CONVICTS GET HELP GOING STRAIGHT ... TO WORK

Project RIO Shows How to Find Jobs After Release

The applicants file into a job screening, one by one. There's not a
coat and tie in sight. All are clad in a distinct white uniform of
elastic-waist pants, pull-on shirts and slip-on sneakers - no belts,
buttons or shoelaces.

All are inmates at the Hutchins State Jail - and soon they'll be among
the 600,000 prisoners released from custody nationwide each year. And
they'll be facing the challenge of finding employment with convictions
- - or unusual lapses in work histories - on their records.

This group is among the more fortunate.

They are participating in Project Re-integration of Offenders, or
Project RIO - a state job program for ex-offenders that started in
1985 as a pilot in Dallas and Tarrant counties and spread through the
state prison system by 1993.

"If they want to work and make an honest living, we are here to help
them," says Carter MacKenzie, chief executive of BoDart Recruiters
Inc., a Lubbock-based private job placement agency that works with
Project RIO.

As the nation's prison population swells, programs such as the Texas
project serve as a public policy laboratory for how ex-prisoners can
be helped.

The programs are believed to break the spin on the revolving door at
prisons. Project RIO cuts recidivism about 17 percent, according to a
2000 study by the Criminal Justice Policy Council of Texas for the
Texas Workforce Commission, the project's administrator.

"If you look at 600,000 people coming out of prison every year, you
realize that this is horrendous," says William B. Eimicke, a public
administration professor at Columbia University. "And the recidivism
rate shows 40 percent go to prison within one year and two-thirds go
back within three years.

"No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, people realize we
have to do something about this issue."

Pitching and Placing

But the nitty-gritty details of placement aren't pleasant.

At the all-male Hutchins State Jail, potential recruits lined up one
recent morning for a pep talk in a classroom full of slogans and
viewing windows for the guards.

"People can alter their lives by altering their attitudes," reads one
placard.

Soon, Mr. MacKenzie makes a pitch as blunt as a five-year
sentence.

"If you go to interview for an oil rig job dressed like you are
interviewing for a Snoop Dogg video, that won't cut it. ... And one of
the questions that is always asked is, OK, what was he in for? If you
give the wrong info - and they double-check - then you will be
eliminated from the system."

Soon, the interviews begin.

Some bob around questions. A man says he was in for "forgery." With
probing, it turns out he wrote hot payroll checks.

Another man steps in for an interview. His forearms are full of green
tattoos - sometimes code for gang activity. Mr. MacKenzie says he's
always on the alert for tattoos of gang insignias.

Xavier Bland, a 44-year-old muscular man with chiseled cheekbones,
steps in next.

First question: What are you in for?

"I was taking some DVDs and VCR recorders, and it was one of those
situations," Mr. Bland explains to the BoDart recruiters.

He received six months for the crime, Mr. Bland says, adding that the
swing behind bars is "the first and only time, and I don't want to
come back."

Mr. MacKenzie smiles. "Summer vacation at Hutchins,
huh?"

Mr. Bland has earned as much as $22.75 an hour as a mechanic for
Blackhawk and Osprey helicopters and F-16 fighter planes.

Mr. MacKenzie thinks he can place him in a job.

Cory Kinnard, a 28-year-old in for cocaine possession, steps in for
his interview. He's worked in warehousing and shipping, and hopes to
do the same when he is released in late September.

Mr. MacKenzie thinks Mr. Kinnard can also be placed in a
job.

"He's at the right age where I like to get them - in late 20s or early
30s," he says. "He either stays out ... or goes into life [in prison]
on the installment plan."

'Age Out of Crime'

At Georgetown University, labor economist Harry Holzer tends to agree
that there is, indeed, an arc in a criminal career.

"The pull of the street is very high," says Mr. Holzer, a specialist
on the low-wage labor market and the problems of minority workers.
"Most of these guys age out of crime, roughly after 30."

A tighter job market helps some as well, Mr. Holzer
notes.

For 2006, Texas unemployment has averaged 5.1 percent. It was last
that low in July 2001.

But ex-offenders are still tough to place in jobs. Incentives, such as
federal work opportunity tax credits, aren't always enough to entice
employers reluctant to do the paperwork, Mr. Holzer says.

Employers in Project RIO do receive the federal tax credit of $2,400
after the ex-felon earns his first $6,000. And the ex-offenders are
bonded for free for six months against theft or some other form of
employee dishonesty.

Many Project RIO participants will go through training programs that
range from computer education to welding.

And special care is made for hands-on, tactile learning, as studies
have shown that inmates have problems with visual-auditory teaching.

Charlotte Morton, regional administrator for the Windham School
District, which runs the training program within the Texas Department
of Criminal Justice, said the program has proved its effectiveness by
cutting down recidivism. But she acknowledges the hurdles.

"Seventy-five percent of these men have never held a job, a legal job,
in their life," Ms. Morton says.

A Large Pool

The pool of ex-offenders is large. Texas prisons hold about 152,000.
Last fiscal year, the state, with one of the nation's highest
incarceration rates, freed almost 70,000 inmates. During 2006, Project
RIO saw 32,380 participants. More than 2,000 participated in job
interviews before their release.

Mr. MacKenzie said his motivations are financial. BoDart receives a
placement fee of $500 to $2,500 per hire, paid by the employer.

Some oil-field jobs pay as much as $20 an hour, he
noted.

"We are going to pay for these folks one way or another," says Mr.
MacKenzie, who says the cost of incarceration is roughly $40,000 a
year per inmate.

Employers Who Believe

Among the employers lined up to help ex-offenders are Terry and
Dalphine Hogg, who run a Dallas automotive repair shop that
specializes in Volvos.

Their shop is relatively small, but their need for mechanics was large
eight years ago. That's when they turned to Project RIO.

They are such big believers in the program that for the last year
they've run a training academy for future auto mechanics for the
ex-offenders at their shop on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Class begins with some improvised prayer that, God willing, everyone
lands a job.

"They are people, too," Mrs. Hogg says. "They have feelings. They are
not aliens."

Mr. Hogg, a former Golden Gloves boxer and track standout, says
athletics steadied his life when he was younger. And he wants to do
the same for ex-offenders.

"The crime in this city is terrible," Mr. Hogg says.

"And they could get it under control, if we could give people
jobs."

Government can turn the situation around, Mr. Hogg
contends.

"But they've got to get partnerships going with businesses."