attorney takes a look at this individual’s background, they say that this person’s involvement in criminal activity is principally due to substance abuse, and that person may not be new to the criminal justice system. This may be the person’s fifth, sixth, seventh, twelfth time, but he has a substance abuse history, she has a substance abuse history, and what we try to do is to get them involved in treatment, but the interesting part of it is that treatment may not be the first stop, correct? We have other, we assess the individual –

Carline Claudomir: When they come in to this, the HIDTA drug program, initially, some clients actually are [INDISCERNIBLE] from either the pretrial or from a request from their judge. A lot of our clients come in, and we assess their drug, their current drug test to see, what level they would actually go into. Some clients come in and never drug test positive, and they had dealt with their issues prior to coming to –

Len Sipes: Or they make the voluntary decision to stop as long as they’re under supervision. So the interesting part, this was the point I was trying to get to, and both of you were looking at me, so why did I, the interesting part of it is research years ago that basically said offenders take vacations from their drug use all the time. There’s a certain point where even the person involved in substance abuse will say, I’m doing it too much. I need my wife or my significant other, or for whatever reason, I’m going to be drug tested, I’ve got to stop for the next 3 or 4 months, and then oftentimes, the person goes right back to it. So this sense of an uncontrollable craving for drugs, that craving is always there, but the person can stop for a certain amount of time.

Carline Claudomir: It depends on the person, but yes, sometimes we do have clients who may have tested positive three or four times at the very beginning, and we never, and then complete their whole probation with no, with no positive drug tests, but then we’ll see them later on in court, and they got another charge, and they tested positive at some other point after they leave the STAR/HIDTA program.

Len Sipes: So with the criminal justice system has the wherewithal, and mothers have the wherewithal, and pardon my sexism, wives have the wherewithal, and in the case of women offenders, husbands have the wherewithal, people who have a certain amount of power regarding the offender, have the ability to get that offender to stop doing drugs, at least for a certain amount of time.

Carline Claudomir: Specifically when the consequences is jail time. A lot of our clients, after they sit, do their first sanction which is a jury box sanction for three days, and they see the judge stepping back, client after client after client for a positive drug test for three nights or seven nights or 14 nights or 28 nights, they look at that and say, oh, I’m not going to do 28 nights for a positive marijuana. I can stop for –

Len Sipes: That’s the point, isn’t it?

Carline Claudomir: Yeah.

Len Sipes: Isn’t that the point? I mean, it’s like we have these endless debates about substance abuse and what works and what doesn’t work. Well, holding a 28 day setback, as we refer to it, of spending 28 days in jail for smoking a joint seems to be an awfully heavy price to pay, and a lot of these individuals under our supervision consciously make the choice not to continue to smoke marijuana because they simply don’t want to spend 28 days in jail, correct?

Carline Claudomir: Correct, but the flipside is those who actually are in the grips of their addiction, no matter how many sanctions you provide, they’re not going to stop.

Len Sipes: They’re not going to stop.

Carline Claudomir: And those are the ones we really try to focus on and really try to get them out of the community immediately, because every time they pick up, they’re, one, they’re breaking the law, and they’re violating their probation contract, and they’re violating probation, and they’re hurting themselves, and they may become a threat to the community, so we try to get them out of the community as fast as we can through treatment.

Len Sipes: All right, and then some cases, through residential treatment.

Carline Claudomir: Yes.

Len Sipes: Okay. So let’s walk through those steps, those sanction steps, because we have, sitting in the jury box for three days, which is a real pain.

Carline Claudomir: First violation.

Len Sipes: Okay. Second violation –

Carline Claudomir: – is going to be 30 days on GPS with [INDISCERNIBLE] conference.

Len Sipes: So 30 days being tracked electronically through global positioning system satellite tracking, so wherever you go, you’re tracked.

Carline Claudomir: With a curfew.

Len Sipes: With a curfew.

Carline Claudomir: And sometimes, a stayaway. You can’t go to the neighborhood where you usually get your drugs from.

Len Sipes: There you go.

Carline Claudomir: If you do, we know where you are.

Len Sipes: There you go. So he’s being watched all the time. Okay, so that’s pretty cool. Now the next sanction after that?

Carline Claudomir: Third sanction is three nights in jail.

Len Sipes: Three nights in jail. In the D.C. jail.

Carline Claudomir: D.C. jail.

Len Sipes: Well that’s a lovely place to visit! Is it on the weekend, during the week?

Carline Claudomir: It’s whenever they get their sanction.

Len Sipes: It’s whenever they get their sanction.

Carline Claudomir: It starts immediately.

Len Sipes: Okay. Fourth?

Amanda Rocha: It would be a case staffing. So Ms. Claudomir and I, or our supervisor or other team members get together and discuss this individual’s case to see what we can do at this point, because in the past, what has been going on isn’t working. So a plan, in a sense.

Len Sipes: Is that, is that where you give your riot act pronouncement to the individual, basically saying, hey, you’re this far from going into prison?

Carline Claudomir: They’ve been getting it the whole time! And we tell our clients when they come in, if we get to the case staffing stage, please understand you’re leaving the community and going to treatment. There is no if, but, can I, can I get one more chance? No, your chance was when you stood in front of the judge and said you would be clean and sober.

Len Sipes: And there’s a certain point where we will send them away to residential treatment.

Carline Claudomir: That’s the case staffing stage.

Len Sipes: That’s the case staffing stage. Okay, after that, what happens?

Amanda Rocha: Then we have the seven nights in jail sanction.

Len Sipes: Okay, and then it just basically goes from 7 nights to 14 nights to an entire month sort of thing.

Amanda Rocha: That’s right, and if somebody gets placed in residential treatment and gets discharged unsuccessfully or voluntarily chooses to leave, then that would be 15 nights in jail.

Len Sipes: The average person listening to this program, people within the criminal justice system are going to say, eh, that’s pretty much common business, drug positives and sanctions. The average person outside of the criminal justice system listening to this program would be appalled. They’re going, how many positives, how many bites at the apple are you giving this guy? You’re telling me that he’s got 15 prior contacts with the criminal justice system, and now we’re up to our fifth and sixth drug positive? For the love of good god, put that person in prison! Obviously, that person doesn’t want to comply. Obviously, that person is posing a public safety risk. Just put him back in prison.

Carline Claudomir: But see, you look at the context of the situation, the average individual on probation actually provides a number more of positive drug tests are a lot more noncompliant. We get them immediately, after the first, second, third, fourth, fifth. So in the context of probation, sometimes a client won’t be able to go before the sentencing judge until the 20th plus drug test because we can’t get a show cause until then to tell the judge he is noncompliant with probation.

Len Sipes: Okay, but that’s a technicality, and I’m glad you brought that up, but the principal issue here for the average citizen is, you know, are, the people that we have under supervision are not exactly the most popular people on the face of the earth.

Carline Claudomir: No, but they are your neighbors.

Len Sipes: Well, that’s a good point. That’s a good point. But my, the other point is that, you know, when we go out, the citizens asking them to support, whether it’s mental health programs or substance abuse programs or educational programs or vocational programs, the response oftentimes is, Leonard, we’re going to give to the church, we’re going to give to the schools, let the money go to the kids, let the money go to the elderly, I’m really not all that enthused about giving criminals. Money for programs, so the point is, is that there’s a frustration level and a tolerance level on the part of the average citizen as to how many chances we’re going to give that individual from the standpoint of public safety, and we need to explain why we do that.

Carline Claudomir: Public safety is our number one concern, so we always talk to our clients in regards from the aspect. When you become a threat to public safety –

Len Sipes: Boom, you go.

Carline Claudomir: – you need to leave the community.

Len Sipes: That’s right.

Carline Claudomir: But up until that point, we have to work with you, because once you leave probation, you’re done with this. You go back into that same community, because you don’t walk around with a sign saying, I am a criminal. You walk around into those churches, into those schools, pick up your children, those same places that the public wants to provide their money, those clients are there with them.

Len Sipes: 1 out of 45 individuals, according to national research are on probation right now or community supervision. Now, if you can, these are active. So if you count people who have been caught up in the criminal justice system, it’s at least 1 out of 20. So every time, regardless of where you go, where you shop, those, you’re going to encounter hundreds of individuals who have been caught up in the criminal justice system. So I think the rationale is, is that we want them to quit drugs, we want them to become taxpayers, not tax burdens, we want them to stop criminality, and I think that’s what we try to do with these individuals in drug court.

Amanda Rocha: That’s right. We want them to make that lifestyle change, so they’re not back in and out of the system.

Len Sipes: We want them to toss off substance abuse for good.

Amanda Rocha: That’s right.

Len Sipes: And stop messing with us.

Carline Claudomir: The problem is, sometimes it doesn’t happen in one try. I have sat in drug court and did my cases in drug court and have turned to the left, and looked into the jury box and saw a client I had a year ago who got off on early termination who is now back on pre-trial.

Len Sipes: That’s exactly right. And it is the process of recovery, and when we do live talk radio, people have a hard time listening to this, because their sense of the criminal justice system is, you’re getting a break, buddy, and maybe one, maybe two, but you hit three, and I want you to go back to prison. I think the average person in the larger community, not in the criminal justice system, feels that way. So we have to be accountable to the average citizen and explain to them that recovery, in terms of substance abuse, is a messy process that takes, in many cases, two, three times at treatment, and in many cases, involves multiple positives for drugs until we can convince that person to stay away from drugs, at least for the period of their supervision, or go to jail.

Carline Claudomir: I have a client who has been on probation since 1995, and he has been through every team at CSOSA, and when he finally made it to STAR/HIDTA, and he started messing up, and we did the warrant initiatives and went into his home and arrested him, and we brought him in front of his judge, the judge said, no, we’re going to give him one more chance, and that is it. One more chance. And it just continues on. But I will say that after this last opportunity, he has been clean and sober for 7-8 months, is working full time, and now, he is back, part of society. But see, it didn’t work the first, second, third, 10th, 15th time.

Len Sipes: You know, the interesting part of this is that the average person hearing it has a low frustration level for people caught up in the criminal justice system, but that is our reality. Our reality is that we have individuals who don’t know how to live life without a needle. They don’t know how to live life without a hallucinogen. They don’t know how to do it, and what we do is we teach them how to live life without using drugs, and that created a much safer society, a much saner society in the long run, and we turn people who are tax burdens into taxpayers, and I think that’s the heart and soul of it. It’s messy, it’s sloppy, sometimes it’s hard to explain to the general public, but we take individuals who are problems and we turn out individuals who are no longer problems, and we do that more often than we don’t, correct?

Carline Claudomir: And sometimes we’re the only ones who hold up that mirror to that individual and make them see how sloppy and messy they are, and they have been living their life, and hold them accountable, and when they think they’re almost done, hold them accountable even more and make them be the successes that they say they want to be when they first came to probation.

Len Sipes: It’s a fascinating process. Most of the people that I’ve encountered after a certain point, especially the older guys, sick and tired of being sick and tired. They are. I mean, it is just a terrible process of being arrested and rearrested and rearrested and reincarcerated and reincarcerated. These aren’t necessarily violent criminals. Most of these people are involved in nonviolent crimes, but there’s a certain point where they just get sick and tired of being constantly put through the criminal justice system, and they finally quit. They finally make that break. So I think what you’re doing is intervening in that process earlier, if at all humanly possible to get them to that point where they understand that they’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, correct?

Amanda Rocha: Well, and also, think about the example that I gave before where this young adult has this generational, you know, substance abuse that she’s been around, and those people who have dropped out of school in the sixth grade, or who have all these different issues, and they’re using to kind of, you know, make themselves feel better about the issue, or they’re trying to fit in with their peers, or with their family. So you have all these issues that are going on, and part of probation’s job is to address those issues, get them into an employment training program, get their GED, so now that they have these positive things in their life that they didn’t have before that would help them to stop using or even wanting to go back and use.

Len Sipes: Or put them back in jail or prison, and either one protects public safety.

Carline Claudomir: Yes.

Len Sipes: That’s the bottom line. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we’re out of time. Carline Claudomir, and I said it for the first time correctly, community supervision officer with our drug court unit. Amanda Rocha, also a community supervision officer with our drug court unit. You can find information about CSOSA at www.csosa.gov. You can also access the radio, television shows, the blog, and transcripts through the CSOSA website, or directly through www.media – M-E-D-I-A – dot-csosa – C-S-O-S-A – dot-gov. You can follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/lensipes, and you can also email me directly, Leonard – L-E-O-N-A-R-D – dot-sipes – S-I-P-E-S – @csosa.gov. Ladies and gentlemen, I want everybody to have themselves a very, very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

Please see http://media.csosa.gov for our radio shows. See www.twitter.com/lensipes.

We welcome your comments and suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov.

This show provides an overview of “what works” in community corrections through an examination of research-based practices.  Participants include:

Nancy G. LaVigne, Ph.D. Director, Justice Policy Center, The Urban Institute
Thomas Williams, Associate Director, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency
Debra Kafami, Ph.D, Executive Assistant, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency

The program is offered by the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, a federal executive branch entity in Washington, D.C.

This television program is available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/video/2010/11/what-works-evidence-based-practices-in-community-corrections/

The show is hosted by Leonard Sipes. Timothy Barnes is the Producer.

Transcript available at

[Video Begins]

Len Sipes: Hi.  And welcome to DC Public Safety.  I’m your host Leonard Sipes.  You know, today’s program is pretty interesting.  It’s about what works in community based corrections or evidence-based corrections.  There’s quite a bit of research out there now that indicates that you can reduce crime, you can reduce recidivism, you can help the cost to states in terms of the criminal justice system, that you can take tax burdens and turn them into tax payers.  But the problem on the part of the practitioner throughout the country is that they are having a hard time taking all of this research and turning it into day-to-day practice.

And to talk about that whole concept of taking the research and turning into day-to-day practice, we have three principals with us today.  We have Dr.  Nancy La Vigne.  She’s the Director of the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute.  We have Thomas Williams.  He is the Associate Director of Community Supervision Services for the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, my agency.  And we have Debra Kafami.  Dr. Kafami is the Executive Assistant in Community Supervision Services at Court Services, and Offender Supervision Agency too.  Nancy, and to Tom, and to Deb, welcome to DC Public Safety.

Debra Kafami: Thanks, great to be here.

Thomas Williams:  Thank you Len, glad to be here.

Len Sipes: We have this really interesting conversation that all four of us have had over the course of years of taking this massive amount of research from the Department of Justice, from the Urban Institute, from Pew, from lots of other organizations, and the struggle that we have to make it practical, to make it real, to read through all the volumes of material, and to get down and take a look at it, and say, “Boom, okay, this is something I can use at the state or local level.” Nancy, now the Urban Institute– You sort of specialize in that.  And you’ve been doing this sort of research for decades.

Nancy Lavigne: That’s right.  The Urban Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization based in Washington as you know.  We’ve got policy centers across a wide array of topics from education policy to health policy to tax policy.  And as director of the Justice Policy Center in the Urban Institute, I direct evaluation and research, a team of over 35 researchers.  And one of our main goals is to find out the truth, what does work, and why does it work?  And on what populations?  And in what context?

Len Sipes: Right.  And so the average person sitting– I’ve give you an example of a couple years ago.  Tom, and I, and Deb, all three of us come from the Maryland Department of Public Safety.  I’m sitting there in the Secretary of Public Safety’s office, and he says, “I got off the phone with the governor.  The governor saw this program about boot camp on ABC Evening News.  And now he wants us to do boot camps.” And I’m sitting there going, “Well, what is the evidence on boot camps?  What is the research?” It was the governor who came along, and said, “I’ve got a great idea.  Let’s do boot camps,” rather than the research pushing us in that direction.  That’s how the criminal justice system seems to work correct?

Nancy Lavigne: Right.  And that’s an interesting example because of all the different kinds of interventions out there.  I think the research is most definitive on boot camps and that they don’t work.  I know that as a researcher, but does the practitioner community know that?  I don’t think so.  I don’t think we’re getting the word out the way we need to be.

Len Sipes: And one of the things, interestingly enough, you take a look at the DARE Program, which is a police-oriented, police-run program for kids to teach them about the dangers of substance abuse.  Now the DARE research seems to be pretty negative, yet DARE thrives.  So there are other dimensions here.  There is the evidence-based part of it, and there’s the practical, reality base to interpret what people want, what they’re comfortable with.  Tom, now you went to China to talk about evidence-based procedures.  You lectured in that country.  You’ve written articles.  You’ve gone to conferences throughout the country talking about evidence-based procedures.  I know you’ve had this conversation with people in the field in terms of how you take all of this research and make it practical to make it real.

Thomas Williams:  Well, that’s correct, Len.  I was in China three years ago lecturing on evidence-based practices.  And actually, part of my discussion with the Chinese there, the delegation, was actually giving a historical perspective about evidence-based practices.  As you know, some of your viewers probably know as well, prior to Lipton, Martin and Wilks coming out with the “Nothing Works” document that actually revolutionized basically the way that we deal with offenders in a criminal justice way, we had a single theory with regards how we manage offenders basically from a prison standpoint.  And that is an indeterminate sentencing.  So you went into prison, you got rehabilitated hopefully and you came out and that continued.

But unfortunately with that “Nothing Works” theory that came out, that really revolutionized things for which it was a whole metamorphosis of now we just put a man and through away the key.

Len Sipes: That was during the 1970s, correct?

Thomas Williams:  That’s correct.

Len Sipes: With landmark research basically suggested that they took a look at all the evaluations and they came to the conclusion– Now he would say that that conclusion was exaggerated.  But there was a point where the consensus from the criminal justice systems and in criminology was that there’s no sense trying to help individuals while in prison, and while they come out of prison, commonly know as re-entry.  Because nothing does work.  But we’ve moved way beyond that now, correct?

Thomas Williams:  Well, and that’s the point I was getting ready to make the next point, is that there’s been a whole body of research now that basically says that when you provide intensive supervision services, in addition to special design programs, you are going to have dramatic reductions in re-arrests and also recidivism rates, recidivism meaning those persons who go back to prison.  So that whole body of knowledge now is a wealth of knowledge that’s out there that a lot of criminal justice professionals are now using to develop programs within their own individuals entities.

Len Sipes: And what I want to do is briefly run over, take 15 seconds and go over some of the programs that have worked.  The Washington State Institute for Public Policy in 2006, they came a long with a very brief, but a very comprehensive piece of research taking a look at the individual programs in terms of what works and what doesn’t.  And also, at the same time, talking about the percentage reductions.  But beyond that, we’ve had drugs courts, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is teaching individuals how to think differently about their own lives, Project Hope in Hawaii.  We’ve had re-entry programs in San Diego, jobs through the Department of Labor, jobs programs, substance abuse treatment, mental health courts.  All of these programs have shown that it’s possible to reduce recidivism, it’s possible to reduce crime, not by leaps and bounds.  Because the research seems to indicate that there’s a 10 to 20 percent reduction in recidivism.  So the possibility is there.  Debra?

Debra Kafami: What we seem to be talking about is results-based management.  What gets measures gets done.  And it’s so important because if you can look at your results, you can distinguish your successes from your failures.

Len Sipes: And that’s one of the things that I’m really impressed by.  You’re in charge of our SMART System.  You’re the basically the person who has helped design the SMART System which is our own book-keeping system which has our own internal management system.  And all the way throughout this process in the 6.5 years I’ve been with CSOSA, you’ve said, “Unless you measure it, it doesn’t happen.” What happens, what gets done is what gets measured.  Correct?

Debra Kafami: Correct.  And like I said, it’s so important so you can distinguish the successes from the failures.  Because if something is successful, it can be replicated.  And if it’s a failure, they want to know so you can go back and fix it.

Len Sipes: Right.

Debra Kafami: Sometimes a very good program works well in one area of the country, but you bring it to another place and implement it the same exact way and it may not work.  So you may not want to just totally throw the program away.  But you can work and figure out what went wrong, and try and correct it and make it work.

Len Sipes: And boy did you just hit the nail on the head, Dr.  Kafami or Debbie.  Because that’s the conversation I have with practitioners all the time.  And any one of you can jump in on this.  It’s that Project Hope in Hawaii, where you take probationers who have a meth problem.  And if they mess up, you immediately put them in a local incarcerated setting.  And you do provide treatment.  And eventually they have good outcomes.  And different people are saying, “Well, Leonard, you know that’s a wonderful idea.  But I don’t have the jail space to move people in there every time they mess up while they’re on community supervision.” So as Debbie said, because it works in Hawaii, doesn’t mean it’s going to work in DC, doesn’t mean it’s going to work in Rhode Island.  And that’s the frustration on the part of parole or probation people throughout the country.  How do I take all this research and distill it and apply it to my particular situation?

