Program helps to find jobs, housing after time is done
By Julie Swida
Detroit Free Press
BENTON HARBOR, Mich. — When someone complains to Peggy Schaffer that the requirements of the Michigan Prisoner Re-entry Initiative are too stiff, she knows the program is doing what it’s supposed to do.
Take Timmie Vinson, for example.
He grumbled about the mandate to put in eight job applications a day. He complained that no one bought him a car. When he had to wait for Dial-a-Ride and was late for an appointment at MichiganWorks!, he didn’t like hearing, “You have to be here when you were told to, just like you would at a job,” he said.
But Vinson, 32, admits that he is learning some valuable lessons.
He has held a full-time job for more than a year. He loves spending part of every day with his 6-year-old daughter, Timiesha. He appreciates having a mentor he can call anytime. And he’s glad to be home.
“If I could talk to Gov. Granholm, I would tell her, ‘I love you.’ She gave a guy in my predicament a chance to start all over. Thanks to the governor, I’m home,” Vinson said during an interview at the Berrien County parole office.
He is one of thousands of ex-inmates in the 2-year-old MPRI. People behind the program say it is working. Michigan increased its funding from $12 million last year to $33 million this year, allowing it to expand from 15 metropolitan areas to the entire state.
Since its inception, about 10,000 people have entered the program. The majority are men because more men than women are in prison.
Berrien County, one of eight pilot sites, now is serving 289 former inmates, including 13 women. The program offers them services such as transportation, job training, mentoring and help finding a place to live.
The U.S. Justice Department reports that about 95% of all prisoners in the United States eventually will be released and that historically almost half have wound up back in prison within two years.
MPRI is based on the premise that offenders are more likely to stay out of prison if they are offered a smooth transition back into society. It targets people who otherwise are likely to fail on parole.
It costs $30,000 a year to house one inmate. The state allocates $1,600 a year per offender for MPRI.
Proponents say that besides costing far less, helping offenders stay crime-free and become productive citizens benefits communities and society as a whole and is well worth the cost.
Parole agents and members of MPRI steering teams decide how the money is spent based on the specific needs of every inmate.
Schaffer is the MPRI community coordinator for Berrien, Cass and Van Buren counties. She said the number of inmates expected to come home this year are 155 in Berrien County, 43 in Van Buren and 23 in Cass.
Schaffer said before MPRI, 48% of the prisoners released in Michigan returned to prison within two years. Since the program began, 22% have returned statewide and just 17% of inmates released to Berrien County on parole have returned to prison.
Since Cass and Van Buren counties were added last October, five offenders in MPRI have been paroled to Cass and 17 to Van Buren -- and none has returned to prison, she said.
“We give them the tools. What they do with the tools is up to them,” said Ira Green, parole supervisor for Berrien County.
Although MPRI provides things such as transportation and help with job searches, the program does not guarantee anything.
“We are a hand up, not a handout,” Green said. “We don’t hand them everything. We give them the tools they need to be successful. Being successful is up to them.”
Copyright 2008 Detroit Free Press