LIFE AFTER PRISON

Corrections Secretary Richard Stalder offered some disturbing statistics
during a speech in Baton Rouge Tuesday. About 80 percent of the people in
Louisiana's prison system have substance-abuse problems, he said, and the
average new prisoner reads at a fifth-grade level.

These sad figures won't surprise any criminologist; the connections among
drug abuse, educational failure and crime are well established. Yet the
numbers also suggest that there's a lot the state can do to improve
inmates' prospects for employment upon their release.

About 15,000 inmates leave state prisons every year, and about half of them
return within five years. That rate needs to come down.

According to the secretary, the department plans to begin evaluating the
educational needs of each new inmate, and it has launched two new
faith-based pilot programs geared toward helping prisoners lead more
productive lives. These initiatives are a start.

Still, Louisiana, which has a higher incarceration rate than most other
states, needs to focus more intensely on the challenge of preparing inmates
for their return to society. Louisiana taxpayers spend $567 million per
year to incarcerate criminals and monitor probation and parole. Less than 1
percent goes toward rehabilitation, though the department does supplement
that money with federal grants.

Moreover, the housing of state prisoners at parish jails is an impediment
to rehabilitating them. "Programming," as it's called in corrections
jargon, is often minimal in those facilities. While inmates in state
prisons can take welding classes and hold jobs that involve growing crops
and cleaning vegetables, inmates in local jails may have little to do but
sleep and watch TV.

Mr. Stalder recognizes that the state needs to prepare people who leave
state prisons "to go back to the community, to lead pro-social, law-abiding
lives." Doing more to help inmates sober up and acquire marketable skills
will reduce the rate of recidivism -- and make all Louisianians safer.