Thomas Williams:  Right.  But I don’t think this argument, on the one hand, jail or prison versus community corrections.  Certainly I think we need both.  I mean, there’s a certain segment of the population for which they do, unfortunately, need to be incarcerated.  Because they won’t change, they’re not willing to change, and they have no desire to change.  For that group with regards to the accountability that we need, in community corrections, need to have with regards to the public, and also letting the public know that we’re serious about quote-unquote changing behaviors.  We do need to, unfortunately, incarcerate that segment of the population.

Len Sipes: There’s no question that we have to incarcerate.  There’s no question that there are people out there who pose a clear and present danger to our society.  And they have to go to prison.  There’s no doubt about that.  But the overwhelming majority of the people under correctional supervision in this country are on community supervision, they’re supervised by parole and probation agencies.  Like 85 percent are being supervised by parole and probation agencies.

So when people think of corrections, prisons, which is the first thing that comes to their mind, is a tiny part of it.  The overwhelming majority of people under correctional supervision belong to us.  And the practitioners are saying, “What do I do with all these people?”

Nancy Lavigne: Right. Well, I think we can take this apart into different pieces of the challenges that practitioners face and trying to digest all the research that’s out there and use it in a meaningful way.  For one, as a researcher and an academic, I know what the research is because I get the journals in the mail and I can read them and understand them.  For practitioners, they may see a study here or there.  It’s usually not written in a way that’s accessible.

And in addition, there’s just a bunch of different studies, and some say something works, and some say the same thing doesn’t.  And so it’s very hard for someone to say, “In the balance, what really does work and why and how and on what population?” So one thing we’re doing at the Urban Institute is trying to cull all the research out there on the topic of prisoner re-entry.  Now it sounds narrow, prisoner re-entry.  But as you know, prisoner re-entry encompasses everything.

Len Sipes: It’s huge.

Nancy Lavigne: It’s housing, it’s mental house treatment, it’s substance abuse.  It’s everything.  It’s in-prison programs.  It’s programs after release.  It’s programs for literacy, for employment and so forth.  So we’ve identified over 1,000 individual studies that fall under this umbrella of re-entry.  And those are studies that are truly evaluative in nature.  Now what we’re doing is reviewing each and every study and rating it according to its level of rigor.  Because that’s another challenge for the practitioner community.  They see a study and it says something works, and they don’t have the knowledge to understand whether that’s a definitive–

Len Sipes: It’s methodologically correct or not?  Yes.

Nancy Lavigne: Of course.  So we’re reading them and we’re going to compile all that information and develop it into an online, searchable website that’s part of the National Reentry Resource Center.  So this is all funded under the Second Chance Act.

Len Sipes: Right.  And it’s all being funded by Department of Justice and the Assistant Attorney General.

Nancy Lavigne: Yes.

Len Sipes: She’s really focusing on making the research come alive.

Nancy Lavigne: Yes.

Thomas Williams:  Let me just cut in.  What we just touched on just a minute ago are the challenges that folks who are coming back from prison have with regards to trying to reestablish themselves within a community.  Issues of substance abuse, issues of employment, issues of housing are major issues, interpersonal relationships, and who do I associate with when I do come back to the community?

We’ve got all bodies of research now on those individual topics and collectively to kind of help the practitioner.  And I think one of the things that kind of argues against a practitioner sometimes is, how do I actually take this research and apply it to my day-to-day job?  And then number two, how do I actually target the right population?  Because you could have a program that you think is good because you read the research, but then if you target the wrong person, then you’re not going to have the results that’s expected.

Len Sipes: And that’s my point, again, going back to our Maryland Department of Public Safety days when the public safety secretary– A new piece of research would come out from the National Institute of Justice.  He’d plop it on my desk, and go, “Sipes, give me a two-page summation on this.” Because he didn’t want to go through this telephone-sized book filled with facts and figures and the methodological review.  He just wanted to know what the lessons were and how we could apply those lessons within the Maryland Department of Public Safety.  And Deb, I think the practitioner community is overwhelmed by the research.  And they just don’t understand how to use everything that’s before them.  It’s like having this gigantic feast and you have toothpicks to eat.  I mean, you just can’t distill all of this information.

Debra Kafami: You can’t do everything at once.  You just don’t have the resources to do everything.  And there’s not just one magic bullet: “Do this program; everything will be better.” And it takes time.  And many times you just don’t have that luxury.  People want to see the results, they want to see it now.  But sometimes it could take three years at least from beginning of a program to start to see some tangible results.

Len Sipes: Okay.  And we’re going to be talking about resources on the second part of it.  Because the other big complaint on the part of the practitioner community throughout the country is, I don’t have the resources to implement all of this.  First, they’ve got to get through the research.  They’ve got to understand the research.  They’ve got to understand how to apply the research.  And then they’ve got to come up with the resources.  And ladies and gentlemen, we’ll discuss that resource question when the second segment of DC Public Safety– Stay right there, we’ll be back with this intriguing conversation on what works in terms of community-based corrections.  We’ll be right back.

[Music Playing]

Hi, welcome back to DC Public Safety.  I continue to be your host, Leonard Sipes.  Our guests continue in the second half of the segment.

Dr. Nancy La Vigne.  She’s the Director of the Justice Policy Center for the Urban Institute.  Thomas Williams, he is the Associate Director of Supervision Services from my agency, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, and Dr. Debra Kafami, Executive Assistant again for Court Services and Offender Supervision.  And to Nancy, and to Tom, and to Deb, welcome back to DC Public Safety.

Debra Kafami: Thank you very much.

Len Sipes: All right.  So in terms of this discussion, it’s going to be seen in the District of Columbia, it’s going to be seen throughout the country.  So what we have, and Debra talked about it, at the end of the first half is, okay, so we have all these studies.  And Nancy, Urban Institute is doing a wonderful job and Department of Justice and the National Resource Center, everybody’s doing a wonderful job of taking all of this evidence and distilling it down into useful lessons for practitioners in the field.  So that’s lesson number one, correct?  Okay.

Lesson number two is when I talk to my peers in the field, they say, “Leonard, okay fine.  The evidence says that you need to design a program around that individual.  No more cookie-cutter drug treatment.  If that woman has had a history of sexual abuse in her younger years, which is not unusual for the female offenders that we have under our supervision, the reason for doing drugs is tied into the fact that she was sexually molested at nine and ten years of age.  That substance abuse program needs to be designed with her specific conditions in mind.  They can’t be cookie cutter.  But I don’t have the money to do it.  I refer her to a community health program.  And four months down the road, they put her into a group program that meets twice a week for one hour at a time.  And it’s cookie cutter and it’s not designed for her.  So I know the evidence that design a program specifically for her but I don’t have the money to do it.” What do we tell a person under those circumstances?

Nancy Lavigne: I think you’re thinking too big.  I don’t think you should be thinking about new programs.  I think you should be thinking about how we can advise the field on using existing resources and programs more wisely.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Nancy Lavigne: We do a lot of partnerships with practitioners and it’s often to evaluate existing programs or to assist people in measuring success.  They say, “We can’t measure success.  We don’t have the resources.  We don’t have the expertise.” And I said, “Well, how do you know you’re even serving the right population to begin with?  You should be collecting that data to begin with.  Because that’s the same data we need to evaluate the program.” “Oh, well yeah, I guess we’re not collecting that.” And when we go back and look and see whether there’s a one-per-one match between people who have, for example, histories of substance abuse and whether they’re getting treatment, we’ve been stunned to find that as many as 50 percent of people who are enrolled in treatment don’t have those extensive histories.  So there’s a mismatch and–

Len Sipes: We may be taking the wrong people to go in to begin with.

Nancy Lavigne: –and resource allocation.  And that’s another way that you can use evidence to improve practices that doesn’t require new resources.

Len Sipes: So the evidence says, “Be sure you pick the right people to go into the right programs to begin with?”

Nancy Lavigne: That’s right.  It’s being smarter with the resources you currently have.

Thomas Williams:  Well, if you think about the Drug Court movement over ten years ago, that’s basically how the Drug Court movement got started.  Certainly there was a little bit of money that came from the federal government to help support that.

Len Sipes: Right.

Thomas Williams:  But there’s the whole issue of collaboration.  And as we just discussed here a few minutes ago is targeting the right people for the right program, and making sure that the program fits the needs that you’re trying to address.  So one way that you can do that is basically having a good assessment system, a good assessment protocol where you’re actually trying to identify the risk to re-offend, and how do you minimize that risk to re-offend?  By the same token, identifying the particular needs that are specific to that group or that population that you’re looking for, and put that person in that particular program.  Then you can match up those two things and then have most of the literature saying that you will have.  But the whole issue of collaboration is important, because one entity can’t do it alone.  Criminal justice entities cannot do it by itself.  It needs the collaboration of the systems that are out there to help support what we’re trying to do in terms of that behavior change.  But also as important as that is the social support that needs to come following that.  So as we have the services, as we’re providing the services, as we’re now having that level of success, what is following that program either by the family members or the community that’s going to help sustain that success that we have?

Len Sipes: Okay.  And I think you just summarized the principal findings in terms of the evidence-based process.  Somebody said some time ago that in terms of the substance abuse end of it, that the National Institute on Drug Abuse and SAMSA has had the last four decades to think through this process.

And they do give out very specific guidelines in terms of how to handle the individual, how to assess the individual, how to design a program for that specific individual, follow up.  So they are very, very specific.

And supposedly we, in community corrections, are in our infancy in terms of developing this evidence-based approach.  But SAMSA, in the National Institute of Drug Abuse, they’re the leaders, so to speak, in terms of taking a population in need and figuring it out, exactly what works for them.  And so what we have to do is do that for mental health, what we have to do in terms of jobs, what we have to do in terms of supervision techniques.  And what you’re saying at the same time is that not everybody gets the same levels of services.

Thomas Williams:  And they don’t and they shouldn’t get it.  Anyone that assesses at the high level of supervision with intensive or maximum, whatever it’s called.  But wherever the high level is, that’s the group that you want to target.  And you want to put those persons into your high-end, costly programming.  The low-end of the spectrum that’s a low-level supervision, you might just want to provide life skills to them at best.  But the literature really tells us that if you have someone who’s assessed at the low level, you really shouldn’t be spending any resources on them at all.

Nancy Lavigne: That’s right.  In fact it can actually be harmful.  If you look at the literature on halfway houses, it’s pretty definitive that the lowest level offenders who are coming back to the community do worse off when they have to go into halfway houses.  And the theory is that it’s preventing them from finding jobs, keeping jobs, reuniting with family in a way that’s detrimental.

Len Sipes: Well, there was a book years ago called Radical Non-Intervention, and the message of that book and this is a book that’s 40-years-old, was be careful as to who you put into particular programs.  You may not want to intervene in the lives of certain people.  They’re marginally involved in the criminal justice system, you do as little with them as you possibly can.  The more you try to help them, the more you try to supervise them, the more they get sucked into the criminal justice system.  So it’s picking the right person to receive the right services, correct?

Debra Kafami: It’s not so much picking but identifying the right person through a validated risk and needs assessment instrument like Tom said.  You want to focus on those high risk offenders, and you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Thomas Williams:  Let me go back to the 1980s to the RAN study that was done on intensive supervision where basically because the staff were able to have a lower case load and follow people more closely, they had high levels of re-arrest, or re-offending, technical violations I should say.

Len Sipes: Right.  They put more people back in prison.

Thomas Williams:  Right.  But the important thing about that is that the services weren’t there.  So they had high-level folks that they were monitoring, which they should be doing, trying to keep tabs on what they were up to and trying to make sure they were reporting for their appointments and things like that, or going to services.  But the more they watched them, the more technical violations actually were recorded, which eventually led them to be revoked.  But the problem was that the services for these high-end folks was not provided.

Len Sipes: Right.  And that’s the same research that applies to boot camp, that you can’t just supervise people intensely because the more you supervise them, the more violate them.  There’s got to be a combination of supervision and programs.  And that’s what seems to work, correct?

Debra Kafami: Yes.  And the programs really need to be cognitive-based programs.

Len Sipes: Cognitive-base, and I talked a little bit about that at the beginning of the program, means helping them think through their issues to be sure that they see the world better, make better decisions.

Debra Kafami: Yeah.  It’s a program where there’s a lot of role-playing and skill development for the offenders.  They have to be able to go out in the community and deal with issues in an appropriate manner.  And they need skills to do that.

Len Sipes: So in the closing minutes of the program, is there today one document – and I know Nancy, you were talking about Urban is working on it, Justice is working on it, the National Center is working on it – but in essence we’re working towards one comprehensive approach.  So it’s no longer the people in Milwaukee or in Alaska or wherever they happen to be; they’re going to be able to have resources in the near future that gives them the best available evidence in terms of how to proceed, correct?

Nancy Lavigne: Yes.  But my fear is that once we get all this evidence out there, the Project Hope is a perfect example of this.  Everyone’s latching on to it as this silver bullet that’s going to reduce recidivism.  And I think that’s really ill-advised.  It gets back to this validated risk and needs assessment tool.  You really need to know what population you’re dealing with.  And each person has different needs and risks.  And Project Hope may work for some but not others.  I fear that once we get all this wonderful information out there, people are going to pick and choose, “I want to do this program because it has the biggest impact on recidivism,” rather than, “This is the population I’m trying to deal with.  Now what program fits their issues and their needs?”

Len Sipes: So the lesson seems to be from the three of you as that, A, we are going to have that assessment, we just need to provide guidance in terms of how to use the evidence; and B, Tom you mentioned the partnerships, the parole and probation agencies aren’t there by themselves.  They really have to coalesce with the people providing the mental health services, the people providing the job services.  There really has to be that.  I think they will begin to coalesce once the research is placed in one easy-to-read venue, correct?  Look, the jobs people, they’re burdened.  They’re under and enormous burden.  And you go them, as we did at Maryland Public Safety, and they’re not overly-enthusiastic about taking on a new role.

Thomas Williams:  I just want to kind of dovetail a little bit on what Nancy said, I think the hope or the future for those who are managing or directing criminal justice agencies is pretty good.  I think we’re in a pretty good space right now.  The research is coming out.  I think there’s a lot of interest in Congress now about those offenders who are returning and what do we do to put them on a different plane so that they can then be successfully in the community.  And I think from the standpoint of the Justice Department, the various agencies under the Justice Department, are actually giving guidance on this whole issue, I think is so fundamentally important.

So even though a probation director may want to do something, as Nancy indicated before and Debbie, you many not have to do it on a larger scale.  But you can target your population on those persons who are the most riskiest to re-offend And then once you target on that most risky population, using the research and using the funds that will be coming from Congress.  We will start to see dramatic effects.  I would like to go back to the 70′s when we had a single theory in this country for managing offenders within the country.

Len Sipes: It seems to me now that with President Obama’s Administration there is strong support for re-entry.  It seems to be with Assistant Attorney General Laurie Robinson over at the Department of Justice, she’s a strong proponent of the evidence-based process, and research, and reentry.  The Second Chance Act that went through Congress, we now have hundreds of billions of dollars for states and jurisdictions throughout the country to implement re-entry based programs.  Match all that up with the fact that the states can no longer afford to incarcerate.  In fact, states are cutting back on their budget by, again, tens of millions of dollars in individual states.

They can no longer afford the level of incarceration.  So we now seem to be at an appropriate time where evidence-based and re-entry practices now just come together at a very opportune time.  But the individual practitioners are still saying, “Len, help me understand this research and where am I going to get the money?” So it’s still coming down to that.  What we’re saying to them is that there’s hope in terms of the coalescing of the research; there’s hope hopefully in terms of the money.  But you have to do partnerships, you have to take this research and get together with your fellow agencies and make it come alive.  Is that it, Deb?

Debra Kafami: Exactly.  The collaboration is key to implementing evidence-based practices successfully.

Len Sipes: Right.  Parole and probation agencies are just not going to do it on their own.  It has to be the governor of that particular state coming together, and saying, “You guys have got to get together and do this.”

Thomas Williams:  As well as the community stepping up as well.  When that person comes back to that community, he wants to feel apart of that community.  And the family support that’s actually needed to support that person once they go through the various programmings is so fundamentally important.

Len Sipes: Okay.  Tom, you had the final word.  Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for being with us on DC Public Safety as we explore this whole concept as to what works in corrections, evidence-based corrections.  Watch for us next time as we explore another very important part of our criminal justice system.  And please have yourself a very, very pleasant day.

[Video Ends]

Series Meta terms: Criminal, Justice, what, works, drug, treatment, educational, vocational, assistance, employment, interviews, policy, makers, staff, probation, parole, reentry

See http://media.csosa.gov for our television shows, blog and transcripts.

This television program is available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/video/2010/07/community-based-support-for-offenders-and-their-families/

We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov or at Twitter at http://twitter.com/lensipes.

[Video Begins]

NARRATOR:  In January 1997, former President Bill Clinton outlined their vision to revitalize Washington D.C.  From this vision, CSOSA was created by the National Capital Revitalization and Self Government Improvement Act of 1997.  The central mission of CSOSA is to increase public safety, prevent crime, reduce recidivism, and develop collaboration with the community to expand the capacity to assist offenders and their families.

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON:  Hello, this is Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton.  We are very fortunate in this city to have a fully funded federal agency, CSOSA, which supervises our residents on probation or returning to us from prison, and they do a lot more.  That residential treatment center, built from federal appropriation from the Congress, is very important, because it not only takes people off of drugs, it keeps them from going back to prison.  That leaves a lot more, a lot more than only community and faith based groups can do.  There‚Äôs a lot you can do.  There‚Äôs a lot that‚Äôs already being done by faith based groups, by community groups, and helping with job training, even with jobs, with housing, with mentoring, with reaching out to these D.C. residents.  Won‚Äôt you help us?

NARRATOR:  CSOSA provides probation and post-incarceration supervision for approximately 16,000 adult offenders in Washington, D.C, and provides comprehensive public safety oriented programming and treatment services combining strict accountability with meaningful opportunity.  Each year, approximately 650,000 offenders return from federal and state correctional institutions throughout the country.  Approximately 2,000 offenders return to the District of Columbia each year.  Most need supervision, services, and support to remain drug and crime free.  An individual‚Äôs passage through the criminal justice system from arrest to prosecution to sentencing through incarceration and release involves several agencies.  Judge Satterfield recognizes the need for innovative collaboration of the entire community.

LEE SATTERFIELD:  When it comes to the individuals that we see more often in our family court and in our criminal division, they typically are young people, they typically are male, and they typically have a host of number of issues that, if they could get resolved, could help them stay out of the system, and I‚Äôm talking about things such as education, many have dropped out of high school, have been truant since they were in middle school, so they lack the type of education that would help them maintain employment.  I‚Äôm talking about employment.  Employment is a necessary thing for anybody, and for anybody to become a productive citizen, employment is always something that is necessary.  And then many of our people that come before us, whether in our adult court or in our family court may have issues involving substance abuse, that they need drug treatment for the drug addiction that they have.  In addition to education, mental health, drug treatment, and those factors, we have things such as housing that‚Äôs also important as well, and so these are the kinds of things that I would ask the community to focus on in helping us help others who are coming back to our community having gone through the criminal justice system or the juvenile justice system.  Your help is needed to help all of our citizens here in the District of Columbia.

NARRATOR:  The results CSOSA seeks depend in part on cooperation from and effective collaboration with community based organizations.  Partnerships with community based organizations result in increased employment, training, and support programming for such services as housing, food distribution, healthcare, and clothing distribution, to name a few.

ASHLEY MCSWAIN:  Basically, Our Place was brought into existence to provide supports for women who were being released after a period of incarceration, and so Our Place provides baseline support, so when you are released from custody, you need clothing, identification, you need resources, access, and relationships.  We have a clothing boutique where the women come in who don‚Äôt have a lot of options for clothing.  We have a boutique that provides those things.  If a woman is interviewing for a job, she can come in and get clothing for that interview.  We also provide legal support.  We have a full time lawyer on staff.  We provide supports around employment, and we also provide HIV and AIDS awareness programs.

DAWN:  Our Place offers women that are coming back into the community many different things.  It gives you a lot of opportunities to get your life back together, but other things, there are other needs that women like me have.

PATRICIA:  When I came here for the first time, they, I did my intake, they‚Äôre very warm and welcome, which is very helpful, because getting back to society, it‚Äôs kind of hard, so they make you feel like that you are welcome back.

NARRATOR:  These resources create a bond between the offender and his or her community and a chance to interact with the community in a positive way.

BRENDA JONES:  Our current program is called Moving On: A Life Changing Program.  This program targets adults and parents living east of the river, and also ex-offenders and their families.  We provide workshops, year round workshops, weekly workshops, parenting, and also on empowering oneself.  We do that for the sole purpose, again, of helping persons who have made decisions in the past that might have gotten them in difficult situations now, helping them to make better decisions in the future.

