PROJECT RETURN GRADUATES HAVE CHANCE TO BECOME GOOD CITIZENS

Issue: Ex-cons who graduate from the program have new skills and motivation.

We Suggest: The public will benefit from the Sheriff"s Department initiative.

Former inmates of the Lafayette Correctional Institute who enrolled in the
first Project Return program graduated recently in an atmosphere of
gratitude and exhilaration. Family members as well as the ex-prisoners
shared the special moment.

Project Return gives former prisoners resources to help them make the
transition from prison to freedom, and hopefully to new and productive
lives. It is a creative approach offering a variety of responses to
specific needs. Participants are assessed when they enter, and depending on
the assessment, they are given job training, substance abuse counseling,
violence prevention counseling, education classes, computer training and
family preservation activities.

The program offers great benefits for those ex-convicts in Lafayette who
are prepared to become functioning members of society, and for taxpayers
who should see a decline in the costs of incarceration.

In initiating the program, Sheriff Mike Neustrom abandoned the traditional
attitude of Louisiana toward incarceration of prisoners - the
lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key philosophy which inhibits development of
meaningful rehabilitation programs and has resulted in an immense burden on
taxpayers. The lack of effective rehabilitation programs has resulted in a
prison population far larger than that of most other states. We are now
paying around $400 million a year to care for criminals.

Project Return is a proven program, In New Orleans, where it was launched,
the recidivism rate has been substantially reduced. The average among all
ex-prisoners in New Orleans is 75 percent. Among Project Return
participants, the rate is only 25 percent.

We applaud Neustrom for implementing the program. We believe it will reduce
not only the level of crime but also the heavy cost to taxpayers of
incarcerating repeat offenders.