PAROLE RISE, CRIME DROP COINCIDE

Some Experts Credit Transitional Housing With Parolee Success

Birmingham's dip in serious crime has come at a time when Alabama prisons
more than doubled the numbers of convicts streaming into Jefferson County.

Last year, 552 parolees arrived in the area, up from 261 in 2002, said
Cynthia Dillard, assistant executive director of the Alabama Board of
Pardons and Paroles.

That the parolees, many freed early, have not spawned a crime wave is
welcome news but no surprise to people who work with them.

"The word was: `Man, if we let all these people go, the crime rate is
going to go sky high,'" said Earl Johnson, house parent at Shepherd's
Fold, a halfway house in West End.

"If a man has a support group when he's released from prison and has a
place where he can be cushioned from the everyday stresses we are
faced with, he is more likely to be successful," Johnson said.

Most parolees leave prison with little money, no job and a felony
record that haunts their job hunts.

Shepherd's Fold provides job leads, housing, food, transportation help
and a spiritual foundation to men coming out of prison. The number of
residents served by the program has increased about 30 percent over
the last year, leading the nonprofit to add two houses. All of the
Shepherd's Fold houses are within a few blocks near Baptist Medical
Center Princeton.

A couple of the men have gotten pulled over for drunken driving, but
none has been arrested for new felonies or violent crimes. "We haven't
had any difficulty at all, none whatsoever," Johnson said.

The state, in April 2003, began speeding parole hearings for people
convicted of nonviolent crimes. The goal was to bring relief to the
prison system, beset by lawsuits and crowding problems.

U.S. Justice Department statistics this week show that the number of
people on parole in Alabama jumped 31 percent in 2003, the
second-highest increase in the country. It's a trend followed in 17
states that saw double-digit increases in the number of people
released from prison early to the supervision of parole officers.

Across Alabama, district attorneys predicted disastrous consequences
from the speedy paroles. Former state Attorney General Bill Pryor last
year suggested people invest in guns and home security systems.

Overall, 6 percent of early parolees have returned to prison, either
for new crimes or parole violations such as using drugs or alcohol of
not reporting to their parole officers.

"We know we can't sustain that low number, but so far it's
unbelievably low," Dillard said.

Jefferson County District Attorney David Barber said Tuesday that it's
difficult to determine whether the newly paroled prisoners are
contributing to area crime or if they've stayed out of trouble. "The
only way for me to know whether that's been affected is to look at
every warrant we've issued to see if those people were parolees," he
said.

The decrease in crime that's accompanied the paroles "doesn't really
mean a thing to me. Who knows what affects a crime rate? Nobody really
knows," Barber said.

Throughout Birmingham, a variety of nonprofit groups have added
programs to assist parolees and keep them from falling back into crime.

Aletheia House, a drug rehabilitation agency, houses 24 women in an
Ensley apartment building. The women must work, keep a curfew and
comply with lots of rules. Case workers from the UAB Treatment
Alternatives to Street Crime program oversee the women.

Four have been dismissed from the program for breaking internal rules,
said Gloria Howard, assistant director of Aletheia House.

"I think it says there are a lot of people in prison who can
successfully transition, especially nonviolent offenders. They're not
going to re-offend if they're given a real chance," she said.