DARYL SANDERS:  So, a few of our services that we provide, particularly around this area, is our fatherhood initiative, where we are training and working with fathers to become better fathers.  At first, you want to do that by working with them to become better men.  So the collaborative has trained all of the men within our organization to work with this population, to strengthen them, become better fathers, of course will make them stronger and better men, so that‚Äôs one particular area.  We also have housing programs for this population as well.  We have an intake program, so all of our services are provided through our intake department, but again, more services are needed.  The collaboratives cannot do this alone.  The issues are so, so intricate, and again, people think that, oh yes, yeah, they‚Äôre home, and things are fine.  No, there are many, many supports that are needed, there are many, many connections that need to happen that have been severed, and more support and more services are needed in this area for sure.

DERON TAYLOR:  Our program is geared toward assisting men and women who have had challenges, either obtaining or maintaining employment due to a criminal history or substance abuse history.  Our goal is to place these men and women with community agencies that are willing to help them in providing job service training or workshops for one year.

SHAKIRA GANTT:  And our mission is to reduce the incidence of childhood abuse and neglect.  One of the ways that we do that is through supporting parents.  The Georgia Avenue Collaborative offers many community based activities and fun events that will allow you to find out about resources, to get referrals, for job information, or even to develop your resume or to continue your education.  Although the collaborative has been around for 10 years providing these services to our reentering citizens, we have found increasingly that what we provide is really not enough for the need that is coming in.  We‚Äôve got an increase of residents coming in asking for these services, and the challenge has been figuring out how to really service them all, because things are so spread thinly that there just isn‚Äôt enough to go around, and so we‚Äôre really reaching out and asking for other organizations and agencies and entities to step forward.

Thomas Waters:  Marshall Heights Community Development has been in existence in excess of 30 years.  It provides wraparound services.  It‚Äôs like a one-stop center.

RICHARD MAHAFFEY:  I‚Äôm a Ward 7 resident and also an ex-offender.  I‚Äôve lived in Ward 7 most of my life.  My aunt lives in Ward 7 also, and she had told me about a program going on.  I was told about a program and a wiring class, and I was called and told that I would be able to get into it, and I was pretty happy about that, me and my family, because with just my wife working, things have been a little rough, and this program has helped us out gratefully.

NARRATOR:  When members of our community make unfavorable decisions and are held accountable by the criminal justice system, it is CSOSA‚Äôs commitment with assistance from the community to help rebuild lives, heal individuals, and bring restoration to families and the community.  The Advisory Neighborhood Commissions play a vital role in the strategy as well by communicating the need to extend resources.  Gaining their support is integral to CSOSA‚Äôs long term success in achieving their goal of reducing recidivism and reintegrating the offender into the community.

BETTY PAIR:  The success of that program and the success of the people involved depends on education, training, and housing, and if those things are provided, the program will be successful.

MARK DIXON:  We welcome them back in the community.  We need to do more things for them.  If we could have more people to come together, more churches come together, more community organizations, it would help, it would help this tremendously.  Then they won‚Äôt try to go back.  So we can do more things, the community could come together more and help support these people, work with CSOSA, work with other organizations that are out here, then we could help these brothers or sisters.

MARY JACKSON:  I‚Äôve worked with CSOSA for quite a while.  Matter of fact, since its conception.  Ward 7 open its arms to CSOSA and its returning citizens years ago.

SANDRA ‚ÄúSS‚Äù SEEGARS:  Some of the impediments that face the ex-offenders when they come back into the community is housing, not necessarily a criminal record, but credit worthiness, whereas they mess up their credit when they go in normally, and even ex-offenders who are not, who are not sex offenders, they‚Äôre welcome back into the community, but it‚Äôs the credit.

WILLIAM SHELTON:  Most of the challenges that I really see are individuals staying home.  I think that we really have to face a reality of whether or not, not only in this city, but if this country has really embraced the fact that our young people are going, they are incarcerated, and they are returning home, and whether or not we‚Äôre going to put together resources to really address and deal with that.

NARRATOR:  Working collaboratively with CSOSA, the community has an opportunity to establish itself as a mighty cornerstone in a foundation of supportive reentry services.  We have certainly been encouraged by the results of the participating organizations and institutions, and we look forward to expanding their capacity to provide value added services and include additional quality organizations.  Please consider joining CSOSA as we work to rebuild lives, reestablish values, restore social order, strengthen families, and change the communities in which we live and cherish.

CEDRIC HENDRICKS:  One of the very important jobs that I have is to work with our colleagues to build and strengthen partnerships with community based and faith based organizations, organizations that can help our clients meet their important social needs.  Among those needs are obtaining employment, expanding the level of education, strengthening ties with family members, and putting behind them crime and incarceration going forward as productive, contributing members of this community.  So I‚Äôm here to invite all community based and faith based organizations to join us in a partnership, expand the range of resources and services that we have to offer, and help make this city a safer place in which to live.

[Video Ends]

Information about crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system.

Meta terms: crime, criminals, criminal justice, parole, probation, prison, drug treatment, reentry, sex offenders.

See http://media.csosa.gov for our television shows, blog and transcripts.

This radio program is available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2010/03/iowa-jail-based-substance-abuse-treatment-project-ncja-dc-public-safety/

We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov or at Twitter at http://twitter.com/lensipes.

- Audio begins -

Len Sipes: From the nation’s capital, welcome to D.C. Public Safety. I am your host, Leonard Sipes. This program is going to focus on the Iowa Jail-Based Substance Abuse Treatment project, and let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, there are some extraordinary results from this. One year after program completion 78.5% say that they are clean, 91.9% have not been arrested, and 68.2% are employed full time, and I find those to be absolutely amazing statistics. Our guest today, Lonnie Cleland, a program planner with the Iowa Department of Public Health; Leesa McNeil – she is the District Court Administrator for Woodland County, Iowa; and Kim Brangoccio – she is clinical director of United Community Services. This program is brought to you by the National Criminal Justice Association. As the regular listeners are aware, we do a regular series with the National Criminal Justice Association. Their website: www.ncja.org. Before we begin the program, once again, we thank everybody for the 200,000 requests on a monthly basis for D.C. Public Safety radio, television, blog, and transcripts. You can reach us at www.media M-E-D-I-A.csosa C-S-O-S-A .gov. You can reach me for all the comments – and I get a lot of comments, and I’m appreciative of all the comments – you can reach me directly via email: Leonard L-E-O-N-A-R-D.sipes S-I-P-E-S@csosa.gov or follow us via Twitter, which is Twitter/lensipes, L-E-N-S-I-P-E-S. Back to our guests: Lonnie Cleland, Leesa McNeil, and Kim Brangoccio. Welcome to D.C. Public Safety.

Kim Brangoccio: Hi.

Lonnie Cleland: Hello.

Leesa McNeil: Hi.

Len Sipes: Lonnie, Lonnie Cleland, the program planner for the Iowa Department of Public Health, give me an overview of the Iowa Jail-Based Substance Treatment project.

Lonnie Cleland: Yeah, the Jail-Based Treatment project is a four-county initiative centered in the county jails, but also including outpatient substance abuse treatment for nonviolent offenders. We started the project in 2002 with one county, and it was directly a result of research that came out saying that the longer you kept offenders in treatment, and the more structure they had, the more successful you could be in helping them being integrated back into society. Our substance abuse treatment programs can bring in nonviolent offenders, and the focus of the project is to reduce substance abuse and criminal behavior simultaneously. It’s a curriculum-based treatment program, at least at the jail level, using a cognitive-behavioral therapy approach. When offenders get out of jail, then they’re involved in outpatient treatment, which focuses on a more individual kind of approach. Typically, offenders are in the treatment program anywhere from 120 to 180 days. Now that varies from individual to individual.

Len Sipes: Well, I think the impressive part of that is the outpatient component, where you have – a lot of programs throughout the country have in-jail or in-prison based programs, and their concept of follow-up treatment is referral to AA or referral to the local health department who does drug treatment, and you sit for three or four months before you finally get into drug treatment. This concept of the outpatient part of it I think is extraordinarily valuable. It may be one of the key components of your success. Leesa McNeil, did you want to give a shot at that?

Leesa McNeil: Well, I think part of the success, too, is keeping the entire network of the community around the program. One of the things we’ve done in the Woodbury site is to create a program committee, and we have players around the table who meet periodically, at least bimonthly, and we visit about what programs are operating that impact the jail and troubleshoot them. And this is also our way of trying to keep people educated on what’s going on, make sure that we’re providing a safety net to solve any problems that may develop with the program, and we see players cycle through sheriff’s departments, public defenders offices, county attorney offices, judges, even treatment providers. And this is a way we use to make sure we keep educating people and keep the system engaged with promoting the program.

Len Sipes: So, the lesson here, Leesa, is that there’s no such thing as going it alone; you’ve got to build a network in the larger community who are going to supply the services necessary for those offenders, and they’ve got to be supportive and pretty much everybody’s got to be on board.

Leesa McNeil: Right, and we’ve even been successful in getting our county to put money on the table to assist with treatment, so the collaboration amongst the group is key and keeping players educated as they come in and out of the system and having a place where treatment folks can come and say, “Hey, we’re having a problem here,” and bringing the collaborative group together to say, “What can we do to that?” Sometimes we have problems with, you know, we need to find more clients to participate in the program, so we beat the bush, if you would, for attorneys to be reminding their clients that this is available. Sometimes judges forget it’s available, if they haven’t been on the criminal docket for a period, so it’s a continuous process that seems to work well for us.

Len Sipes: Kim Brangoccio, it’s a nice segue into what Leesa said about the clinical folks. You’re the clinical director of United Community Services, so you’re the person basically in charge – tell me if I’m wrong – of making sure that they get the various treatment modalities that are offered and that they are customized for that particular individual offender, correct?

Kim Brangoccio: Yes, that’s correct. I did want to comment, Len, on your talk about how the curriculum, both in the jail and out of the jail, affects the person. We really have found that to be successful, that once they have completed the in-jail portion, they are able to get out into the community. They’re already met their counselors out of the jail; they continue with them once they’re in the community, and they continue to use what they learned in jail, but they still have 6-8 months with us out of the jail where they can utilize what they’ve learned and make sure that they are following through. And that has been very successful for us.

Len Sipes: You know, if anybody doubts that, could you imagine, if a person goes inside the jail, and most jails are nonsmoking, so for the first time in their lives, they’re not smoking, for the three months they’re inside the jail. But as soon as you get outside that jail, you want that cigarette. I don’t care what the circumstances – I mean, before, it’s easy to go through a behavioral therapy-based program, a cognitive-behavioral-based therapy program within a correctional facility. It’s hard as the dickens applying all those skills when you get on the outside.

Kim Brangoccio: Right, exactly. And we talk a lot about that. I mean, we do talk about smoking and a lot of the clients do get out of the jail and start smoking again, but they really utilize the tools that they learn when they’re in jail when they get out, so they don’t go back to using drugs and alcohol. And one of the big things that the clients say to me that they think is a difference is that the program really focuses on both criminal and addictive thinking, so it’s not just the addictive thinking that they might have in another treatment program; they’re focusing on how those two interplay and how that got them into trouble. So we really try to help them always be looking at “What are they thinking?” as well as whether there are addictive patterns.

Len Sipes: You know, when I explain this to people, because I’ve done three stints in terms of dealing with offenders directly – jail, or job corps, doing gang counseling when I was putting myself through college after leaving the law enforcement community, and running group in a prison system – and to explain to people that you have to reorient the individual’s thinking patterns through cognitive-behavioral therapy or what we used to call ‘thinking for a change’ to get people to rethink how they look at life, rethink how they deal with problems, rethink how they process the information that’s in front of them. People who are not part of this process look at me as if I have five heads. “What do you mean? I learned at age five not to beat somebody with a stick if they made me angry, and you mean to tell me that you’ve got to take adult men, or adult women, and teach them that that’s probably not the best way to resolve a problem?” And my response to that is, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” that you have to sometimes train a lot of individuals to think through what it is that they do, and once they develop a different way of thinking through a problem, they don’t revert back to their violent or nasty ways of doing things, and they don’t necessarily go back to doing drugs, because there is an alternative. Now, am I in the ballpark of being right?

Lonnie Cleland: Yeah, could I jump in there for a second, Kim.

Len Sipes: Yeah, please.

Lonnie Cleland: Len, I think Polk County historically has a perfect example of that. As part of our project, we have the University of Iowa’s Consortium for Substance Abuse Research and Evaluation doing criminal thinking assessment so that each of the offenders in the project, the providers of the service give them the criminal thinking test during treatment or admission, and then it’s also followed up later on. What we found – I think it was 2003 or 2004 – was that the criminal thinking scales changed drastically a month after they got out of jail. And so, as a result, the projects were able to adjust their treatment – the frequency, the intensity, the kinds of things that they discussed with the offenders in outpatient treatment – as a way of once again readdressing those criminal thinking kinds of things. You’re absolutely correct. You have to reinforce this at all points, in my opinion.

Len Sipes: And this program is basically based on the individual offender facing a criminal charge, going before the judge, and making a plea either on a pre-trial basis or on a post-trial basis, agreeing to stay within these four jails for a certain amount of time, and then to continue that treatment in the community. That’s pretty much the agreement. They go and they’re sanctioned by a judge and the judge remands them to this treatment program and it’s something that they must complete, and in some cases, the charges are waived or done away with, and in some cases, they continue during a probationary period. Am I correct?

Kim Brangoccio: That’s correct. That’s how it works.

Len Sipes: Okay, cool. All right. And basically, you’ve done about 2000 offenders, 2000 clients throughout that time, correct?

Lonnie Cleland: It’s probably up around 2600 now. Because of some funding problems we had about a year and a half ago, we had to reinitiate the evaluation project, and so we had to start it over, and I think we have – I was talking to the evaluators just a few days ago – I think we’ve got 800 more in the project at this point.

Len Sipes: Wow, that’s amazing.

Lonnie Cleland: But those results, because we had to start it over, those results are still sort of in process.

Len Sipes: Okay. And to go with the results, this is one-year follow-up, but this is a self-assessment on the part of an offender, basically through an interview process done by an outside agency. 78.5% were clean, 91.9% had not been arrested, and 68.2% were employed on a full-time basis, correct?

Lonnie Cleland: Full or part time, yes.

Len Sipes: Full or part time. Now, those are amazing results.

Kim Brangoccio: Yes they are.

Lonnie Cleland: Yes they are.

Leesa McNeil: We think so.

Len Sipes: Congratulations. Congratulations to the three of you and congratulations to everybody involved. Those are amazing results. Before getting involved in the larger question of the take-aways – what are the things that the rest of us in the criminal justice system can learn from all of this – in essence, you have these participants, they’re basically successful. And this evaluation is focusing on the people who’ve completed the program – it is cognitive-behavioral therapy based, but you provide lots of other services, both inside the institution and out in the community. But the interesting thing about all this is that it’s done within a jail environment, and being exposed to a jail when I was with the Maryland Department of Public Safety at the Baltimore city jail, which is one of the biggest in the country, I was like blown away by the complexity of running a jail. I mean, a prison is relatively simple and straightforward and easy compared to tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of individuals coming into and out of the jail in a rapid-fire fashion. They’re coming into the booking center, if the booking center is within the jail. Any jail is chaotic. Any jail is just an immensely complicated place to run, and the fact that you were able to produce this sort of a program and have these sort of results within the jail setting, I think are enormous. But am I right? The jail is just a difficult place to do this sort of thing.

Leesa McNeil: Oh, it’s very difficult, Len. This is Leesa. Space is an issue, because you need to find space where you can kind of isolate the defendants that you want to participate in the program. As you know, jail space is at a premium. The lack of jail space is what actually prompted our county to be very anxious to get to the table to get some better outcomes, because overcrowding was an issue. And through a series of programs, you know, here we are six years later. We’re aren’t facing building a new jail, so -

Len Sipes: And every government administrator who is listening to this program, their ears just perked up. So you were able to avoid building a facility because of this program.

Leesa McNeil: Well, not just this program. We have a group of programs, and that’s one of the keys to success in terms of a walk-away, I think, is you need to have a collaborative group that supports the bigger offender population in terms of working to get better outcomes for them. We have a drug court, we have a mental health court, and now we have this Jail-Based Treatment program. And we attribute our success to not building a new jail to the combination of those programs and the collaboration, that all of the players came to the table and worked to make them all a success.

Len Sipes: We’re halfway through the program. I do want to give the website for this particular program: www.idph.state.ia.us and search for jail-based programs. I’m going to repeat that one more time, but in the show notes, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll have the web address that goes directly to the publications that address the Iowa Jail-Based Substance Treatment program project. Stumbling over that. Again, it is www.idph.state.ia.us. Search for jail-based programs. Our guests today are Lonnie Cleland. He is the program planner, Iowa Department of Public Health. Leesa McNeil, District Court Administrator for Woodbury County, Iowa. And Kim Brangoccio – she is the clinical director for United Community Services. The program is brought to you, once again, by the National Criminal Justice Association – www.ncja.org. Okay, Leesa, you were talking about taking about take-aways, and that’s exactly where I want to go with this, is that there are people throughout the country who are saying, “Eh, the jail is just not the setting to do clinical-based programs.” Or they’re saying, “No, it’s just too expensive,” or they’re going to throw a lot of reasons up as to why they can’t do what they want to do, so what would you say to them?

Leesa McNeil: I would say the take-away is that it is key to have program evaluation, because that shows it’s a success. And when people say we can’t afford to do this, we can’t afford not to. Everybody knows that to house a prisoner for a year costs $25,000 plus, depending on the jurisdiction. We can show that treatment of an individual for a fourth of that amount can keep a person out of prison, and so when the community says, “Why are we paying for treatment for these people?” it’s like, “Well, would you rather pay for them to be in an institution in the future for how many years?” And now we’re turning them out and they’re paying their child support, they’re keeping jobs, they’re staying clean. We’re not building jails. Those things are expensive. I think when we look at the human cost, the taxpayer cost, and unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of studies that pull all that together for the taxpayer to see, but that is the true savings. And so, not only saving the person from a horrible life in terms of abuse, but saving the taxpayers and saving our future workforce, saving future families, all that. You can’t compare the cost.

Kim Brangoccio: Len, this is Kim, and I would also add to that the fact that it really does affect future generations. Many of the clients that we see in the jail, they have young children. And if they turn things around because of their treatment, their kids are way less likely to end up in jail. And right now, as it stands in our jail, there are many, many people that their grandpa was there, or their father was there, their mother was there, and if we can stop that cycle, it helps into the future.

Leesa McNeil: Again, add the cost of foster care. Oh, my god.

Lonnie Cleland: Yeah, and we haven’t – we’ve actually, Len, done a cost analysis of this project and compared the cost of this project versus the cost of prison, which is where many of these offenders would end up without the project.

Len Sipes: Right, correct.

Lonnie Cleland: The average daily cost for these four counties is $30.19 per offender. The average prison daily cost is $64.00. So we’re saving the state taxpayers $34.00 per offender, per day.

Len Sipes: Basically, we want tax burdens to become taxpayers. We want non-parents to become parents. We want to reduce the odds, which according to research, are very high, of the children of offenders – instead of them continuing the ways of their parents and continuing within the criminal justice system – we’re trying to reach them as well, through their parents. So this is from an economic point of view, from a crime control point of view, from a fiscal responsibility point of view, this seems to be a win-win situation.

Kim Brangoccio: Yep.

Leesa McNeil: Mm-hmm.

Lonnie Cleland: I agree.

Len Sipes: Then the other issue is that administrators who are listening to this are basically saying, “Leonard, you could tell me that an investment of $5,000,000 will give me the goose that lays the golden egg, and eventually, those golden eggs will more than make up for that $5,000,000. I don’t have the money.” And how many times have I heard from administrators throughout the country, “Leonard, what is it that you don’t understand about the fact that I don’t have the money?”

Leesa McNeil: Well, you’ve got to ask them, “Do you have the money to build a new jail?” And our community said no. And that is why we, I think, as administrators and people who are working in the system need to help people understand there is a cost to doing nothing. And people have to be educated about that cost and we have to get decision makers to say, “This isn’t just a program we should wait for the feds to come and solve; this is a program that affects every county in the nation.”

Lonnie Cleland: Yeah, and Leesa and Kim, I’m wondering if you might not agree that the first step is just getting everybody to the table and getting information out, but also having a conversation about, okay, let’s talk about what some of the options are that are out there.

Kim Brangoccio: Yeah, I think if you do that, if you have a conversation with everyone involved, there may be some other ways to get it started without the jail just having to fund it, or the community, or maybe a treatment program would be able to utilize some of their dollars in the jail, doing treatment with those folks, and it’s just a change of site. Or maybe there’s some arrangements that can be made where the services that are already being provided in another way, just the dollars could be shifted a little so that they could start a jail program, and then once you see the success, it really does prove itself and the money can be easier to find.

Leesa McNeil: Len, this is Leesa. That’s just one of the walk-aways. You have to have a good evaluation, or you won’t be able to prove that you’re doing the kinds of things we’re doing.

Len Sipes: Bingo. That’s exactly where I was going, Leesa. The point is that you can prove your impact. The great majority of the programs out there that are similar to yours don’t have an evaluation, so they really can’t prove their impact. I mean, one of the ways they’re proving their impact, by the way, is in lieu of a formal evaluation, is that the jail population seems to go down, or seems to be steady, so they don’t have to build another jail, and without the evaluation, you never know if it was attributable to your program or not, but they’re happy with that. They’re just tickled pink that they do not have to invest several hundred million dollars to construct a new jail and a million – oh, I’m sorry, probably I’m going to guess $50,000,000 a year to maintain it. They’re just tickled pink that that is the result, but it’s more than that, is what you just said before. It’s less crime, it’s more kids being taken care of. It’s just a win-win situation across the board, but yet the average county administrator in the United States is not jumping up and down to do these programs.

Kim Brangoccio: Yeah, and I think that’s why we’ve got to make the case.

Lonnie Cleland: Yeah, one of the benefits of evaluation is not just the long-term benefit of being able to show that these projects save money or that they have a social benefit, but it’s also being able to move more efficiently, more effectively, when you get a snapshot of how a project is working. As I pointed out earlier, finding out that criminal thinking increases a month after people are released from jail has a powerful affect on being able to adjust the treatment program quickly and to be able to keep the social impact of those folks at a minimum. And so the evaluation component can also help you be more flexible and faster and meaner when it comes to successfully treating these folks.

Len Sipes: Right, because the process of evaluation, a third of the way through, will show some success and some problems, so thereby you address the problems, because you were evaluating the program from the very beginning. Is there something in the water in Iowa that causes everybody to sit at the same table? We did another show with the National Criminal Justice Association about a jurisdiction in New York City, Red Hook, where the judge got everybody together and had fabulous results. It’s that sense of – and it’s funny, the President’s Commission on Crime and Justice back in the ’60s made this point – and in my forty years in the criminal justice system, I haven’t seen many examples of everybody coming together and sitting at the same table and cooperating for the common good, so what’s in the water out there in Iowa that calls in four counties and calls to everybody to sit at the same table and to share resources and to try to do something for the common good?

Leesa McNeil: Len, this is Leesa, and I’ll pipe in to start the conversation on that topic. And that is, in our community, it took two things. We had a jail overcrowding crisis where we were under federal court supervision to do something or build a new jail. And we had a judge who worked with me and stepped up to the table and said, “I’ll help lend credence to getting everybody to the table.” And as you know, Leonard, when a judge says, “Come to a meeting,” everybody comes. Well, once we got people there, we kind of semi-formally organized ourselves and made some agreements about future meetings, and the groups hung with it over ten years now. And they see the benefit, after we start the process going to making these productive meetings and that we’re talking about things that affect them. And one of our collaborative groups – we have twenty-two different criminal justice entities, or entities that affect the criminal justice system – that come to the table on a regular basis. And it’s just to hear about, well, “What’s going on? What are the problems? Who’s doing what? How is that going to impact me? What am I doing that’s going to impact everybody else?” And it gives a forum for sharing, and then it creates a synergy unto itself.

Len Sipes: And more and more judges, Leesa, are taking center stage, and I’m very happy to see that, because judges traditionally have found that their role, in terms of separation of powers, the tri-partied sense of you have the executive branch, you have the legislative branch, and you have the judicial branch, and the judicial branch should not intermingle with the other two. And that seems to be falling by the wayside, and when judges take the lead, they seem to have a powerful impact on the rest of us.

Leesa McNeil: Yep, it’s working in Iowa.

Len Sipes: Lonnie, you were trying to get in here.

Lonnie Cleland: Yeah, I think also sheriffs are more interested than they used to be. I think they’re seeing more of the impact of high levels of drug and alcohol use in their jails – the offenders getting into jail and having that history. And the word is starting to get around that when we can intervene with those folks successfully, then they’ve got some ideas about, “Well, okay, maybe we can do this too.” But I think the important part is understanding that we have to go to folks right from the start with information, as Leesa said, with data, with “Here’s how much it’s costing you folks to not do anything.”

Len Sipes: Well, it’s my hope that jail administrators throughout the country, or county administrators, will hear this program and say, “Well, son of a gun, if they can do it, I guess we can do it. It’s worth the conversation.

Lonnie Cleland: Yeah, but you know, it’s not easy. Kim, do you remember back in the early stages of the Polk County project, folks, you know, that was a struggle.

Kim Brangoccio: It was.

Lonnie Cleland: Getting folks together.

Kim Brangoccio: It was lots and lots of meetings, initially, trying to get people at the table, just us going to lots of different places and talking with public defenders and the county attorney’s office and going to roll call and really trying to talk with everybody about the results of this outcomes-based, evidence-based practices and that it would really be helpful. But it was very tricky at first.

Len Sipes: Well, we are out of time, and I do want to thank the three of you and the National Criminal Justice Association for bringing this program to our attention, and to congratulate the three of you and everybody involved with the Iowa Jail-Based Substance Treatment project. I mean, what you guys have accomplished, especially within a jail setting, is nothing short of miraculous. And you’ve got the data to prove it, and you have the organization in four counties to support it. And the fact that it’s both jail-based and community-based is, I think, extraordinarily impressive. Ladies and gentlemen, our guests today, Lonnie Cleland, program planner with the Iowa Department of Public Health; Leesa McNeil, District Court Administrator for Woodbury County, Iowa; and Kim Brangoccio, clinical director of United Community Services. Again, the program brought to you by the National Criminal Justice Association, www.ncja.org. I will have the exact address for the report on the Iowa program in the show notes, but for the moment, if you would go to www.idph.state.ia.us and simply do a search for jail-based programs, you’re going to be able to find exactly what it is that we’ve been talking about for the last half hour. Ladies and gentlemen, again, we really appreciate the fact that you are so influential and coming to us with lots of comments about what it is we can do, shouldn’t do, suggestions and criticisms about the program. Leonard.sipes@csosa.gov is my direct email address. Or you can go to media.csosa.gov and comment on there, or you can follow us via Twitter at twitter.com/lensipes, and I want everybody to have themselves a very, very pleasant day.

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See http://media.csosa.gov for our television shows, blog and transcripts.

This radio program is available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2010/02/alliance-of-concerned-men-dc-public-safety-200000-requests-a-month/

We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov or at Twitter at http://twitter.com/lensipes.

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Len Sipes: From our microphones in downtown Washington, DC, this is DC Public Safety. I’m your host Leonard Sipes. We’re beginning to do a series, and we’ve been requested in fact by listeners, to do a series when the impact of community organizations and what community organizations bring to the game in terms of crime control, so we’re about to do that – a couple in DC, a couple throughout the United States. Today I’m really pleased to have Tyrone Curtis Parker. Tyrone is extraordinarily well known within the DC community. He’s extraordinarily well known in terms of the former offender community throughout the United States. He is the Executive Director of the Alliance of Concerned Men, which is a 501(c)3, if anybody out there has any money, non-profit organization. Tyrone Curtis Parker comes from the neighborhoods of Washington, DC. He grew up here. When he came out of the prison system, Tyrone wanted to restore the communities that he saw around him to a better shape, a better place. To do that, the Alliance of Concerned Men does a wide variety of things. I’m just going to go over them briefly – gang intervention, substance abuse, life skills, leadership, after school programs, even programs in terms of younger individuals who abscond from the care of juvenile justice facilities. Tyrone says the bottom line for all of this is public safety, and I couldn’t agree with him more on that and the input of the larger community. Before we get on to our conversation with Tyrone, our usual commercial – I want to thank everybody for all of their letters, cards, phone calls, e-mails, you name it, we get it. If you want to get in touch with us directly, you can do so via e-mail. It’s Leonard.sipes@CSOSA.gov or you can follow me via Twitter, that’s twitter.com/lensipes no break. Back to Tyrone Curtis Parker. Welcome to DC Public Safety.

Tyrone Parker: Thanks a million for having me, Leonard.

Len Sipes: You know, this is interesting, Tyrone, because we were having the usual discussion that I have with people who have been previously incarcerated, that words are extraordinarily powerful and that this whole issue of previously incarcerated people, which I don’t disagree at all that that’s the way we should frame the conversation, but the vast majority of the people out there are going to say, oh, you’re talking about ex-offenders. You’re talking about ex-cons. You’re talking about whatever it is, and those are words that you all feel have a negative concept and hold the ex-offender community down, correct?

Tyrone Parker: No question about it. I think when we begin to look at the terminology of ex-offender, jailbird, convict, terms such as that have a strong tendency of basically retaining the person’s spirit, and this is the common denominator. To be able to uplift this population, so they can feel that they are a part of the greater world, the bigger world, and make contributions to it.

Len Sipes: But you do understand that even the most politically correct people out there, especially newspaper reporters, do refer to former offenders as former offenders or as ex-offenders?

Tyrone Parker: No question about it. I understand that it’s a living and learning situation, and that we’ve got to educate individuals how to address this population.

Len Sipes: The Alliance of Concerned Men – how many people are we talking about who are part of this?

Tyrone Parker: All right. Now, we’re talking about a staff of about 45 individuals.

Len Sipes: Yeah, it’s not a small group.

Tyrone Parker: Not at this point. We’ve been able to basically bring individuals in that have a commitment to their community to make a transformation there, Leonard.

Len Sipes: But are most of these people previously incarcerated people?

Tyrone Parker: No question about it. I would say, Leonard, that particular staff, about 75 percent of our working staff is previously incarcerated persons.

Len Sipes: Now what happens with this individual? He or she comes out of the prison system and the whole idea is to work within the community to take that individual’s knowledge, take that individual’s power, to take that individual’s savvy if you will, and apply it to people who are struggling themselves in terms of substance abuse or in terms of substance abuse or in terms of crime or in terms of violence, and to directly intervene in their lives and help them find another way. That’s the bottom line, correct?

Tyrone Parker: I think you’re correct. We look at it from the perspective that the solution is in the problem, that we’ve got to begin to understand exactly what the solutions are and therefore begin to deal with that from that perspective. Leonard, we have been extraordinarily successful because we work with a number of prisons around the country where we have our programs. With our Concerned Fathers program, rebuilding,

Len Sipes: Wait a minute. Let me back up. Concerned Fathers program?

Tyrone Parker: Yeah.

Len Sipes: Okay. How many persons are you working with?

Tyrone Parker: Basically at this point about five different prisons across the country.

Len Sipes: Wow, that’s quite a bit. So what’s the message there, in terms of Concerned Fathers?

Tyrone Parker: The term is that a man’s responsibility is not relinquished upon confinement. That’s the concept – to be able to rebuild that man doing the time that he’s incarcerated so he understands what his total responsibilities are, and it’s not just a matter of doing time and not making a contribution. We begin the rebuilding process upon that man coming into the facilities and becoming a part of the movement that’s in those particular facilities to make a difference.

Len Sipes: And nobody’s going to disagree with that, certainly. www.AllianceofConcernedMen.com is the website. www.AllianceofConcernedMen.com. Tyrone, look – this is what I get the sense of decades of working with people coming out of the prison system. I worked with them directly and was a spokesperson in Maryland for the Maryland Department of Public Safety, so indirectly and directly when I used to work with folks in the street – is that they come out and they are totally overwhelmed by the process. Whether or not they want to go straight or whether or not they don’t want to go straight, maybe that’s not the point. Maybe the point is, is that they come out and things are so overwhelming to them, that it’s really difficult to put themselves on a proper footing. And maybe what your group does, and maybe what the faith-based groups do, and the other groups out there working with former offenders, maybe what they do is give them a sense of structure that helps them come to grips with the fact that they’re back in open society, and they still have that substance abuse problem, and they still have kids to take care of, and they still need a job, and they still have anger issues to deal with in terms of their own upbringing – at least what this does is to give them a foothold and people and a structure and an organization where they can basically begin that process of trying to find who they are and what they want to contribute. Am I right or wrong?

Tyrone Parker: You know what Leonard, I think to a very large degree you are absolutely correct. I think one of the components that the Alliance tends to look at is basically due to our own experiences. I’m previously incarcerated myself – still is on parole – have been on parole for the last 38 years of my life, so I understand the contents of what’s occurring in regards to the man himself, having lost a son also during the time I was incarcerated.

Len Sipes: You lost a son?

Tyrone Parker: I lost a son to gang violence. He was killed basically by being at the wrong place at the wrong time, but I also think that due to my absentee, to be able to be a part of his life, also made a contribution,

Len Sipes: Well, that’s a lot of guilt to carry.

Tyrone Parker: Oh, well, I don’t think it’s guilt. I think it’s looking at situations and beginning to rebuild from what have occurred, what some folks would consider as bad, only transforming good from it. We all look at situations that we can actually prepare ourselves. It’s almost like throwing a tab in the ball, I think Leonard, and throwing that ball down on the ground. The harder you throw that ball on the ground the higher it would bounce.

Len Sipes: Well, yeah, but that sounds like pulpit preaching. The reality is that they’re coming here and they’re scared half to death. You know people say all the time, Leonard, stop it with this crap about former offenders and how they feel. We don’t care how they felt. They went to prison, they did something bad, they deserve their time. I don’t mind you doing programs about domestic violence, Leonard, and I don’t mind you doing programs about what you do with the police department and the other things that CSOSA does, but this ex-offender stuff starts getting on my nerves after a certain amount of time. And my response is, look, either we want them as being taxpayers or tax burdens, but to get them there involves a heck of a lot of hard work.

Tyrone Parker: You know, Leonard, I think you’re absolutely correct again. One of the things that actually occurred, they’re there to be punished and not for punishment, you know, the continuation of it, and I think that’s a key component because if you treat a person as though they are an animal, you do not treat them humane, then you produce someone that’s coming back out to make hazard on their own community.

Len Sipes: How many people in your experience, Tyrone, when they come out of prison system really are committed to the fundamental process of dealing with their addiction, reuniting with their kids, finding work, doing what the rest of us do on a day to basis? What percentage would you put on that total population who really want to make the change?

Tyrone Parker: You know what, Leonard, this may be a biased reply, but I would easily say 99.9 and my reasons for saying that is at that point, when you find a man that actually comes out, he does not want to go back again to be treated like a dog or an animal in that perspective. So at the concept of the question, the large majority don’t ever want to go back, but as you said, the conditions of the world produce certain situations that individuals do not have the capabilities to be able to transform or to deal with, but this is when it becomes our obligation to be able to have programs put in place to begin to work with these individuals for public safety purposes if nothing else.

Len Sipes: The larger issue is, do we have all the programs necessary? Do we have all the programs put in place to deal with mental health, to deal with substance abuse, to deal with reuniting fathers with their kids, to find employment – are all those programs in place?

Tyrone Parker: You know, Leonard, no, no to a very large degree. However, is it on the agenda? When we look at emergency situations, we look at the chicken flu, the pig flu, emergencies that are occurring, and you begin to direct resources to deal with the public tragedy. This is a public tragedy. When you look at the District of Columbia, young men between the ages of 18 and 35, one out of every two is under some form of judiciary restrainment. Nationally, one out of every three is under some form of judiciary restrainment. This is a sin that’s occurring in regards to this population.

Len Sipes: And people would say that it’s terribly wrong for it to be that way. On the flip side, you have lots of people that would say, you know, Leonard, that’s why we have public schools. All the person had to do was to go to school, graduate from school, get himself a trade, stay away from drugs, stay away from crime, and he wouldn’t be in that set of circumstances to begin with. So in a competing world, the world competes every day. It’s Haiti or it’s taking care of our elderly citizens or taking care of our youngest citizens or putting money into schools, or putting money into former offenders. Different people are going to say, you know, Leonard, they had a wonderful opportunity, the government gives them that opportunity, and they just chose not to take it. Why am I going to be that concerned about them?

Tyrone Parker: Leonard, you remind me of my grade school teacher who used to always say the right thing at the right time. However, Leonard, I think when we start looking at collaborative damage in regards to an individual, once you get a charge and once you actually indict them for anything, and given the sinners, for the rest of your life you pay for that one situation that had occurred. That’s the first component of this all. That’s why we begin to look at language, why language is so very important. How do we begin to reverse these situations? Sure, opportunities were given. Sure, somebody slipped and fell, but should that be a comma for the rest of their lives? In this society, this is the point that we’re at.

Len Sipes: And that’s really the component that we’re talking about. I think all of us – now, I’ve never robbed anybody nor have I ever raped anybody. I have a hard time with, “There, but for the grace of God, go I,” but I have done and virtually everybody has done things where they could find themselves serving some time in prison or jail, even drinking and driving, when you’re younger and you’re stupid. The question becomes, okay, so the person did more than that. Is it within society’s larger, best interest to have that hanging that person’s head for the rest of their lives?

Tyrone Parker: Leonard, there are very few things that individuals did that should be held over their heads for the rest of their lives. You’re basically taking away all of the rights of a human being in the contents of labeling him or of the collaborative concept. This person can no longer vote. He can no longer get employment. I mean, how’s it the whole nine?

Len Sipes: I have a friend of mine – I wouldn’t call him a friend – an associate that I’ve known for years, did a series of armed robberies, served time in the Maryland prison system, and he now sells insurance. He now makes more money than you and I put together. I’ve been to his house – beautiful home, beautiful kids, beautiful wife, beautiful cars – ex-offender, scared half to death that people will know that background. And the thing is, what he’s told me is that look, I can be one of the down and outers. I can be one of the people that constantly goes back to prison, and if the taxpayer wants to spend all that money on me then that’s fine, but I’m putting so much money back into the tax base by being employed and buying all these things and being as successful as I am. That’s an extreme example, but that is the heart and soul of it. What do we want from people?

Tyrone Parker: You know what, Leonard, and I don’t know if we have the time,a very brief story. We did a rally for ex-offenders, previously incarcerated persons, across the street from the White House maybe about four years ago, and this guy had a beautiful picture. Actual fact. It was himself and his son, dressed up in old, traditional jail clothes, and they had a ball and chain that they had actually made with a cross. Maybe the cross had to be about an eight-foot cross, and on that cross they had a sign, and it had Christians have some redemption for me, have some mercy for me. Christians have some mercy for me. I think that’s so symbolic in the context of showing redemption and showing compassion and showing concern for individuals. When do we get to the point that we have that in place and begin to reach out?

Len Sipes: And what would be the impact, indeed, if we did have the capacity to deal with everybody? What would be the impact on public safety? What would be the crime rate? If you had the 800,000 or so people who come out of the prison system in this country every year, back into their communities, if they all had the wherewithal applied to them, in terms of mentors like your organization does in terms of the services that your organization provides, in terms of job training, job assistance, mental health issues, substance abuse issues, a place to live, and a faith-based person there to guide them and to ride them hard if necessary. If they had all of that, what would it mean for the safety of the average citizen? That’s what it comes down to, correct?

Tyrone Parker: That’s exactly what it comes down to.

Len Sipes: And that’s the larger question. I want to reintroduce our guest today. It is Tyrone Parker, the Alliance of Concerned Men, an extraordinarily well known group in Washington, DC, and certainly a group with a national reputation within the reentry community. www.AllianceofConcernedMen.com, a 501(c)3, which means your contributions are tax deductible. So let’s get back to Tyrone, and so that is, I guess Tyrone, that is the larger issue. If you’re saying that 90 percent of all offenders and more, when they come out of the prison system don’t want to come back, and that’s been my experience at the same time, but they’re back on the street, they’re not,it’s not that they don’t want to work. They’re not quite sure how to go about it and they start hanging with folks on the corner, and they start passing a reefer, and they start being loud, and the neighbors get ticked off, and they call the police, and boom – this person is back in the system almost overnight. Now what I’m describing is that unusual?

Tyrone Parker: No, not at all. I think it reminds me of this great holiday that just got through celebrating, Martin Luther King, and Martin makes mention of it’s one thing to give a beggar a quarter, but it is another thing to deal with the system that has created this beggar. So I think as we begin to look at how do we come out of this maze, we’ve got to also look at means to be able to create a safer community, a healthier family, and a better person. This becomes the common denominator. I find it difficult for individuals to be able to tell me anytime this country can go to the moon or be able to tell me where there is war in Africa or any other country underneath the ground, cannot tell me how to deal with this impact of incarceration at the numbers that are occurring.

Len Sipes: Every night they go home. Every night the average citizen who,they are making the decision as to whether or not to fund this or not fund it. Every night that person goes home and they watch the 6:00 news and they watch the 11:00 news and they watch the litany of man’s inhumanity against man, and you and I both know that the term ‘former offender’ or whatever, previously incarcerated person, was responsible for that crime and people say, ah, if I’ve got money to give, it’s going to go to the Red Cross for the Haitian Relief Fund. I’m sorry – I just don’t have all that compassion for a group that is so responsible for harming the larger society. Is that not what they say? Is that not the reality as to why we don’t have more resources for former offenders?

Tyrone Parker: You know what, Leonard, I think it’s also in the concept of it’s easier for individuals to get resources to be able to retain or to jail this population in the contents of priorities. I think that, Leonard, when you start looking at priorities in this country, you start looking at is it more beneficial for us to channel our money into bombs and planes and defense than it is into human services?

Len Sipes: Okay, but they’re going to say daycare, they’re going to say programs for the elderly, they’re going to say all sorts of other things beyond money for former offenders.

Tyrone Parker: And you’re absolutely correct, but the question that I ask next is what type of society do they really want?

Len Sipes: Okay, but that’s a really interesting question. Do they want safety or don’t they want safety, because there seems to be enough research out there now that indicates, and it’s not all uniform and it doesn’t march in cookie cutter lockstep fashion, and it’s not like the reductions are in the 70 to 80 percent range. They’re closer to the 10 to 20 percent range, but if you can have a 20 percent impact on individuals coming out of the prison system in any city in this country, that 20 percent of them are no longer involved in crime, in fact they’re now working and taking care of their kids and taxes, that’s a huge impact on public safety. That’s a huge impact on money we don’t have to spend in terms of taking care of kids who have no father.

Tyrone Parker: And again, Leonard, you are absolutely correct. I think when you start looking at the impact of programs that have really made an impact in regards to public safety you’ve got to look at the District of Columbia. We’re celebrating here a 45-year low in regards to homicides in this particular city. I know when the Alliance first started homicides were almost at 100 a year.

Len Sipes: And you are all out there on the streets night after night after night working with these communities, working with people who are ready to go to war with each other, and sitting down and basically saying no. Look my man, there’s a better way of doing it and this is how, and somehow, someway, you’re having an impact.

Tyrone Parker: You know what, Leonard, that’s because we put everything on the table. Every means of resource was actually put into that equation. We utilize even the guys that are locked up to be able to help us in regards to facilitating truce, because we understand their impact in regards to their reputations and their relationships and their love for their community, so why not take that energy level and direct it into the best interest of public safety for that man’s family and the community on the greater good?

Len Sipes: And this is something that the ex-offender community, the previously incarcerated person community, this is the community that’s leading this.

Tyrone Parker: Absolutely, because it’s there. One of the things that has occurred, Leonard, is that we’ve come to realize who is really feeling the brunt of this particular impact in regards to violence in our communities, and by process of elimination, it’s us. I’ve seen times at federal prisons, Otisville, New York, federal prison was willing to do a conference with the Metropolitan Police to deal with gang violence. I’ve seen times where this population has negotiated to help us with truce. I’ve seen the demonstration of public safety in healthy building of communities in the prison itself. They’re in these facilities waiting to be utilized. Our greatest challenge is how do we include them in the conversation to utilize the resources that are already there.

Len Sipes: So the bottom line is that it’s don’t give me a dime, let me make your life safer?

Tyrone Parker: Absolutely.

Len Sipes: What you’re saying is that we’re not here for a handout. We’re here for to take leadership.

Tyrone Parker: And for redemption as well.

Len Sipes: Oh, I understand that, but there’s such a huge difference between give me money for programs versus let me take leadership of my own life – by the way, help me out in the process of doing that, but we’re actively involved and we’re effective.

Tyrone Parker: Absolutely. It’s a win-win situation.

Len Sipes: Yes it is.

Tyrone Parker: Nobody loses. I’ve basically working with up in Otisville, and these guys have produced a document basically stating, select the best prison program that there is in regards to public safety, and they had a list of criterias that would actually produce who would be the best. Leonard, when you start looking at our population of men that are locked up, willing to come forth to create programs that would be in the best interest of the community as well as themselves? Man, how can anybody lose with that type of a concept on the table?

Len Sipes: But it’s interesting. It’s why we do these shows, Tyrone, is because the average person is simply not exposed to this. What the average person is exposed to is channel four. I’m not picking on channel four – it could be channel five, could be,doesn’t matter. Every night after night after night and people are saying, I’m getting sick to God of crime and what it’s doing to my community, and by the way, the people responsible for it I’m not favorably predisposed towards them. Isn’t that the bottom line? The former offender community, the previously incarcerated person gets far more negative publicity than positive publicity.

Tyrone Parker: And that’s simply because we had not did well in regards to PR. We have not did well to be to allowed for the successes that we have had in our community. We have not did well in regards to communication and public relationships to individuals. We have not did well at all in that particular area, but one thing that I know – the case is there that can be presented to be able to show another side of this particular population.

Len Sipes: There are organizations throughout the country that are former offender, previously incarcerated person operated. Delancey Street comes to mind, and I studied Delancey Street when I left the police and was in college and studying criminology, and that concept goes back 25 years of former offenders basically saying, we are taking charge of ourselves and we’re going to accept other former offenders, previously incarcerated people into our community and they’re going to have to follow our roles, but if you basically can toe the line and you basically can prove your worth, we will help you transform from tax burden to taxpayer. So this concept is not a new concept and people need to understand that, that it’s happening throughout the country in one way, shape, or form; it’s just not publicized.

Tyrone Parker: That’s what it is. You’re absolutely correct. No question about that. I think that when we begin to do a better job in regards to PR pertaining to this population here, then we’ll be able to basically see a transformation. The same thing has occurred in other great movements, when you start looking at the handicapped disabilities or different movements where they basically came together and began a whole campaign that transformed things.

Len Sipes: Well, we just have a couple of minutes left. I just want to reemphasize one thing – again, you’re free to criticize. I represent a parole and probation organization – federally funded thank God, parole and probation organization. We freely admit that we don’t have everything that we would like to have in terms of drug treatment and in terms of mental health treatment. The programs that we have are substantial and we are grateful to the taxpayers for doing them, but it is an issue of, not just with us but every organization in the country, whether it’s faith-based, whether it’s parole and probation, whether it’s community-based, it is a matter of resources. It is, is it not?

Tyrone Parker: Leonard, I heard you appropriately say, thank God.

Len Sipes: No, we’re federally funded. We have far more than most parole and probation agencies in this country. We have an entire wing of a hospital devoted to drug treatment that we have financed ourselves through the taxpayers.

Tyrone Parker: And it’s making a significant difference.

Len Sipes: Yes, it is. But the average parole and probation agency in this country doesn’t possess a dime for drug treatment, so we are lucky in the District of Columbia that we do have these resources that we can bring to the table, but the question is, is treating 25 percent of the high-risk population enough?

Tyrone Parker: You know what, Leonard? As we begin to turn this ocean liner around, we’re getting a grip on it, even though all the ships may not come in or dock at the same time they’re still coming in. The key is that there is a model in place, which other jurisdictions can begin to look at and begin to build from in the contents of success, and I think the District of Columbia is that particular model at this particular point, because as you said, thank God the resources are there.

Len Sipes: At least in terms of federal resources, but again, we within the criminal justice system, we sit back and we recognize two things – (a) regardless to what we say and regardless of bluster and regardless of whatever confidence that we put on the table, it is the larger community that is going to make us or break us in terms of crime control, not the criminal justice system. And number two, it is groups like yours that are going to have an impact on people coming out of the prison system, not folks like us. It’s going to be the larger organizations that take responsibility, that step up to the plate, and who advocate and who convince people that this is something worth supporting.

Tyrone Parker: No question about it. I often say, Leonard, a healthy father makes a good family, a good family makes a strong community, and a strong community makes a great country, and this is the return fact on what’s occurring. Here in the District you have so many great organizations – Cease Fire, you have Clergy Police Community, you have [INDISCERNIBLE]. You just have a collaboration of excellent programs that have basically,maybe not been on the same page at the same time, but had the same goal, and the goal was public safety.

Len Sipes: And the bottom line and this is worth repeating one more time before we close out the program, in your opinion, is that the great majority of individuals coming out of the prison system don’t want to go back. Who would?

Tyrone Parker: No, there’s no question about it. The large majority of individuals that have come out these particular facilities don’t ever want to go back because they understand their family, they understand themselves, they understand their community, and they understand that they do not want to be treated like an animal.

Len Sipes: But the larger analysis is that somebody – it can’t just be the family. That person may need mental health issues, that person may have substance abuse issues, that person may have dropped out after the 8th grade and needs hard skills in terms of finding work or being trained for work – that’s the problem. Do we have that structure of not just programs, but of fellowship either from the faith community,when I say faith community, I don’t necessarily mean the Christian community. It can be the Islamic community, it could be the Jewish community, it could be anybody. The faith community. Sometimes they need big brothers and big sisters to guide them.

Tyrone Parker: You know what, Leonard, it’s no question about that, but I’m a thorough believer that this whole process begins with the community, but inside these correctional facilities where they can build capacity around themselves by support systems that’s already in place. The Alliance of Concerned Men is doing an extraordinary job with that. We have produced a manual that we feel can make a major difference, and that’s our common denominator. Let’s take a look at doing something out of the box.

Len Sipes: Our guest today has been Tyrone Parker, the Executive Director of the Alliance of Concerned Men. I’m going to repeat the Web address one more time, www.AllianceofConcernedMen.com. That’s all one word by the way. It’s a 501(c)3, which means whatever money that you have Mr. Rich Person sitting back and you’ve got $25,000 to spare, it is a tax deduction. I really want to express my appreciation to Tyrone, and hopefully he’ll come back in about four months or so to talk about other aspects of working with communities in Washington, DC, and in the United States. Ladies and gentlemen, this is DC Public Safety. Once again, thank you very much for your contacts and your suggestions and your criticisms. We don’t care – we’ll take them all. Reach me either through the comments box at media.csosa.gov, that’s how a lot of people do it, or they e-mail me directly at leonard.sipes@CSOSA.gov or follow me via Twitter at twitter.com/lensipes. I want everybody to have themselves a very, very pleasant day.

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Terms: previously incarcerated people, ex-offenders, offenders, public safety

See http://media.csosa.gov for our television shows, blog and transcripts.

This radio program is available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2009/10/relapse-prevention-and-drug-treatment-dc-public-safety/

We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov or at Twitter at http://twitter.com/lensipes.

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Len Sipes From our microphones in downtown Washington, D.C. This is D.C. Public Safety. I’m your host Leonard Sipes. Today, we have, I think, an extraordinary interesting program. We’re going to be talking about relapse prevention for women. Actually, relapse prevention for people who are struggling with substance abuse across the board. To talk about all of this, we have Chris Kiel. She is in charge of our faith-based effort here at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency. We have Tasha Chambers, she is with the City-Wide Outreach Coordinator, one of three working again for the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency. She is a facilitator and she runs groups, and we have Jennifer Gaskins. She was one time appeared on WTOP Radio, which is one of the more famous radio stations in the country. She, at one time, was under supervision, and she comes back and mentors to women involved in the relapse prevention program. But, before going on with the show, I want to remind everybody that we do appreciate very much the fact that you contact us. You follow us on Twitter. You contact us by phone. You contact us by email. You can reach me via email, Leonard L-E-O-N-A-R-D.sipes S-I-P not T but P E-S @C-S-O-S-A, or you can reach me at Twitter, twitter.com/lensipes, and for those of you who contact about us about a lack of programs in September, quite frankly, in terms of vacation and in terms of attending conferences, social media conferences and in terms of sickness, I have not been able to produce a lot of programs. So, if you’re wondering where we’ve been, I’ve been out, and it has been that simple. So, once again, we appreciate the fact that you are interested in the programs here at DC Public Safety Radio, Television, Blog and Transcripts. So, we start off with Chris Kiel. Chris, again, is in charge of the faith-based initiative for the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency program. Chris, give me a sense when you’re talking about relapse prevention for women, or first of all, give me a sense of what we need by the faith-based initiative.

Chris Kiel: Sure, Len, thank you for inviting us. And, this is National Re-entry Relapse Prevention month.

Len Sipes Ah!

Chris Kiel: So, it’s a good thing that we’re having this show now.

Len Sipes Okay.

Chris Kiel: Since this is relapse prevention month.

Len Sipes It’s timely.

Chris Kiel: Well, the faith-based initiative is a program, as you know, that was put in place under a former president, President George Bush, and is now being supported by our current president, and the faith-based initiative focuses on helping persons out in the community through a combination of the federal government along with faith-based institutions. So, here at CSOSA, we have partnered with our faith institutions, and that means any faith institution can be a part of this program, and we work with those faith institutions in providing services for our offenders, which at that point they become called mentees. We remove the label of offender, and we call them mentees.

Len Sipes Uh-huh.

Chris Kiel: And, the mentors who come from the local churches and synagogues and temples work with them in helping them to be able to resolve some of the barriers to reentry. And, so, we also work with service providers here in the city, which are non-profit organizations who provide services as well. So, it’s a wonderful program. We have over 400 persons matched at this current point, meaning . . .

Len Sipes Wait a minute, 400 persons meaning 400 people who were caught up in the criminal justice system?

Chris Kiel: That’s right, matched with a mentor.

Len Sipes Okay, that’s amazing.

Chris Kiel: Yes, we’re very proud of the program.

Len Sipes That is amazing. Four hundred matched . . .

Chris Kiel: Yes.

Len Sipes With a mentor?

Chris Kiel: Yes, with a mentor.

Len Sipes That’s incredible.

Chris Kiel: Yep.

Len Sipes Over what period of time?

Chris Kiel: Over the past year. Our fiscal year . . .

Len Sipes Over the last year?

Chris Kiel: October 2008 . . .

Len Sipes Four hundred? That’s incredible.

Chris Kiel: Since September 30. Yes, we’re very proud of the numbers.

Len Sipes People have been working hard.

Chris Kiel: Yes, yes.

Len Sipes That’s probably more than all of the years combined previous to that.

Chris Kiel: Yes. I’m very proud of that. I’m very proud of my agency.

Len Sipes Congratulations, Chris. That’s great, that’s great. You know, because one of the things; this is not the first program that will have a faith-based theme to it, but one of the things that I found, in the past, is that not only is the faith community very dedicated to this concept, it seems to me that people when they come out of the prison system really need other people to surround them, guide them, help them in terms of income taxes, help them in terms of finding clothes for a job interview, help them in terms of how to conduct a job interview, help them in terms of the fact that I want to go back to heroin. I’m sorry I’m getting sick and tired of not being employed. I’m struggling with employed I want to go back to drugs. I mean, to have not only that individual but to have it in the structure of the church or the synagogue or the mosque that becomes what another very famous person involved in the faith-based effort said, sometime ago, “It’s a gang for good.” You know, how offenders get caught up in gangs, well this is the gang for good. This is a gang of individuals who are pro-social.

Chris Kiel: That’s correct.

Len Sipes Who are trying to do the right thing.

Chris Kiel: That’s correct. As you know, Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous as well as criminal justice systems, we support and encourage offenders to find new people, places and things. Well, if you go in the yellow pages, you’re not going to see a category that says new people, places and things. And, so . . .

Len Sipes For people out of prison.

Chris Kiel: That’s right or for anyone, for that matter. And, so, what we do with the faith-based initiative is we go out and we pursue those relationships on behalf of reentrance and help to build those relationships. Helping them find new people who are, in fact, role models, new places where they can go for pro-social activities and new things that help them to be able to use their creative skills.

Len Sipes Tasha Chambers you’re one of three city-wide outreach coordinators. You are a facilitator and you run groups. Give me a sense as to what your take is on faith-based.

Tasha Chambers: My take on faith-based, I think it’s a one-of-a-kind program, to be honest with you. We work specifically with the faith institutions, and what you’ll find is a lot of times offenders that are inside of the jails or the prisons are looking to a higher power . . .

Len Sipes Uh-huh.

Tasha Chambers: To get them along the way. But, once they come back into society, they lose that. You know, they get caught up . . .

Len Sipes Why is that? Why do you embrace God in prison and come back out and suddenly God disappears?

Tasha Chambers: It’s kind of, you know, he’s there when I need him. You know, a lot of times preachers even preach about that in church.

Len Sipes Uh-huh.

Tasha Chambers: You know, you’ll come to God when things are going bad.

Len Sipes Uh-huh.

Tasha Chambers: But you also want to praise God and thank him when things are going good.

Len Sipes Uh-huh.

Tasha Chambers: And, so, that’s what we try and, you know, reintegrate with the client . . .

Len Sipes Yeah.

Tasha Chambers: Is that, you know, this is something good to have on the outside too, because it is going to keep you from going back to prison.

Len Sipes You know, so many people caught up in the criminal justice system have told me that the key ingredient; the key ingredient was their faith. Now, again, when we’re talking about faith, we’re a federal government organization, we’re not talking about the Christian faith, we’re not talking about Catholicism, we’re not talking about Buddhism, we’re not talking about Shintoism, we’re not talking about the Muslim religion, the Jewish religion because we don’t care. What we want people to do is to participate.

Tasha Chambers: Uh-huh.

Len Sipes So, we’re not trying to push a particular religion . . .

Tasha Chambers: No.

Len Sipes On anybody, and that’s one of the things that I want to make very clear from the beginning because sometimes I’ll get emails basically saying you’re advocating Christianity, but for those individuals who have made that break with drugs, made that break with the lifestyle, as we call it, hanging out on the street, doing; up to no good, not being employed, it was the faith community or their individual dedication to God . . .

Tasha Chambers: Uh-huh.

Len Sipes That pulled them out of that morass.

Tasha Chambers: Uh-huh. And, that’s what we do with the; it’s called the Order My Steps Women’s Group is the group that I facilitate, and it is a faith-based group. We open with prayer. We end with prayer. It’s a universal prayer because understand that, you know.

Len Sipes Uh-huh.

Tasha Chambers: We can’t, you know, pray to anyone particular religion, but yes, we have to; we believe in integrating that piece of faith of God; of belief in a higher power to get you through those tough times.

Len Sipes Uh-huh, which is absolutely necessary, as far as I am concerned, in terms of the hundreds of people that I talk to. Jennifer Gaskins star of radio previously on WTOP Radio here in Washington, D.C. One of the big radio stations in the nation’s capitol and throughout the country, for that matter. You used to be caught up in the lifestyle. You were at one time on supervision. You’re now a mentor. You go back and talk to these young women, older women, in the relapse prevention group. What do you say to them?

Jennifer Gaskins: Well I let them know that faith plays a big part; has played a big part for me. Not just through the rough times but I understand that through the good times too how my higher power is what sustains me.

Len Sipes Uh-huh.

Jennifer Gaskins: I let them know that it’s possible to get out of that situation, to get out of that lifestyle. It’s not an easy thing, as we’ve said earlier. It’s a day to day thing.

Len Sipes Uh-huh.

Jennifer Gaskins: But if you stand fast, and you hold on to your faith and you be kind to yourself and take it one day at a time realizing that any situation can come about that can make you relapse or make you have a desire to relapse. But, you hold on to that faith. You hold on to that conscious decision that this is what I want.

Len Sipes Uh-huh.

Jennifer Gaskins: This is my life. This is how I choose now to live my life because I know that I can live my life this way without being caught up in that so called lifestyle.

Len Sipes I want to go back now to a general conversation of relapse prevention. Now in terms of the CSOSA model, Chris, what we try to do ordinarily is to assess the individual, put the person into drug treatment that deals with that particular person’s issues for being involved in drug abuse, being involved in criminal behavior and then we put them in a relapse prevention group, and so that’s what we’re talking about today. But, you go back to this whole issue from the very beginning of talking to hundreds and hundreds of individuals who are drug addicts, who have been drug addicts who have been alcoholics, and they tell me that every single day of their lives it is a struggle. That once you’ve spent two years with a needle in your arm; two decades; with a needle in your arm, that high, that lifestyle, everything that’s attached to it. Not just the high but the whole; everything that’s attached to it to hanging out, the friends. Everything attached to it becomes so tempting that they’ve got to struggle with it on a day to day basis, and that’s why we do relapse prevention. Correct?

Chris Kiel: That’s correct, and you have to keep in mind that persons who are struggling with an addiction lose a lot of contacts and relationships and support systems. And not only for women, in particular, do they lose all of those variables in their lives, but there are also other barriers for them. They may have lost their children in the process, and so, they have to reunify with their children or reintegrate with their children. And, also, there may be an issue with clothing and food and somewhere to stay and transportation money. There a lot of other variables. And, so, in this women’s relapse prevention group called Order My Steps, one of the things that we do is develop a covenant relationship so that we can support each other. Ms. Chambers is very helpful in terms of being able to provide service providers here in the city who can help to meet some of those needs. In our economy today, it is very hard even for the working person to be able to deal with some of the struggles that we have. But, if you have a history of addiction and not the coping skills to be able to deal with trauma in one’s life, then there is more of a temptation to deal with toxic relationships, to deal with things that you shouldn’t have dealt with in the past.

Len Sipes Most of the women have kids.

Chris Kiel: That’s correct.

Len Sipes Okay. You know, Tasha, it is; I just can’t imagine this. For a male coming out of the prison system, it’s hard enough.

Tasha Chambers: Uh-huh.

Len Sipes For a woman to come out, grab her kids from her mother . . .

Tasha Chambers: Uh-huh.

Len Sipes Or from her grandmother, reintegrate with the children and figuring out how am I going to support these two children and myself and stay away from the bad influences and find work while that nagging of heroin or cocaine addiction; that nagging, nagging, nagging is with me every day. That’s almost impossible to overcome all of those barriers to getting back on the straight and narrow.

Tasha Chambers: Right, and that’s why we are; what we do in our groups is we match out women with mentors, and these are women from the churches that we partner with, and these are women that come with those same situations. You know, we are all trying to keep our family together. We’re all trying to keep food on the table, and, you know, make sure that the kids have clothes and shoes and book bags and all of these things. And, so, those situations, we try to explain to the women are going to come one way or another. The thing is we have to learn how to cope with them, and so, the women; the clients that come to the program they just deal with the addiction piece as well. So, it is a give and take between the mentor and the client because the mentor can show them this is how I’m coping with the things going on in my household, and let me show you the way, and at the same time, let’s also show you how to stay away from those drugs because in the end, like I said, the situations are going to come.

Len Sipes We have a; we did a conference on women offenders at one point, and Chris, I don’t know if you were there at this one, but one woman got up in the crowd and basically said, “You know, I had an altercation. I had a fight with a woman I live with. This happened last night, and she threatened me and my child and I had to pull a knife, and I had to get out of there as quickly as I possibly could. So, now I’m homeless, and oh, by the way, I’m still dealing with my drug addiction. Oh, and by the way, I don’t have a job. Now what are you going to do for me?” So if people sometimes wonder in terms of parole and probation agencies and in terms of trying to assist women offenders in particular coming out of the prison system, that’s the reality of what it is that we have to deal with.

Chris Kiel: That’s right. It’s almost like peeling back an onion. You have to peel back one layer at a time, and in that particular situation, the first layer would be housing. It’s to get that person stabilized and off the street so that they’re not tempted to go out and meet with their friends who will then encourage them back into a drug situation. The second step would be to get them into a treatment program and give them some support and some wrap around services around them and their children, and then to suggest some alternative ways of dealing with conflict that maybe the person could have called the police. They could have walked outside. They could have called a neighbor, other alternatives in pulling out that weapon to resolve the conflict.

Len Sipes Want to reintroduce everybody. Chris Kiel is in charge of our faith-based initiative here at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency in Washington, D.C. where a federal agency providing parole and probation services. Tasha Chambers is one of three city-wide outreach coordinators and facilitator, and she runs groups as part of the faith-based initiative, and Jennifer Gaskins. Jennifer has appeared in other radio shows, and she; well, used to be under supervision of my agency, and she is now mentoring the young women. Jennifer, I’m going to go straight to the heart and soul of a very, very, very difficult question. I’ve sat throughout my 40 years in the criminal justice system; I’ve talked with a lot of women offenders. The stories they tell are tragic including sexual abuse at a fairly young age. I was astounded when I saw national research that said that this was not an unusual occurrence. In fact, that 67%, if I remember correctly, of women claim a history of sexual abuse and neglect. Not just; I’m not saying 67% were sexually abused, but between that and neglect, they’re coming from some really tough backgrounds. Now, is that correct or incorrect?

Jennifer Gaskins: Well, along the journey I’ve run into women that have come from that particular type of background. But, astonishing not all females have encountered that type of situation. Some of us, for example, have grown up in a stable home.

Len Sipes Uh-huh.

Jennifer Gaskins: Where there was love and tenderness and guidance and direction, but once we got a certain age, of course, we chose to go to the left as opposed to the right. So, you encounter females that have, in fact, gone through that. But, like I said, astonishingly, not all females that are caught up in the system, that are caught up in drug usage come from that type of background.

Len Sipes Okay, but is that an issue? Because, what I’m saying is this; is that when you’re dealing with addiction, when you’re dealing with addiction of women caught up in the criminal justice system when we’re trying to get to the heart and soul of their addiction oftentimes that seems to be other women have reported to me that that is the heart and soul of their addiction.

Jennifer Gaskins: Yes, and it is, and there’s a loneliness and there’s an emptiness and there’s a need. There’s a desire to be loved, to be cared for, so, you go to the streets. You go to the drugs for the comfort.

Len Sipes You go to the wrong man.

Jennifer Gaskins: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Looking for love in all the wrong places, but you’re looking and you’re seeking and you need this. You know, just to feel normal, just to feel comfortable within yourself because of that particular background and those things that have happened to you, and there you are; you’re there, and you’re stuck and you don’t know how to get out and it winds up being a case of incarceration.

Len Sipes Chris and I came from the Maryland system and this was not based upon a particular study, Jennifer, but we just estimated there was a certain point where the women that we incarcerated not having community supervision but were under incarceration, and somebody said we could probably safely release a third of them, probably many more than that who were involved with a male. The male said, “Run these drugs to New York or I’m going to hurt you and your kid.” And, she’s strung out on drugs to begin with, and she feels she absolutely has no choice because of the laws the way that they’re written and because she’s transporting such a large amount of drugs, she received a good stretch in the Maryland prison system. She was not a danger to society. She was; I mean in the terms of a rapist or a robber or a person going out and committing aggravated assault or murder. She was caught up in a system, and I’m not quite sure a lot of people considered her a danger. We said that if she was let out and received substance abuse and received help, substance abuse therapy and received help with her children and received help with housing and put on a GPS, we could probably safely take a third of the women that we incarcerated and put them out with no negative effect on public safety.

Jennifer Gaskins: I believe that. There are several women well, as you say, a large number of women that aren’t a danger per se a murderer, a robber or whatever to society but have gotten caught up in a relationship. If not the transportation of the drugs, they’ve gotten involved with someone where they’ve acquired an addiction.

Len Sipes Uh-huh.

Jennifer Gaskins: And having no job, you rely on that person to supply that drug for you.

Len Sipes Or they’re holding his gun or . . .

Jennifer Gaskins: Yes.

Len Sipes Or they’re driving him different places . . .

Jennifer Gaskins: Right.

Len Sipes And you know, being behind the wheel driving him to an armed robbery and somebody dies in that armed robbery that’s felony murder.

Jennifer Gaskins: Yes.

Len Sipes Then that woman is now up for a murder charge.

Jennifer Gaskins: But they get caught up because that particular person or that situation is a means to an end.

Len Sipes So, in knowing all of this, this is the thing that astounds me. I don’t understand, quite frankly, how anybody who comes out of prison without money. Who has two kids. Who has a history of substance abuse. Who has some emotional issues in terms of everything that she’s been through. How does she have a chance in Hades of getting out of that situation and then I think of the faith-based initiative.

Jennifer Gaskins: Yes.

Len Sipes We in government, you know, we’re very limited in terms of what it is we can do, but somebody has got to reach that woman’s soul.

Tasha Chambers: Uh-huh.

Len Sipes And, we in government aren’t designed nor equipped or supposed to be reaching for anybody’s soul. We’re; but that’s the heart and soul of this issue isn’t it Chris?

Chris Kiel: Yes. What the faith institutions can do is hug and cry when we can’t hug and cry. As law enforcement personnel, we’re expected to have a certain demeanor, and so, we can’t always be in the position of hugging and crying and being there to assist. But, the faith community can give that. They can help to build self-esteem. They can be there to empower, and they can be there to listen and hear some of the things that, perhaps, we would consider another crime, but yet, the faith community can listen to it and know that that’s part of that person’s history. It’s part of the abuse that they’ve been involved in. And, so, what happens is that the woman begins to trust. They begin to understand. They begin to research solutions to their problems. They become empowered to make a change in their lives.

Len Sipes That concept of empowerment, I mean, it seems, Tasha, almost impossible. As I said to Jennifer, it seems almost impossible for any human being to bounce back from all of those negatives. How does any human being bounce back, yet, I’ve seen the faith community surround that individual when they’re at their lowest and help that person maintain a sense of dignity and help that person see a future. I’m not quite sure how that woman even sees a future, and yet, there are three or four people in the faith community who said, “I will show you how to create that future for yourself.”

Tasha Chambers: Nothing is impossible with God, and that’s what we tell the ladies. There is nothing impossible with God, and so, just like as we latched to these men that, you know, sometimes drive us into these situations and get us locked up and get us into all of this trouble. We have to latch on to God the same way. We have to look to him like he’s our boyfriend or he’s our husband, and we can move that way. So, we start there first with God.

Len Sipes Uh-huh.

Tasha Chambers: If you have a belief in a higher power and faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains.

Len Sipes Uh-huh.

Tasha Chambers: And, so, from then on, we do the works, as well. We get them into; we, you know, invite them to attend the churches or the mosques or the synagogues. We . . .

Len Sipes But that’s not necessary, right?

Tasha Chambers: It’s not necessary, no.

Len Sipes I just wanted to be sure.

Tasha Chambers: Oh, okay. Not necessary. Invite, invite . . .

Len Sipes No, no. I’m serious about this because people will write and say you’re promoting religion. No, we’re the federal government, and we’re not promoting religion. I’m serious.

Tasha Chambers: Right.

Len Sipes I’m seriously asking you that question we don’t promote?

Tasha Chambers: No we don’t.

Len Sipes So, when we invite the church that is an optional invite?

Tasha Chambers: That is completely optional for the client, and if they’re not comfortable attending a church or they’re not ready for that yet, we have a whole list of service providers.

Len Sipes Right.

Tasha Chambers: Whether they’re at a community-based agency or they’re at the church. So, we can plug them into a lot of different programs a lot of different services. They have a mentor that they working with one on one. A lot of times CSOs they have 50 to 60 case loads. So a lot of . . .

Len Sipes And those CSOs are the parole and; what most people call the parole and probation agents that what we call them here in the city of Washington, Community Supervision Officers. Go ahead, I’m sorry.

Tasha Chambers: Correct, correct. And, so, they; some clients need that more one on one, you know, to get them through those times. So, they have mentors, they have myself as an Outreach Coordinator, they have Ms. Kiel, they have Jennifer, they have all of these individuals to help them along the way, and at the same time, hopefully, they have faith in God to get them through.

Len Sipes Uh-huh. And if they want to join the Catholic Church, if they want to go to a service at that Mosque, that’s up to them.

Tasha Chambers: It’s completely up to them.

Len Sipes But at the same time, I want to shift back and say it is also equally true that again, I have seen three and four people from the faith community work with that individual, talk to that individual with the course of a half and hour an hour, and it is intense.

Tasha Chambers: Uh-huh.

Len Sipes It is extraordinarily intense. It is, if we could record it, people would have a sense to a human being who is alone. Who is responsible for, generally speaking, a couple of other human beings, i.e. children. Basically saying I can’t do this. I cannot shake my addiction. I can’t get a job. I can’t live on my own. I can’t do this, and six months later, she is doing it.

Tasha Chambers: We just had a group, a matter of fact, on Tuesday night, and we talked about changing our way of thinking. Things that we see are not always how they are, but because we’re so used to thinking things and seeing things a certain way, it’s hard for us to get into another gear. And, so, we did talk about that. The I can’t, I can’t, I can’t; why can’t you do this? What’s stopping you? What are those barriers that you’re seeing that we’re not seeing because, honestly, we see that you can get through this, and the matter is if you want to get through this. You have a want and a need to get through this, then you can, but it really is the freewill of the client. We can be there as a shoulder to lean on, as a resource, etc., but it’s really up to the client if they want to change.

Len Sipes It really is, I mean, one of the things, Jennifer, that I’ve heard from people caught up in the criminal justice system so many times is that it is a very personal decision, and until you make that very personal decision, we in the criminal justice system cannot drag you into conformity. That your willingness to go to drug treatment, your willingness to find work, your willingness to support your kids, your willingness not to commit crime, your willingness not to do drugs is; we can’t force that upon anybody. First, it must be that personal decision.

Jennifer Gaskins: It must be a conscious decision that you make within yourself that this is what I want, and I’m doing it for self. I’m not doing it for my mother. I’m not doing it for my children. I’m not doing it for my father. I’m not doing it for my pastor. I am doing this for myself because it is, in fact, your life that you’re talking about, and once you get to that point where I want this, this is what I really want.

Len Sipes We only have about another minute and a half left in the program, how does a person get to that point. How many times have people told me they were sick and tired of being sick and tired? They were sick of going to jail, sick and tired of substance abuse, sick and tired of being strung out, sick and tired of the family not trusting them, but does it have to be that dire, does it have to be after, you know, you’ve been caught up in this system for years and years. I mean, can that happen when you’re 20? Can that happen when you’re 17? Can that happen when you’re 25?

Jennifer Gaskins: There is no age limit. I think everybody has to reach what is their bottom, and everybody’s bottom is different. Be it the loss of your children, a job, your home; everybody’s bottom is different. But, I think once you get there and we pray that it doesn’t have to be something so devastating to get you caught up in the system before you . . .

Len Sipes But it often is.

Jennifer Gaskins: And it often is, and the reality is that’s when we come into play. That’s when the mentors, the faith based. That’s when we let them know we believe in you, but we want you to also believe in yourself.

Len Sipes Right.

Jennifer Gaskins: And once a person sees that, hey, I’m worth believing in then they start grasping that concept I am worth believing in. I am worth being cared about, and it just takes hold.

Len Sipes You know, it is sort of like the angels of mercy what are in Catholicism, I think, the sisters of mercy. So, you guys end up being the angels of mercy. We have got to close out the program, and first of all, I want to invite the three of you back whenever you want or to bring the people who you are dealing with and let them come back and tell their stories because this is just an amazing transformation. I am so enthused about what I see in regarding the faith-based community. That’s because after 40 years in the criminal justice system, I’ve gotten rather cynical, and I see; I see optimism with the faith-based community rather than the cynicism I see from my fellow members of the criminal justice system who have been around for a while. At our mike friends today is Chris KIEL, in charge of the faith-based program for the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency. Four hundred people this year Chris, that’s a wonderful, wonderful accomplishment. Four hundred people who have been mentored to in terms of the faith-based community. Go ahead.

Chris Kiel: My goal June of 2010 is to have 200 faith institutions signed on to this program. So, if you’re listening in the D.C. metropolitan area, please give us a call at; or email me, and we would love to have you become a part of our program.

Len Sipes What’s the number, Chris?

Chris Kiel: You can reach me at 202-345-4494.

Len Sipes And what I’ll do, I’ll put up the telephone number on the show notes, and also, put in Chris’ email address. That’s 202-345-4495, 202-345-4495. Tasha Chambers what a . . .

Chris Kiel: 94.

Len Sipes Oh, I’m sorry, 449 . . .

Chris Kiel: Four.

Len Sipes Eek; now I have to say that over again, 4494. 202-345-4494, 202-345-4494, and we’ll put that telephone number up in the show notes. Tasha Chambers, one of three city-wide coordinators and the person who runs and facilitates groups, thank you very much for being with us. Jennifer Gaskins, star of WTOP Radio, and thank you very much for coming back and volunteering . . .

Jennifer Gaskins: Thank you for having me.

Len Sipes To have at these young women who are struggling with their lives. Ladies and gentlemen, this is D.C. Public Safety. Again, we really appreciate the fact that you’re contacting us. Let us know how you feel about the show, suggestions, or criticisms, for that matter. You can reach me at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov. Please have yourselves a very, very pleasant day.

-Audio ends -

Meta terms: crime, criminals, criminal justice, parole, probation, prison, drug treatment, reentry, sex offenders, domestic violence, anger management, corrections, high-risk offenders, GPS, women, offenders

See http://media.csosa.gov for our television shows, blog and transcripts.

This radio program is available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2009/10/assisting-women-offenders-harriets-house-ncja-dc-public-safety/

We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov or at Twitter at http://twitter.com/lensipes.

-Audio begins -

Len Sipes: From our microphones in downtown Washington, D.C, this is D.C. Public Safety. I’m your host, Leonard Sipes. We have, starting brand new again, we did it last year and I’m really happy to have them back, the National Criminal Justice Association. They bring some of the best shows. They’re exemplary programs. These are individuals and programs who have received awards from the National Criminal Justice Association at their conference for doing wonderful things within the criminal justice system. We have a program today called, Harriet’s House. That is a pre-release program for women. Actually, it’s a reentry program for women. Their recidivism rate is 15 percent and so this is a dynamite concept of a successful program. Before getting into the particulars and introducing the participants for today’s radio show, I want to remind everybody that we are extraordinarily grateful for all of your emails and for your contacts and your suggestions. Feel free to get in touch with me directly, Leonard L-E-O-N-A-R-D.sipes S-I-P not to but P-E-S@csosa.gov; that’s my direct email address. Or you can comment on the shows at D.C. Public Safety or you can follow me via Twitter and that is Twitter.com/lensipes S-I-P-E-S. And I’m going to introduce everybody. There are four participants in today’s show. They are Jeanne Tedrow and she is one of the founders of Harriet’s House and Passage Home. Lisa Crosslin is the program director from Harriet’s House. Cheryl Bryant is the grants management specialist. She is with the North Carolina Governor’s Crime Commission. And we have Michelle Bridges. She’s a graduate of the program and, interestingly enough, she is a board member, which I think is a wickedly smart move. We’re going to start off with Jeanne Tedrow. Jeanne, can you give me a sense of Harriet’s House and what it does, please?

Jeanne Tedrow: Thanks, Len. Harriet’s House is a program of Passage Home and as such it is a specialized transitional housing program developed to help women make a successful reentry into the community, regain custody of their children, if they have children, gain and maintain full-time employment, and obtain permanent affordable housing. It’s primary goal is to reduce recidivism, re-incarceration, among women and among women with children who are leaving our state correctional facilities.

Len Sipes: So, the bottom line is people coming out of prison. They are coming to Harriet’s House and are getting the help they need; that’s the bottom line behind all this, correct?

Jeanne Tedrow: That’s the bottom line. They are coming out and they are not going back at the rates as other women who are not coming through the program.

Len Sipes: I do want to remind everybody that the recidivism rate in this country has been extraordinarily high. There’s a benchmark report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, that is quite old now, but it’s still sort of the benchmark where we talk about two-thirds being rearrested and 50 percent being re-incarcerated; that’s men and women offenders across the board. That’s pretty much what we compare everything to and the fact is that you have a 15 percent return rate to the criminal justice system?

Jeanne Tedrow: That’s correct.

Len Sipes: That’s phenomenal. How can you do such a great job? What’s the secret, Jeanne?

Jeanne Tedrow: I think the primary success is related to the wrap around case management services, the comprehensive approach that we use. We address the very critical issues of every person coming out of prison; housing, employment, and services. And, in the case of parents, we address the issue of re-unification, helping women in particular regain custody of their children and, in that process, we help the caregivers who have taken care of the children while the woman’s in prison; we help them release care back to the mother who basically has failed in her parenting because she has gone to prison. And when she gets back out, she had to regain the trust of her care giving circle in order, not just get legal custody back of her children, but also to make sure that that support network is going to support her back in that role as a mother and we’re very successful in that re-unification process, which for women makes all the difference in terms of coming out of prison.

Len Sipes: Lisa Crosslin, we’re going to go to you. One of the things that amazes me is the fact that according to national research, I don’t know what it’s like down there in North Carolina and I never did, by the way, state where Harriet’s House is in North Carolina. What city please?

Lisa Crosslin: Raleigh, North Carolina.

Len Sipes: Okay. So, you’re in Raleigh, North Carolina. So, Lisa, the whole concept of women offenders, national research states that about 80 percent are parents. We’re talking about a couple kids in the process, so we’re not just talking about the idea of one human being; we’re talking about multiple human beings. We’re talking about a larger family here. So, what happens to that individual woman as she comes out of the prison systems? It’s magnified by the fact that ordinarily she’s got people dependent upon her.

Lisa Crosslin: What makes our program unique as each woman comes out, on our staff, we also have a children’s case manager because you’re certainly right. As each woman comes out, not only does the woman have to be case managed and counseled, her children as well because, as you can imagine, there are some serious bonding issues and serious re-unification issues that the children will have with their parents. So, we believe in holistic counseling for the mother and the child, sending them both to counseling together and as well as separately and our children’s case manager will work specifically with the children, one on one, to help them make that transition back with their mothers an easier one. So, helping the mothers

Len Sipes: So,

Lisa Crosslin: I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Len Sipes: No, no. You go ahead, please.

Lisa Crosslin: In addition, one of the biggest things you run into mothers who are trying to reunite with their children and learning is a matter of giving to the children of themselves as opposed to thinking that they have to come out and buy and satisfy the gratification of their children by material things as opposed to the children just needing the love and reestablishing the connection with the mother. There’s a deep mental health component of our program that takes up a good 80 percent of their time while they’re in the program.

Len Sipes: Okay. But, I’m sorry. Lisa, the connection wasn’t real good. Give me that stat again, that statistic.

Lisa Crosslin: I said that a good 80 percent of their time while they’re in the program comprised of mental health and family counseling to help with that connection.

Len Sipes: Okay. One of the problems, again, there are correlations of crime and, in this case, there are cross-correlations with most women offenders. Most women offenders, this is national research; now, again, I have no idea what it’s like in Raleigh. I have no idea what it’s like in North Carolina, but national research is that most women are claiming mental health issues. Most offenders across the board are claiming mental health issues and, astoundingly, the rate of abuse and neglect in terms of male offenders; it’s about 15 to 20 percent. The rate of abuse and neglect and also sexual violence directed at them, especially as kids for women offenders, is about 60 percent. So, there’s a huge difference between male and female offenders, just in terms of mental health issues, in terms of prior sex issues, in terms of substance abuse issues, and then this individual comes out of the prison system and there are kids waiting for her. That is a huge, huge challenge. Anybody want to direct that?

Jeanne Tedrow: I think that’s right, Leonard. This is Jeanne Tedrow chiming in here.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Jeanne Tedrow: I think that we have to look first and recognize that women who are in the correctional system, the vast majority of them, were victims before they were perpetrators and they continue to be treated as perpetrators rather than understanding what the issues are as victims. And so this whole policy area around placing women in prison and women going to prison is accelerating at a faster rate than men going to prison. And the vast majority of them are dealing with mental health, substance abuse, health issues that they cannot get while they’re outside of the prison system.

Len Sipes: Now, every time I do a program like this and we talk about the correlates of crime and every time I do a program like this and we release a transcript because some people read a transcript of the radio show, some people listen to the radio show directly, I get emails basically saying, Leonard, you’re making excuses for criminals. And my response always seems to be that I’m not making excuses for criminals; it is 25 minutes before noon on the day we’re recording this and I’m not expressing an opinion when I say it’s 25 of noon, I’m just simply giving a factual response. Nobody’s going to argue that people who commit crimes should go to prison, serious crimes should go to prison, but at the same time, nobody should argue that, especially women offenders bring a wide array of issues in terms of what got them there to begin with. And if they’ve been raped two or three times, if they have schizophrenia, if they have two kids, and if they have a serious drug problem, that individual unless they’re treated and unless these issues are dealt with, she’s just going to come back out and re-offend over and over and over again. Correct?

Michelle Bridgets: Len, this is Michelle and I want to say you’re exactly correct on that point. I was in prison three times. The third time that I finally went into prison I was actually able to take some courses about drugs. Learn new ways to not become dependent on drugs; other than that, it was just going into the system, doing my time, coming back out, and repeating the same thing all over again.

Jeanne Tedrow: Len, I was jus saying that once Michelle received services and appropriate level of services she was able to make a change in her lifestyle.

Leonard: Michelle, they put you on the board for Harriet’s House. That, to me, is a smart move because, regardless of where we as to professionals within the criminal justice system and regardless of how degreed we are and how much we think we understand crime and criminality, there’s nobody who knows it better than those who have lived it.

Michelle Bridgets: Correct.

Len Sipes: Tell me about that.

Michelle Bridgets: I think that I can do the board a lot of good because of the fact that I have been through the program. The last time that I came out of prison it was either to return to the way that I was living and find a way to make a change. I put in an application to Harriet’s House and I was accepted and through that program, with a mentor, with the mentoring, with dealing with my health issues, dealing with my drug issues, they had a wrap around service for me that every issue I had there was somebody there to help me get through another step to go through these phases. And, with a program like that, with wrap around services that’s something covering your kids, something covering issue of abuse, something covering the issue of me not being able to get a job. It wasn’t like they were giving me a hand-out; they were giving me a hand-up. They never let me give up.

Len Sipes: Cheryl Bryant, grants management specialist with the North Carolina Governor’s Crime Commission. You know, Cheryl, the research is abundantly clear. The overwhelming majority of people in the criminal justice system, either in the prison system or when they’re released, do not, I repeat do not, I repeat do not for a third time, get the services that they need, whether it’s mental health, whether it’s substance abuse. We’re only talking about somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of all individuals receiving services. What was it about the North Carolina Governor’s Crime Commission and what was it about Harriet’s House that caused you guys to become involved?

Cheryl Bryant: I think we were excited about the opportunity to fund Harriet’s House for a number of reasons. (1) They provided a very structured program that focused on providing a comprehensive range of services for female offenders, including the housing, substance abuse services, parenting services, employment services, so that’s one thing. Second, they had a very structured framework. The program operates in phases. Third, they were getting support from a variety of forces. They receive financial assistance from the North Carolina Department of Correction. They receive federal funds from our agency. They also received a lot of community support from faith-based organizations. So, the fact they had tremendous support from a variety of entities, the fact they had a very structured program, and they provided a wide range of comprehensive services. We thought all those factors would aid their ability to successfully help these make a successful transition.

Len Sipes: Okay. So, they’re not out there by themselves. They’ve got plenty of partners and they’ve got the faith community involved as well.

Cheryl Bryant: Yes, that’s true.

Len Sipes: That is, I think, probably one of the major underpinnings of any successful program, Cheryl. The fact that you do have, you’re well integrated within the community and the larger community supports your goals and missions instead of you being out there on your own you’re supported by a wide variety of partners. Would you agree with me that that’s an underpinning of what makes for a successful program?

Cheryl Bryant: I agree wholeheartedly. And Harriet’s House has done a fantastic job of creating some long-term sustainable collaborative partnerships and that’s one of the reasons they’ve been so successful.

Len Sipes: And so I understand why the North Carolina Governor’s Crime Commission would support such a program. I just want to editorialize for us here in Washington, D.C. You operate principally with money that comes from the U.S. Department of Justice funded through the various entities throughout the state. That’s one of the reasons why the National Criminal Justice Association is there, www.ncja.org. NCJA represents state criminal justice agencies and governor’s offices and so the bulk of the money, I’m assuming, Cheryl, does continue to come from the federal government to fund exemplary programs in your state. Correct?

Cheryl Bryant: Yeah, that’s true. The federal government provides us with the money and our organization, the Governor’s Crime Commission, acts as a pass through for organizations like Harriet’s House.

Len Sipes: Okay. Cool. We’re halfway through the program. I want to reintroduce everybody. We have Jeanne Tedrow. She is one of the founders of Harriet’s House and Passage Home. We have Lisa Crosslin. She’s the program director of Harriet’s House. We have Cheryl Bryant, who we were just speaking to, the grants management specialist from the North Carolina Governor’s Crime Commission. And we have Michelle Bridges, who was a graduate of the program and a board member of Harriet’s House. Harriet’s House has a 15 percent recidivism rate in a world of much larger recidivism rates. I find that to be extraordinary. The web site is www.passagehome.org/home. aspx. But, Jeanne, I don’t think they need a home.aspx. It’s www.passagehome.org. Correct?

Jeanne Tedrow: That’s correct. And you can find all of our programs on that web site.

Len Sipes: Lovely, lovely, lovely. And we’ll keep that simple. And the web site for the National Criminal Justice Association is www.ncja.org and are the ones who bring these exemplary programs to the public through our radio show at D.C. Public Safety. All right. So, we’ve pretty much set up this whole concept of dealing with women offenders, ladies, in the first 15 minutes of the program. So, you four are going to get to solve the larger issue regarding women offenders. We’ve already stated the level of difficulties that women offenders bring and the fact that they are dramatically different, not just a bit different, but dramatically different from male offenders, I think, if you feel free to disagree with me. What needs to be done in terms of a larger issue, Jeanne?

Jeanne Tedrow: I think we have to look broadly at why women are going to prison and,

Len Sipes: Why are they?

Jeanne Tedrow: Well, if the rate of violent crimes among women who are going to prison is going down and the rate of drug related crimes among women going to prison is going up and we’re facing these high rates of recidivism, it really begs the question: What are we doing when women are either in prison or as they’re leaving prison to receive the types of services and why are we putting people in prison who have mental health, health related, substance abuse problems who are not committing violent crimes? So, as you and I talked earlier, if we really want to do something about the correctional system, let’s look at the low-hanging fruit and the opportunities to be successful for women who could come out of the correctional system, not cause problems for the community; they are really causing problems for themselves. And, if they were to receive appropriate levels of services, they wouldn’t cause a problem to themselves or to the community and we’d free up a lot of very expensive prison beds.

Len Sipes: Yeah. One of the things that we talked about before the program was the fact that there are states, the majority of states and I think the vast majority of states, that are struggling fiscally and they’re cutting back on their correctional programs and this would be the low-hanging fruit. When I was with the state of Maryland for 14 years as a director of public affairs for Maryland Department of Public Safety, we sort of figured that maybe up to one-third of women offenders within the state of Maryland could be safely released if they had services; substance abuse, mental health, dealing with their kids, dealing with family related issues, putting them on GPS, that these individuals would save the state of Maryland literally tens of millions of dollars easily by taking that bottom third and putting them out on community supervision with services. But the larger sense on the part of the public is that nobody forced them into carrying those drugs. We see non-violent crimes. There’s a lot of women who are incarcerated in prison for violent crimes. There’s a lot of women who are incarcerated for armed robberies, for homicides, for aggravated assaults, but give me a sense of the kind of woman, Jeanne, that we’re talking about, kind of woman offender.

Jeanne Tedrow: Well, I think that the women that we are looking at are typically, I would say, 70 percent of the women who come in and out of our program or 76 percent rather have a history of substance abuse. 89 percent of them have actually completed high school and the average number of children in each family is about two, but I think the key factor is that really the vast majority of the mothers and the women who are in our program have received, have experienced significant physical and emotional sexual abuse.

Len Sipes: They were raped as children.

Jeanne Tedrow: And have been abused first. Excuse me?

Len Sipes: They have been raped as children in many cases and sexually assaulted as children.

Jeanne Tedrow: To put it very frankly, yes.

Len Sipes: Yeah. I think we have to put it very frankly because that’s exactly what it is we’re dealing with and that’s almost an inevitable gateway to drugs and mental health issues.

Jeanne Tedrow: Absolutely. And I think we need to recognize that women in this conversation are self-medicating because they don’t have the access that they need to health services, mental health services, and good health services. So, the cost is being redirected to the correctional system when it could have been potentially more effectively and efficiently spent in these other appropriate service sectors.

Len Sipes: Now, whenever I say this, it prompts emails. I believe it to be true. Anyone of you can come in and say it’s not true. The majority of women offenders who I’ve had direct contact with throughout my career the reason why they got involved is, most of these cases they’re carrying significant amount of drugs and they’re caught by law enforcement. Ordinarily, there is a male involved who basically said, if you don’t do this, you will be harmed or your children will be harmed. Am I right or wrong?

Michelle Bridgets: Well, in some cases, you’re right and in some cases, you’re wrong. A lot of these women, when you’re carrying drugs, it’s for a substantial pay-off. Sometimes it is threatening, but sometimes it’s that if I do this, I can actually get to a point where I’m trying to get to because I can get this sum of money.

Len Sipes: Okay. So, it’s profitable and that’s why they do it.

Michelle Bridgets: Yeah, profitable and in some cases, as you said, there being that I’m threatened.

Len Sipes: See, I always struggle with this whole concept of women offenders because on one side I’m trying to portray what I hear from people in the criminal justice system all the time is that we can, as Jeanne put it, we can take this low-hanging fruit and put them out in the community, save states literally tens of millions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars, and not risk public safety. And, on the flip side, a lot of these individuals did things that, pretty serious crimes, that did it simply for a profit motive and I’m making them out to be fallen angels and they’re really not. So, how do you put that into perspective, Jeanne?

Jeanne Tedrow: I don’t think that we should say that they haven’t done anything wrong. I think we have to accept and recognize that crimes have been committed, that they haven’t taken responsibility in a positive way toward themselves or their families. We recognize that. They’ve gone to prison, they’ve paid their time. They have not actually received the services in many cases before going to prison and perhaps during their time of incarceration, but when they get back out and they’ve paid their dues, it would be more cost-effective to make sure they don’t go back to prison and I think that there are very comprehensive, practical ways in which to deliver those services that address the housing, employment, mental health, and services needs for both the mother and the children. And I think reentry for women is a major prevention program.

Len Sipes: Well, just in terms of holding down the burden to the taxpayer, just in terms, I mean, the vast majority of states, I forget what the figure is, but out of the 50 states, I would say it’s 35 to 40 out of the 50 states are suffering significant fiscal issues and they are closing prisons. They are cutting reentry programs. They are cutting parole and probation offices and, in some cases in the state of California, what they’re saying is that non-violent offenders will not return to prison for technical violations. I mean, the criminal justice system is changing dramatically in this country. I’m not quite sure people fully understand how dramatically it’s changing because of fiscal realities and here’s a way to do it in terms of Harriet’s House and, using your model, 15 percent recidivism based upon the national rate of two-thirds being rearrested and 50 percent going back to prison. If you can pull off numbers like that, then you are literally saving the taxpayers of the state of North Carolina, again, tens of millions of dollars that they do not have to spend because of your success.

Michelle Bridgets: I would say that, I mean, with them doing the cuts like they are, if it weren’t for programs such as Harriet’s House with the great reentry program that they have, the recidivism rate would be probably ten times as worse. This is a structured program and, when I say structured, I mean in every sense of the word. I mean, without that program, I never knew anything about budget. I had to come back and learn how to raise my kids. I didn’t know anything about putting out resumes. I knew none of this stuff. I mean, everything in my life that I needed to have assistance with for me to become a person to go back into the community and be able to function, Harriet’s House had that for me. Now, I’m actually manager at a store. Never thought I would be. Without the assistance and without all the programs that Harriet’s House has in place, I would probably be back in prison or either dead.

Len Sipes: Well, Michelle, in stark terms, you’re a taxpayer, not a tax burden.

Michelle Bridgets: That’s right.

Len Sipes: You pay taxes. We no longer pay for you.

Michelle Bridgets: Exactly.

Jeanne Tedrow: And Michelle is a board member, but she also is a person who helps other women who are coming through the system. So, she helped found with Passage Home and the Harriet’s House program an ex-offender program called, WOO, Women Overcoming Obstacles. And so they have been helped, many of the women have come through the Harriet’s House program have been helped and now they’re not only not a tax burden, they are also now reaching back and helping other women who are coming through the system and providing themselves as mentors and support people to people who are now coming behind them in the Harriet’s House program.

Len Sipes: And there’s a lot of mistrust, I’ve been told, and in my direct experience, a lot of mistrust regarding women offenders coming out of prison and they go into one of these programs and they’ve gone through a pretty tough life; in fact, they’ve gone through a hellish life, many of these individuals, and they really don’t trust you when they get out. It’s, like, why are you all doing this for me? Nobody’s ever done anything like this for me. And so there’s a good deal of mistrust that you have to deal with.

Michelle Bridgets: That was true. That was what I was under when I came out, but then the way that it was presented to me is we want to help you get on your feet. We don’t want to see you go back to the way that you were living. The staff at Passage Home, it’s not just a job for them. They put their whole heart into it. So, when you’re thinking when you come out, what do these people want from me? What are they benefiting from me? They’re really not benefiting at all. We’re reaping the benefits because I’m not returning to prison. I’m able to go back into public and I’m actually able to be a regular citizen. Without that help, who knows where I would have been.

Len Sipes: I hear you. I hear you loud and clear, Michelle. Jeanne Tedrow, you are going to have to sum up everything for everybody because I’m going to need some time to close the program and to give the web sites so everybody can appropriately get in touch with you and I’m quite sure somewhere throughout this great country of ours and throughout the world, being 21 percent of our operation is foreign, there’s some extraordinarily rich individual who would love to give to Harriet’s House and provide some additional funding. But, Jeanne Tedrow, go ahead and sum up the bottom line behind all of this before I close the program.

Jeanne Tedrow: I appreciate you saying that, Len. I think that as taxpayers and people who are feeling the pain of our fiscal crisis, we need to be able to look at programs that have a high rate of return on their investment and Passage Home in it’s homeless programs, in its reentry programs, and it’s family self-sufficiency programs will state that with a track record of success, that we’re 85 percent successful in working with the individuals and families that come through our programs. I think an 85 percent success rate is a very excellent return on our investment, both public dollars and private dollars. And, if there are private investors out there, venture capitalists and social entrepreneurs who really want to help a program that breathes success, is second to none is Passage Home.

Len Sipes: Good. www.passagehome.org, one word, would be the way of learning more about Passage Home and about Harriet’s House. I want to thank everybody; Jeanne Tedrow, founder of Harriet’s House and Passage Home, Lisa Crosslin, the program director; Cheryl Bryant and the governor’s office there at North Carolina, and Michelle Bridges, who is a graduate of the program, a great inspiration. I really appreciated you being on the program. Again, reminding everybody this is a program of the National Criminal Justice Association, www.ncja.org. They’ve provided a lot of great programs for us in the past and I hope that they will continue to provide great programs for us in the future. National Criminal Justice Association represents state governor’s office and state justice agencies and their employees. Ladies and gentlemen, this is D.C. Public Safety. I’m your host, Leonard Sipes, and we really appreciate once again the fact that you are listening and that you are participating. Get in touch with me directly at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov or follow me via Twitter at twitter.com/lensipes. Please have yourselves a very, very pleasant day.

- Audio ends -

Meta terms: Police, law enforcement, university, college, criminal justice, education, leadership, professional development, crime, criminals, criminal justice, parole, probation, prison, Women, Offenders

See http://media.csosa.gov for our television shows, blog and transcripts.

This radio program is available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2009/11/offenders-assigned-to-day-reporting-dc-public-safety-228000-requests-a-month/

We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov or at Twitter at http://twitter.com/lensipes.

- Audio begins -

Len Sipes: From our microphones in downtown Washington, D.C., this is D.C. Public Safety. I’m your host, Leonard Sipes. We have, I think, a really interesting program today. Day reporting: These are individuals who come to my agency, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency. They go to Day Reporting when they haven’t done all that well and there are problems in their supervision or they’re not getting jobs and what we do is we say, well, you’re going to have to go to the Day Reporting Center on a day-to-day basis and you’re going to be talking with Mr. Walter Hagins. He is the program manager of the Day Reporting Center and we’ll also have two folks who are currently under our supervision. Again, we are a federal agency providing parole and probation services in Washington, D.C. and I’m not going to use their real names. I’m going to refer to them as Pookie as the first person and Cool as the second person. Ladies and gentlemen, before we get into the gist of our show, want to remind everybody that we are again very, very pleased with the amount of people who are listening to the show. We are up to close to 200,000 individuals, 200,000 requests I should say, for D.C. Public Safety radio, television, blog, and transcripts at media M-E-D-I-A.csosa C-S-O-S-A.gov. Really interested in your comments in the show, suggestions, criticisms; feel free to give them. You can either comment in the comment box at D.C. Public safety; again, media.csosa.gov or you can get to me directly by email, which is Leonard L-E-O-N-A-R-D.sipes S-I-P not T, P-E-S@csosa.gov or you can follow me by Twitter. It’s Twitter.com or Twitter.com/lensipes (without any separation). So, back to our program. Walter Hagins, the program manager of the Day Reporting Center. How ya doing, Walter?

Walter Hagins: Good morning, Len. How are you today?

Len Sipes: I’m all right. You know, Walter, I’ve been to the Day Reporting Center maybe three, four times in the past and I remember we were doing fugitive safe surrender, which was a program designed to get people who are wanted on criminal warrants to voluntarily surrender. So, I did a couple focus groups with the folks at Day Reporting and, boy, were they an interesting bunch of folk. You really got the sense that a lot of these individuals were on the edge that they’re in the community today but they may go back to prison the following day. And I just did not get the sense that these were the most disciplined bunch of folks on the face of the earth. Walter?

Walter Hagins: Well, Len, part of that is partially true and the reason I say that because at the Day Reporting Center it is sort of a one-stop shop to try to get folks back into compliance as well as to try to get individuals to become more employable and that can range from anything from dealing with issues of substance abuse, dealing with issues of homelessness, dealing with issues of literacy, dealing with issues of mental health, dealing with a lot of host of things; personal problems. And so that can trigger one’s supervision that causes them to make decisions that places them at risk. So, the Day Reporting Center, so you do get those folks and it’s our job to kind of mow them back and get them refocused in order to be productive, not only in their lives but in the community.

Len Sipes: But they’re close to going back to prison.

Walter Hagins: Well, yeah, a lot of them because if you don’t follow conditions of supervision, you will go back to prison if you don’t follow those conditions.

Len Sipes: Uh-huh. If you keep pulling positive drug tests, if you don’t show up for drug testing, if the neighbors keep complaining that you’re out on the corner at 1:00 in the morning smoking reefer and raising hell, you’re close to going back to prison.

Walter Hagins: And that’s correct and, fortunately, for us, CSOSA understands that there is a way to kind of intercede, to give another opportunity, another resource, and still hold accountability to try to avoid that going back to prison.

Len Sipes: The bottom line in all of this, and this is the larger question for parole and probation agencies throughout the country, Walter, is the whole concept of maintaining individuals in the community as long as they are not a threat to public safety. So, if the person is arrested for a violent crime, he goes. Nobody’s questioning that. If he’s arrested for a burglary, he goes. But the point is that there’s a lot of stuff that goes on in the middle, in between, and the larger sense for all of us in parole and probation in Canada, in England, and, believe it or not, in China because we’ve provided technical assistance to China on this very issue, is how you maintain folks in the community safely, not threatening public safety, and help them basically stop the drug positives, get the job, clean up the attitude. Am I right or am I wrong? Am I in the ballpark?

Walter Hagins: You are right on point and I think CSOSA is unique because I believe that we are on the right path because what you’re talking about is in a time of financial constraints. Roughly we have anywhere from 40 to 50 that’s always in the Day Reporting Center. Now, to house a federal prisoner, it’s $22,000. So, if you take our 50 guys, that’s roughly over $1,100,000 and my math might be a little bit off but it’s roughly over $1 million. So, what CSOSA has done with this Day Reporting Center is offer a one-stop shop, a place where folks on probation can come and (1) can get structure, can get programming, and can get discipline as well as get the resources from our community partnerships, from what we have in-house to kind of try to combat that so you don’t have to deal with folks returning to prisons and giving them an opportunity. So, that’s been the dilemma and CSOSA’s answer is to let’s not bring folks in who may be drifting and bring them, if it’s substance abuse, bring them substance abuse education. If it’s dealing with structure, have a place where these individuals can come in and they report in for five to six hours, but make that time constructive, make that time where they can receive positive information as well as have a positive support system.

Len Sipes: Okay. Got it. And, just for the record, I want to tell the listeners that there are a variety of programs here at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency where it is, oh, I don’t know what we call all of the different programs that we have, but they are designed to provide a variety of activities, a variety of, I don’t know what the word is, opportunity, a variety of modalities based upon the offender’s unique individual needs all the way to a 30 day placement in a treatment center to deal with either mental health or substance abuse or other problems. So, this is just one of a variety of programs where we try to do the best to protect public safety and, at the same time, try to get that individual to understand that he’s got to work every day, he’s got to stop pulling drug positives, he’s got to cooperate, and he’s got to lose the attitude.

Walter Hagins: You’re right on point.

Len Sipes: All right. Cool. Pookie, we’re going to go over to you now. Really appreciate your being here. Now, you are part of the Day Reporting structure now?

Pookie: That’s correct. How ya doing, Lenny? You doing good?

Len Sipes: I’m doing good. The interesting thing, Pookie, is that, boy, you don’t fit the stereotype. Last time I was at Day Reporting, everybody was young and dressed young and looked young. You’re an older gentleman.

Pookie: Well, consider old

Len Sipes: Well, in a suit and tie, you look good. You look like you’re president of a bank.

Pookie: Well, half my battle has been because of my appearance.

Len Sipes: You know what? Who said that? Somebody said, oh, I forget who said it, some famous celebrity, Woody Allen, I think it was, who said that 80 percent of life and life’s battle’s just showing up. And then somebody came along and said, well, it’s 80 percent just showing up and dressed in a suit or dressed appropriately and that’s 80 percent of life, 80 percent of the success in life is just showing up and looking good. And that’s, you figured that out.

Pookie: That’s correct.

Len Sipes: All right. How’d you get into the Day Reporting program?

Pookie: Well, I got into Day Reporting program because I violated conditions of parole. I came home, I tried unsuccessfully to get a job and it’s been, like, four months. Me and my parole officer decided to try something new, which was he referred me to the Day Reporting Center. I’m not there because of sanction because my urine is positive. I’m not there because I failed to report to his office and I’m not there because I failed to be at my home when he had a home visit. So, I’m basically there to try something new, to try another avenue, to try to get myself back in the mainstream of a job.

Len Sipes: What’s your background, by the way? Somebody listening can, hopefully, get you a job today.

Pookie: Well, my background is being raised in a juvenile institution from the time I was 8 up until, let’s say, 47, I’ve always been a leader, even in prison. I’ve always been able to motivate. So, I say, okay, I’m going to try to use these skills when I get into the community. I got a job cleaning the streets. Made me feel good. The pay wasn’t that great, but I felt good about making an honest dollar. I advanced from team leader to supervisor to senior supervisor to acting project manager. Right? And I normally motivate and I talk to my co-workers.

Len Sipes: What happened? Something happened.

Pookie: However, I did come up with a dirty urine.

Len Sipes: Ah! Okay.

Pookie: Over a 5-year period in the community; first I’ve ever had in my life.

Len Sipes: First dirty urine under supervision?

Pookie: Not my first dirty urine.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Pookie: But what I’m saying is that my first dirty urine, kind of, it had a conflict between me and my parole officer because my dirty urine was alcohol and, see under conditions of parole, you can’t drink alcohol but in moderation, not in excess.

Len Sipes: So, but you’re out of work now, right?

Pookie: I’m out of work now.

Len Sipes: And why’s that?

Pookie: I’m out of work now because I just came home last year in November.

Len Sipes: From prison.

Pookie: From prison.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Pookie: Right? I had to go through the Reentry Center program.

Len Sipes: Right, which is another of our alternative programs.

Pookie: Correct.

Len Sipes: Or not in the case, not an alternative program, but a mode of transitioning being back into the community through intensive drug treatment, mental health; that sort of stuff.

Pookie: In-patient. I also went through drug treatment, which is Second Genesis.

Len Sipes: Cool. Okay. So, you went through the whole she-bang.

Pookie: The whole she-bang.

Len Sipes: Our drug treatment, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, is not what most people think of drug treatment. It’s not twice a week for an hour in a group setting. It is pretty intensive.

Pookie: And it’s all day.

Len Sipes: A thorough analysis of the individual and then placing this person into a residential group setting and a plan for follow-up, relapse prevention for when the person gets out. Correct?

Pookie: Correct.

Len Sipes: Okay. Did it work?

Pookie: It worked. I successfully completed each and every component of the Reentry Program.

Len Sipes: All right. So, you’re not doing drugs?

Pookie: I’m not doing drugs. Matter of fact, I haven’t been home since November 28 of last year and all my urines are negative.

Len Sipes: Okay. So, you’re one of our success stories. So, instead of throwing you back in prison, you’re back in the community and you’re trying to make it.

Pookie: I’m trying to make it. I’m not asking for welfare. I’m not asking for a hand-out. I’m just asking for an extended hand, you know?

Len Sipes: Uh-huh.

Pookie: I’m asking for, give me an opportunity, because my last job, I was given an opportunity.

Len Sipes: But why’d you lose the last job?

Pookie: Because I was violated, not because of anything on the job.

Len Sipes: Okay. But you went back to prison.

Pookie: I went back to prison.

Len Sipes: What’s your skill set? What do you do? What are you good at?

Pookie: Well, I’m good at scrubbing floors. I’m good at carpentry. I’m good at motivating. I’m good at supervising. I’m good at fixing small equipment; lawn mowers, weed whackers. I’ve been able to use

Len Sipes: So, you’re a “hands on” sort of guy?

Pookie: Because I learned each and every phase of my job; that’s why I got to the point of acting supervisor.

Len Sipes: Okay. Cool. And you were working for the city at the time?

Pookie: Well, I was working for a private company but it does work for the city.

Len Sipes: A private company that works for the city. Okay. Anybody out there that’s got a job for Pookie, let me tell you, he looks like a bank president sitting here. I mean, he just looks like a bank president. We’re going to go over to another gentleman who came in today. He’s currently under supervision and we’re just going to call him Cool. I’ve heard the name 40 years in the criminal justice system; Cool Breeze, Cool Man, Cool Kid. I’ve heard about every variation of Cool on the face of the earth. How ya doing, Cool?

Cool: I’m doing good. How ya doing?

Len Sipes: All right. Now, you look like a rock star. You look like you’re just fresh off of MTV doing something or other. You’ve got this fresh face, young man look going about you. And tell me a little bit about your involvement in the Day Reporting system, Cool.

Cool: Well, the Day Reporting Center has done very good for me. Instead of my CSO sending me back to jail, she send me to the Day Reporting Center, which is good.

Len Sipes: Right. And the CSO’s the Community Supervision Officer, what most people would call a parole and probation agent throughout the rest of the country. So, what did you do that got you instead of going back to prison you went here?

Cool: Well, I participated. I mean, I could have said, no.

Len Sipes: Now, what did you do? What was your violation?

Cool: Oh, I didn’t catch any violations. I had no violations. It was because I didn’t obtain employment.

Len Sipes: All right. So, you’re not out there finding work.

Cool: Yes.

Len Sipes: Do you have work now?

Cool: No, not at all, sir.

Len Sipes: All right. But you’re getting work?

Cool: Yes.

Len Sipes: Cool. All right. What’s your impression about the Day Reporting Center? Is it a huge pain in the rear? Is it helpful? Is it, what’s your gut perception of this?

Cool: Well, the Day Reporting Center to me, it offers a lot of good programs. I mean, everyone has their own opinion, but for me, I think, the Day Reporting Center is a good program. I can relate to, I’m down at the Day Reporting Center five days a week, so out of those five days a week, I can relate to at least about 4 1/2 classes out of there. I say 4 1/2 because at one point in time it’s from 1:00 to 3:00. So, it’s a certain speaking at 1:00 till 2:00 and then from 2:00 till 3:00.

Len Sipes: I’m going to reintroduce all three of you because, believe it or not, we’re halfway through the half hour program. Ladies and gentlemen, this is D.C. Public Safety. Walter Hagins is the program manager of the Day Reporting Center for our agency, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency. Walter brought in a couple gentlemen with him today who are part of the process of the Day Reporting Center and we’re not using their real names. We’re calling just one, Pookie, the bank manager, and Cool, the gentleman from MTV, and that’s how I’ve got them all figured out in my mind. Let’s have a larger discussion for the last 15 minutes and I’m going to go back to you, Cool, because I didn’t give you a lot of time. What society is saying and the emails I get and the communications that I get from people who hear these shows and I’m also teaching a class at the University of Maryland right now and I’m giving sort of, like, half down the middle where half the folks are saying, you know, these individuals try to do what you can to keep them in the community. If they don’t have to go back to prison, I really don’t want to pay all the money to send them back to prison, but I want to be protected. That’s the bottom line. So, if you can figure out, Mr. Sipes, you and your agency, if you can figure out who’s going to do well in community supervision and who needs to go back to prison, well, then cool, but I’m not really quite sure I trust your judgment. Pookie and Cool, Cool, we’ll go with you. How do you respond to people on the outside who basically said, look, my man, you’ve been in prison. We expect you to work and pay your taxes and don’t have any dirty urines. We don’t want you doing drugs. We want you to be a model citizen and that’s what we want out of you. How do you respond to that?

Cool: I mean, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a model citizen. It’s harder for certain people. They do say most of the time a person that’s been convicted, go to jail for five years and come back home and stay on the streets for six months and then go right back to jail for another 5 to 10 years.

Len Sipes: Uh-huh. Prison on the installment plan.

Cool: Yes. When I’ve totally went over that opinion, like, I’ve been out on the streets longer than I’ve been in prison.

Len Sipes: Okay. And how long you been out on the streets?

Cool: About two years now and I was locked up for about 20 months.

Len Sipes: All right. Why aren’t you employed?

Cool: Well, because, I mean, I’m not going to say because people aren’t hiring. Maybe it’s because I’m not doing my best, to be honest with you. I’m trying, but I’m not doing my best. There’s a lot of other things on the outside world as far as financially, other things.

Len Sipes: See, the thing that blows me away and this is something that deals with some stereotypes and I apologize for those stereotypes, nevertheless, they are there. When the public out there hears the word, “criminal,” somebody’s caught up in the criminal justice system, they have a prearranged vision in their minds as to who that individual is. I’m looking at both of you and both of you look and sound like anybody else that you’re going to find on the street. I mean, there’s not an ounce of stereotype in either one of your presentations. So, the public is now sitting back and going, okay, well, I’m not quite sure what Len Sipes is looking at and I’m not there so I can’t make my own judgments, but, daggone it, I want people who come out of prison to toe the line and not go back and to be responsible. So, that’s their emphasis. Now, is it that we don’t provide enough programs, society provides too many temptations, you don’t have enough self-discipline. I mean, speaking for yourself and people who you’ve been in contact with out on the street, what’s up with the folks who go back? Because there’s no hope for them? What’s the issue?

Walter Hagins: Let me jump in for a second because you talked about, and I liked what you said, but keep in mind, these two gentlemen have had a place to practice. Okay? You have the DRC. You have this haven where, we have this saying, the lion’s den, where you can have a place where you can bring up those issues into this forum and we discuss it and

Len Sipes: As a group.

Walter Hagins: As a group or individually. We do some things individually. Part of that is when society is talking about the whole rehabilitation and we want you to get a job and things like that. I think enough attention is not paid to the steps to get a job. Do I have the sort of skills as far as my dress, communication? Can I deal with conflict? When my boss says something or my supervisor says something I don’t like, do I go off the handle like I’ve seen growing up if I didn’t have structure and role modeling? Or do I go and deal with that person and use some of the skills; conflict resolution, pull my supervisor to the side and do the things that we’re talking about in group. See, I think a lot of that stereotype is because not everybody has had the benefit, maybe not everybody has had a positive role model, maybe there’s not been that type of intervention like the DRC. So, to stick someone into a job and say, be successful. What does that mean? If I’ve never been successful and never had that type of training, then what are we talking about?

Len Sipes: And that’s something the public struggles with because our reality is that recovery, let’s just say drug treatment, an addict wants that drug, an alcoholic wants that drink every single day of their lives. How they cope with that every single day becomes a learning process. And they’ve got to be taught how to do that, but relapse, which means positive urines, is a daily reality for us because it’s part of the addictions process and it’s part of the recovery process, where the average person says, man, he’s out of prison. He’s got three positives for cocaine. Please send him back to prison. And that’s what we have to struggle with every single day. And the other part of it is what we call, cognitive therapy, where it’s thinking through stuff and thinking in a different way. And you’re right. How many people have been fired because they simply mouthed off to the boss?

Walter Hagins: That’s right.

Len Sipes: I mean, how many times do I want to tell bosses, not my current boss certainly, but in the past, how many times did I want to tell him or her to go do something? And I came close more than a couple occasions, but that’s in me; that’s in everybody. That’s in these gentlemen, that’s in you, that’s in me, that’s in everybody listening to the program, but how you respond to that provocation is what makes the difference and, within your program, what I hear is you teach them how to respond.

Walter Hagins: And we role model. I mean, and these gentlemen will attest, we actually do scenarios where we may do mock interviews or we may role-play that we’re on a job and someone might make an inappropriate response when advanced and you’re under the microscope or understudy and how do you respond? And then we’ll stop it and we’ll get critiqued. So, now that becomes a part of your muscle memory or your experience. So, if I’m ever placed in that situation before, at least I have a frame of reference.

Len Sipes: It’s automatic in terms of how you respond. Instead of responding with a mouth, you respond appropriately.

Walter Hagins: Exactly.

Len Sipes: Because, Lord knows, we all have difficult bosses.

Walter Hagins: Including myself.

Len Sipes: Everybody on the face of the earth has a difficult boss. Why is that? Pookie or Cool, either one of you, I mean, what we’re saying is that a lot of folks under supervision. You don’t have to talk specifically for yourself but talk specifically or generally in terms of the people that you’ve been in contact with. What we’re saying is we’ve got to retrain a lot of human beings that may not have been brought up correctly, I don’t know if that’s an appropriate term to say, but people get my drift, and people have got to learn basic skills in terms of how to work with other human beings throughout life. I mean, how many people in the domestic violence unit, which is another one of our programs, I mean, you can’t hit your wife. You can’t even raise your fist to your wife and that is something that they didn’t know. Now, people sitting there are going, well, I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that folks don’t know this. There are a lot of folks that we supervise who don’t know this stuff. Cool, you’re trying to say something and say it into the microphone.

Cool: Okay. Well, as you all were just saying, I mean, there’s some people who were brought up with different views. If someone grows up as a child seeing their mother being hit on all day or seeing someone selling drugs around them their whole life being brought up, they think that’s the right thing to do to make money or the right way to treat a female. I mean, in this program, in the DRC, they get to know you. You have open discussions, scenarios that other people can relate to. I mean, I think with your CSO, my CSO, she gave me a chance. She introduced me to the DRC and it’s helped me a whole lot. It’s motivated me to go on job interviews and go seek out employment because I’ve never really had a job so coming here gave me the skills to know what I needed to do to obtain the job. And, if you don’t know a person, if you don’t know why they’re acting the way they’re acting or why they speak the way they speak or their behavior, I mean, you can’t really help them unless you get to know them. You’ve got people out here who are on drugs their whole life, who are abused their whole life and certain people don’t know that so, of course, you’re going to have people going back to jail and violating probation because after awhile they’re going to say, I don’t care anymore. But with the DRC, man, you get see that the stereotype isn’t always right. Like, as you said about me, most people look at me on the street and say, hey, there’s this young looking guy. He’s probably out here selling drugs. He’s probably, I’m not doing any of that.

Len Sipes: But your presentation is somebody that has a college degree. I mean, the way you present yourself is pretty daggone impressive. So, I’m sitting here going, okay, if you’ve got the look. If you’ve got the whole thing down in terms of how to interact with people, why can’t you get a job.

Cool: Good point. That is a good point. That is a good point. Well, to be honest with you, I mean, maybe, like, the stereotype. They look at me, they see me, and they’re, like, unh-huh, and they look at my past, my criminal record and they’re, like, I’m not going to hire this guy before they sit down and have a conversation with me. I think if someone was to actually sit down and interview and have actual conversation with me, I think I’d have 100 percent shot at getting the job.

Len Sipes: Uh-huh. Pookie, one of the things that always astounded me is two things. I understand that there is discrimination. In some cases, when I’m talking about discrimination, I’m talking about law, saying that you can’t hire a person with a particular background. So, if you’re going to go into a day care center, you can’t hire somebody who’s a sex offender. I mean, that’s pretty obvious. But the overwhelming majority of people under supervision are employed at a certain point in their lives. I mean, guys with criminal records get jobs all the time. So, how do you frame this to the American public and 20 percent of our audience is beyond the shores of the United States, so what do you say to the folks in China and France? And what do you say to folks about this whole sense of succeeding?

Pookie: Well, I can only look at myself. It seems like most employers now are asking for resumes. It’s not like a personal, you go in the office and you have an interview, and you sit down with somebody and you explain and you tell them your story about why you need the job. It’s about resume. Resumes are just basically built on what is your criteria for this job. What else do you have to offer? Because you are looked at as commodity.

Len Sipes: Right.

Pookie: So, if you don’t have that experience or that knowledge of, let’s say, working or that work ethic or that motivation, you’re not going to get the job. I mean, you can write anything on a piece of paper, but they can always just put that piece of paper on the side. I have walked these pavements for the last four months each and every day. I had to bring my parole officer verification that I went to this business, to the point where I had blisters on my feet

Len Sipes: And basically nobody hired you is what you’re saying.

Pookie: Nobody has hired me, but that hasn’t really folded up or thought about using drugs or thought about committing a crime; all I need is a job.

Len Sipes: I hear you.

Pookie: That’s all I need is a job. Now, because I’m in the DRC program, that program is another avenue into maybe, let’s say, training me in various apprenticeship programs. As a matter of fact, I’ve been referred to CDL, the greater Washington, is a component of CSOSA community.

Len Sipes: Are you talking about commercial drivers licenses?

Pookie: Oh, yeah.

Len Sipes: Because there are a lot of guys who have served heavy-duty time in prison who are now out there driving trucks and there are some of them out there hiring other truck drivers. They’re doing extraordinarily well. The half hour has gone by way too fast, but what I’d like to do is invite you all back, the three of you, come on back in three months and give me a progress report and I’d love to have you back on the radio because we really haven’t gotten enough time to discuss all the different things I wanted to discuss. Our participants today: Walter Hagins, program manager of the Day Reporting Center for the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency. We have Pookie, not his real name obviously, but the gentlemen looks like a bank manager. He’s looking for work, has lots of skills, hard skills. And Cool is somebody who you would upfront impress everybody because he’s got that look going on. And, gentlemen, I wish the best of luck. Anybody out there looking for what seems to be wonderful individuals to hire, we’ve got them right here. Contact me, leonard.sipes@csosa.gov. Ladies and gentlemen, I really appreciate everything that you’ve done for the show, 196,000 requests last month. Have yourselves a very, very pleasant day.

Walter Hagins: Thank you, Len.

- Audio ends -

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